Author: Nick Farrell

SMBs are much more aware of cyber threats

Posted on January 18, 2023 by - News

A report from security outfit Datto shows that SMBs are aware of increasing cyber threats, allocating resources, and investing in network and cloud security.

Datto’s  2022 State of Ransomware report surveyed nearly 3,000 IT professionals in small to medium-sized businesses across eight countries (the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore).

The report said that about a fifth of the IT budget is dedicated to security, and many are seeing increased budgets, with 47 per cent of SMBs planning to invest in network security in the next year.

Great resignation causes channel problems

Posted on January 18, 2023 by - News

The channel is finding it challenging to keep new staff and find new talent during the ‘The Great Resignation,’ according to a new report from global channel services provider Agilitas IT Solutions.

For those who came in late, the great resignation is caused by workers suddenly deciding there is more to life than a long commute to attend long and dull meetings with management about moving cheese, kicking the ball running or working out how Atilla the Hun would have flogged computer services.

Two ex-Softcats looking for channel partners for Arco Cyber

Posted on January 17, 2023 by - News

Two former Softcat executives are scouting for channel partners for a new cybersecurity company, Arco Cyber.

Matthew Helling and Adam Louca left Softcat at the end of last year with the idea of setting up a company which plugged a hole in the security market.

Arco Cyber helps companies understand security risks as punters often could not quantify the risk to their organisation and how they were going to mitigate against it.

This meant that organisations were confused about directions they should investing their capital and how to get the most from the money they’re putting into the platforms that they’re buying.

Arco built a data-led insights platform for organisation which takes feeds from a wide range of customers. Then it takes data and information from existing controls in organisations to understand the efficiency of those control sets.

TD SYNNEX slashes out helping partners sell HCI

Posted on January 17, 2023 by - News

TD SYNNEX has announced a series of investments to help partners flogging Nutanix DX hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) solutions.

TD SYNNEX Matt Child said that HCI market will grow at a CAGR of 24.9 per cent and will reach $32.19 billion by 2028.

“HCI can massively escalate the productivity, efficiency and cost benefits of digital transformation. It is one of our big bets for 2023 and a huge opportunity for partners to add value for their enterprise customers by optimising and orchestrating all their resources across the public and private cloud and on-premises,” he said.

Channel marketers starting to team up

Posted on January 16, 2023 by - News

Channel marketers are forming more partnerships and knowledge sharing according to a report from Coterie Community.

Apparently collaboration and knowledge sharing are seen as some of the best ways to help share best practice and help those responsible for marketing have confidence that they are taking the right approach, the report said.

Coterie Community asked its marketers from various channel organisations to reveal the stand-out areas for 2023. It found that, along with building resilience into ecosystems, sustainability and everything as a service (XaaS) were other areas causing concern.

Google’s bid to save its targeted adverts hits snag

Posted on January 16, 2023 by - News

Google’s cunning plan to save targeted advertising on the web once it kills off third-party tracking cookies in  Chrome browser is in trouble after a key web standards body rejected the idea.

The online ad industry is racing toward a 2024 deadline when Google intends to phase out third-party cookies from Chrome, the world’s most popular web browser. Since 2020, Google has been testing several cookieless proposals as part of its Privacy Sandbox initiative, which are designed to allow targeted advertising to continue to work on the web but in ways that better preserve user privacy.

Remote Patient Monitoring could be a money spinner

Posted on January 16, 2023 by - News

A new study from Juniper Research found that the total number of patients using RPM (Remote Patient Monitoring) solutions will reach 115.5 million globally by 2027.

This is an increase from 75 million in 2023. This growth of 67 per cent is driven by tremendous pressure on healthcare systems, including clinical staff shortages and limited space within hospitals, driving the need for alternative healthcare solutions.

RPM enables care to be moved outside of overstressed healthcare facilities, boosting healthcare providers’ efficiency.

RPM encompass various health monitoring devices enabling continuous communication between patients and healthcare providers, without the need for close contact.

Onecom snaps up IMS

Posted on January 13, 2023 by - News

Onecom has snapped up IT services provider IMS Technology Services.

The deal adds more than 600 customers to Onecom’s books, the Vodafone, Microsoft, Google, Mitel, Samsung, Apple, Gamma and Five9 partner said.

Onecom’s revenues increased by over 80 per cent to reach £169 million in calendar 2021 primarily due to its aggressive M&A strategy. Founded in 2002, it has been backed by mid-market private equity firm LDC since 2019.

OneCom CEO Martin Flick said the acquisition builds on OneCom’s mission to extend its geographic footprint and technical capabilities.

TD Synnex moves house

Posted on January 13, 2023 by - News

TD Synnex has moved its headquarters to Chineham on the outskirts of Basingstoke, Hampshire.

The 450-500 staff at the previous HQ, Redwood have moved to the Maplewood office.

TD Synnex has six sites across UK&I in Basingstoke, Bracknell, Lutterworth, Warrington, York and Dublin.

