Author: Nick Farrell

TD SYNNEX launches Cybersecurity Ecosystems initiative

Posted on January 10, 2023 by - News

TD SYNNEX is launching a new Cybersecurity Ecosystems initiative designed to bring together partners with complementary skills in different areas of digital security to form new alliances that will benefit mutual end-user customers and partners.

This new community will draw on all the security-as-a-service, support and educational capabilities of the TD SYNNEX security practice. These include the Security Practice Builder, which enables partners to develop their capacity and establish their own cybersecurity services business. In addition, partners can access TD SYNNEX’s RECON Security Suite services portfolio of managed and subscription-based services. These include identity and access management, security consulting, SOCaaS, and backup and recovery.

Accenture closes on Inspirage deal

Posted on January 9, 2023 by - News

Accenture has completed its acquisition of Inspirage, an integrated Oracle Cloud specialist firm with an emphasis in supply chain management.

The buy further enhances Accenture’s Oracle Cloud services, helping it accelerate innovation for clients through emerging technologies, such as touchless supply chain and digital twins.

Inspirage’s headcount of 736 people will join the Accenture Oracle Business Group, bolstering its Oracle supply chain skills and expanding its capabilities to help product-centric clients create interconnected, intelligent and innovative supply chain networks.

Accenture Supply Chain & Operations North America lead Renato Scaff said that in a time of unprecedented disruption and supply constraints, companies need to reimagine, build, and operate supply chain networks that orchestrate change, simplify people’s lives and positively impact business, society and the planet.

Axeman arrives at Cisco

Posted on January 9, 2023 by - News

Cisco has joined other big tech companies in laying off staff.

The outfit is cutting 673 jobs as part of the tech giant’s previously announced plan to maximise cost savings.

The majority of the layoffs that the company is planning will affect software engineers, technical engineers, hardware engineers, product managers and supervisors, which are ironically the sorts of people who will be difficult to find when the economy picks up again. Cisco thinks it is far better to keep managers to arrange meetings about moving cheese and who use terms like “kick the ball running” rather than those who actually make its gear.

The most recent Cisco layoffs come on the heels of the company’s November announcement that it would lay off approximately 4,000 employees, or about five percent of its workforce and reduce some of its real estate in an effort to right-size some of its business units, including the Collaboration segment.

 

Dell to phase out Chinese chips

Posted on January 6, 2023 by - News

Dell will stop using semiconductor chips made in China by 2024, because it fears that relations between the middle kingdom and the land of the fee might worsen.

According to Nikkei, the company told suppliers that it wants to “meaningfully lower” the quantity of other Chinese-made parts in its devices.

Dell has said: “To best meet our customers’ and partners’ needs and expectations, we have geographic diversity, flexibility and stability built into our global supply chain. China is an important market where we have team members and customers to serve. We continuously explore global supply chain diversification that makes sense for our customers and our business.”

IBM improves PartnerWorld programme

Posted on January 6, 2023 by - News

IBM is replacing its PartnerWorld programme with a different system which it claims will provide partners with improved access to resources, incentives, and tailored support.

Dubbed IBM Partner Plus, the new programme will play a central role in its hybrid cloud and AI strategy, and has been designed to help fuel partner growth and modernisation.

IBM Partner Plus’ designated tiers have been structured to unlock specialised financial, go-to-market support, and education benefits. The programme also introduces badges as the standardised measure of skills with validated solutions to demonstrate expertise, all tracked through an enhanced partner portal.

IBM Ecosystem general manager Kate Woolley said the programme presents an opportunity for partners to “gain skills, grow faster, and earn more”.

Job cuts do not mean that tech is in bovver

Posted on January 6, 2023 by - News

After all the job cuts announced in the last couple of weeks, one could be forgiven for thinking the industry is trouble, but cloudy DoiT International Chief People Officer Kristen Tronsky  (pictured) thinks there is still room for growth this year.

For those who came in late, after cutting around 20,000 jobs in 2022, this week Amazon announced further layoffs, set to affect over 18,000 more staff. Salesforce revealed upcoming plans to let go of up to 10 per cent of its workforce, after Meta, Twitter, Microsoft and several other big tech names have also announced job cuts.

Tronsky believes there is still potential and opportunity for tech employees, despite the string of big-tech layoff announcements recently. Many innovative tech businesses are still on a solid growth path.

Big tech traffic tax could create traffic jam

Posted on January 5, 2023 by - News

A European Community cunning plan which would make tech giants contribute to the cost of telecommunications infrastructure is finding a lot of opposition from internet exchange bodies and net neutrality advocates.

The European Union wants Big Tech firms to pay for telecom operators’ network costs. However, the European Internet Exchange Association (Euro-IX) claims the move could lead to systemic weakness in critical infrastructure and a “traffic jam”.

Euro-IX was established in June 2001 to grow, bolster and enhance the IXP community. It has 69 IXPs as members from different parts of the globe.

Europe’s digital chief Margrethe Vestager said in May that tech giants should be required to contribute to the cost of telecommunications infrastructure, something that telecoms operators have been lobbying for a long time.

TD SYNNEX gives partners anti-fraud detection

Posted on January 5, 2023 by - News

TD SYNNEX has launched a new pre-configured anti-fraud solution that enables cloud partners to detect, prevent and remediate against potential attacks, particularly Microsoft Azure small business customers.

Small businesses that do not have their own IT team or cybersecurity team can be especially vulnerable to crypto mining attacks, where criminals hijack cloud accounts to spin up servers that they then use to produce cryptocurrencies.

The TD SYNNEX SMB Fraud Defender has been developed to help businesses increase the security posture of their cloud environment and thus reduce the risk of them falling foul of this practice and other fraudulent activities.

TD SYNNEX UK Microsoft business unit manager Darren Dixon said: “Cybercrime is globally impacting organisations regardless of industry or company size, with spearfishing being one of the most common techniques being used to gain initial organisational access.

Nokia has new European head

Posted on January 5, 2023 by - Moving People, News

The former rubber boot maker Nokia announced that Rolf Werner has joined the company as the Senior Vice President of its European region,

Werner joined Nokia from Cognizant Technology Solutions, where he was the CEO of Germany, with responsibility for the DACH region. DACH is a top three region for Cognizant Technology, and under his leadership, the company delivered double-digit growth for the region, including the acquisition of ESG Mobility.

During his career, Werner has held senior positions at Fujitsu, Global Logic, and T-Systems, where he led the turnaround of T-Systems’ French organisation across the whole organisational framework.

Heading Nokia’s Europe Region, Werner will help drive Nokia’s already significant growth and market share. The company hopes Werner will improve relationships with key European customers and support the company’s growth ambitions into new market segments.

ANS Group completes Preact acquistion

Posted on January 4, 2023 by - News

Cloudy ANS Group has completed its acquisition of Microsoft partner Preact.

Maidenhead-based, Preact enables SMBs and charities to grow more with Dynamics 365 and CRM solutions built on the Microsoft Power Platform.

Preact has more than 4,000 customers across public and private sectors and a team of more than 800 digital transformation staff.

ANS said adding the Microsoft Gold partner would make it the “best-resourced” provider in the Microsoft Business Applications community.

Atos has another offer for Evidian

Posted on January 4, 2023 by - News

Hacker typing on a laptop

IT services giant Atos share price shot up after there were rumours that Airbus was snuffling around looking to buy its cybersecurity unit.

The group is reportedly in preliminary talks with Airbus to take a minority take in its Evidian business.

For those who came in late, Evidian is Atos’ Identity and Access Management software suite.

Last year the group announced plans to split into two publicly listed companies by spinning off its cybersecurity business under Evidian.

Atos shares picked up seven per cent following the report.

Microsoft says NCE, NCE, baby but the channel is unimpressed

Posted on December 22, 2022 by - News

Software King of the World Microsoft will end partner incentives using its old method way of transacting licences and services from the vendor.

Incentives for these SKUs will end 31 December and Vole has told partners they can only earn incentives through the controversial New Commerce Experience (NCE).

NCE is as popular as the Boston Strangler with the channel because of the 20 percent premium put on month-to-month subscriptions, which are popular with customers of Microsoft services-led partners. This means that customers are incentivised to buy annual subscriptions which could put the channel on the hook for paying the subscription duration should a customer go out of business, get acquired or need fewer licences.

Europe investigates Broadcom’s VMware deal

Posted on December 22, 2022 by - News

The European Commission is concerned enough about Broadcom’s $61 billion purchase of VMware to investigate further.

Apparently, the commission is concerned that Broadcom will have such monopoly power after the deal it could turn off rivals’ access to virtualisation.

Margrethe Vestager, European Commission executive vice president in charge of competition policy said that after the merger, Broadcom could prevent its hardware rivals to interoperate with VMware’s server virtualisation software.

“This would lead to higher prices, lower quality and less innovation for customers and consumers.”

In a statement issued through a spokesperson, Broadcom said it was confident that regulators will conclude the deal will “accelerate innovation and expand choice.”

The company said it expects the deal to close before Nov. 1, 2023.

 

Microsoft rolls out new data boundary plan

Posted on December 21, 2022 by - News

Software King of the World Microsoft will begin rolling out the first phase of its European Union data boundary plan on January 1, 2023.

The company said the plan will allow customers to store and process their customer data within the EU. The move comes two days after the EU commission said it had officially begun approving the EU-US Data Privacy Framework.

The changes mean that companies that use Microsoft products and services can store and process their customer data within the EU. Microsoft has included Azure, Power BI, Dynamics 365 and Office 365 under the first phase.

Global cybersecurity market grows

Posted on December 21, 2022 by - News

The global cybersecurity market grew 15.9 percent during the third quarter of 2022 despite the economy being rubbish.

Research from channel analyst Canalys found the industry earned $17.8 billion with Palo Alto Networks was the number one vendor in the quarter. The vendor grew by 24.9 percent year on year and increased its market share to 8.4 percent, up from 7.8 percent in Q3 2021.

Cisco closely followed with growth of 16.7 percent and a flat market share of 6.9 percent.

Fortinet placed third, climbing 29.9 percent to reach a 6.7 percent market share, up from six percent a year ago.