The company said that the reason behind the office change was to meet environmental sustainability targets. It was worked out that it was better to move than try to improve the existing building.

Axe falls at CSG

Posted on January 13, 2023 by - News

Cloud Software Group, which owns Citrix, and enterprise applications vendor Tibco have begun widespread layoffs.

Thousands of staff have been told to clear out their desks and collect their pink slips, with some layoffs dubbing the firings as “brutal.”

Sources said that the layoffs include much of Citrix’s commercial sales organisation and some channel-facing employees. Another person familiar with the layoffs said that sales, channel sales engineers and education sales roles were also cut.

There has been nothing official from the company about the staff cuts but word on the street is that CSG wants to focus directly on its top 1,000 enterprise accounts, leaving mid-tier and commercial accounts to be supported and serviced by solution providers.

Rochford and Rayleigh next to get full fibre

Posted on January 12, 2023 by - News

CityFibre has named Rochford and Rayleigh as the next UK towns in line for a multi-million-pound investment in their digital infrastructure. This move will see the neighbouring towns join the nation’s growing list of full fibre-enabled communities.

CityFibre is set to invest £25 million in a new network that will bring fast and reliable full fibre-enabled internet services within reach of almost every home and business in the Rochford and Rayleigh areas, including the village of Great Wakering.

Across the UK, CityFibre is building new and better digital infrastructure for up to eight million homes and businesses through its nationwide full fibre rollout. 

UK governments opens contract for NHS

Posted on January 12, 2023 by - News

The UK government has advertised an official contract for a federated data platform (FDP) for NHS England. The contract is valued at £360 million.

The contract has  an estimated value of up to £480 million over the five-years. Tenders are invited from pre-qualified suppliers after a discussion of requirements and potential solutions.

The data platform will be owned and controlled by the NHS and will use NHS data to understand patterns, solve problems, plan services for local populations and ultimately transform the health and care of the people they serve.

SMEs will increase spending on new tech this year

Posted on January 12, 2023 by - News

Technology consulting and research outfit Analysys Mason predicts that small and medium-sized businesses will increase their spending on technology in 2023 and will be confident in business performance.

The 145 million SMBs worldwide are expected to spend USD1.45 trillion on IT in 2023, of which 40 per cent will be from the Americas, 30 per cent from Europe, the Middle East and Africa and 30 per cent from Asia–Pacific, driven by the post-pandemic trend towards digital transformation.

This represents a growth of 6.3 per cent compared with spending in 2022, down from the seven per cent year-on-year growth expected before the pandemic due to the impact of inflation and economic uncertainty. The predictions are based on the data in Analysys Mason’s SMB Technology Forecaster, which provides insights into SMB spending in 132 technology categories in 52 countries.

POPX appoints Wood as Chief Product Officer

Posted on January 10, 2023 by - Moving People

POPX has appointed ServiceNow executive  Martin Wood as its new Chief Product Officer.

Wood had been working for ServiceNow for more than 13 years. He finished his work with the now 20,000-strong company as the Director of Product Management for Impact.

While at ServiceNow, Wood was responsible for building and launching product lines, including the ServiceNow HealthScan, a platform review tool. He led the team to analyse millions of health data points to create appropriate scoring mechanisms that produced a multi-million-pound impact.

At POPX, Wood has a focused remit across product and customer outcomes that will refine the POPX offering by continually developing a product strategy and innovation roadmap. He is responsible for customer success and will create a value framework dedicated to helping clients extract the maximum value from their investment in ServiceNow.

Wood said: “My priority has always been to ensure that the customer experience is as good as it can be and that we’re continuously driving better outcomes that translate to real business value. It was immediately clear to me that the team at POPX spoke the same language and shared the same passion and vision. The organisation has been designed to deliver the highest standard of service, facilitated by their agility. This rapid response capability allows for quick decision-making that can disrupt the market.”

POPX CEO Martin Ford said Wood was a pivotal hire for POPX, given his vast experience with ServiceNow, and he brings new knowledge to how customers can outperform their competitors.

“We are lucky to have him and know that our growing client base will welcome his addition to the team. This appointment accelerates our strategy to help tech service providers transform their operations as efficiently, scalable and profitable as possible.”

 

Legitimate’ companies defrauding advertisers

Posted on January 10, 2023 by - News

Security outfit Polygraph warns advertisers that click fraud is no longer confined to organised criminals, and many ‘legitimate’ companies are choosing to defraud them.

Click fraud is a sophisticated online crime where publishers use bots and trickery to generate fake clicks on the advertisements placed on their websites. For each phoney click, the advertisers pay fees to the advertising networks, and the money is then shared with the website owners.

Polygraph’s head of marketing, Trey Vanes, said that click fraud is now so common that it has become a regular part of the online advertising ecosystem.

He said: “No advertiser is immune to click fraud. Part of the problem is that most advertising networks are not doing enough to prevent click fraud. A major advertising network is not detecting click fraud, meaning the millions of advertisers using their service are completely exposed.”