Author: Nick Farrell

QBS brings up the curtain on Orchestra

Posted on October 6, 2022 by - News

Software delivery platform QBS has launched Orchestra as part of its cunning plan to grow new vendors in its European channel.

Orchestra will operate on the QBS Software Platform and is confident it will offer significant opportunities to its channel partners. Joshua Nicholls will run the business which has been working with five vendors who have received funding from US-based venture capital firm Insight.

Insight Partners has invested in more than 600 companies worldwide and has seen over 55 portfolio companies achieve an IPO. He added they had worked together to identify the best partnership opportunities from Insight Partner’s portfolio, and as a result selected five key launch vendor partners – Keeper Security, Automox, DNS Filter, Octopus Deploy and CoreView.

Dave Stevinson, CEO of QBS Technology Group, said the time was right for the QBS platform to launch a dedicated distribution business to complement its core channel marketplace operations.

Scottish Enterprise gives Adarma £2 million

Posted on October 6, 2022 by - News

Scottish Enterprise has bunged Adarma £2 million to drive job creation and boost its development efforts.

The funding will see the cybersecurity company create 50 roles and support its roadmap in expanding its services and IP.  Apparently, the cash should spruce up Adarma’s security operation and threat management platform.

Adarma CEO John Maynard said that the cause will accelerate the company’s mission to protect the promise of cyber resilience for our customers.

IBM adds Red Hat to storage business

Posted on October 5, 2022 by - News

Biggish Blue has announced that it will add Red Hat storage product roadmaps and Red Hat associate teams to the IBM Storage business unit.

The cunning plan is to integrate the storage technologies from Red Hat OpenShift Data Foundation (ODF) as the foundation for IBM Spectrum Fusion. This combines IBM and Red Hat’s container storage technologies for data services and helps accelerate IBM’s capabilities in the burgeoning Kubernetes platform market.

In addition, IBM wants to offer new Ceph solutions delivering a unified and software-defined storage platform that bridges the architectural divide between the data centre and cloud providers. This further advances IBM’s leadership in the software-defined storage and Kubernetes platform markets.

Companies can’t get enough of the cloud

Posted on October 5, 2022 by - News

Beancounters at IDC claim that global compute and storage infrastructure product investments for cloud deployments grew 22.4 percent in the second quarter of 2022 to $22.6 billion.

According to IDC, spending on cloud infrastructure continues to outgrow the non-cloud segment although the latter had strong growth in the second quarter  rising 15.2 percent year on year to $17.3 billion.

Spending on shared cloud infrastructure reached $15.6 billion during the quarter, up 18.9 percent compared to a year ago.

IDC said it expects to see continuous strong demand for shared cloud infrastructure with spending expected to surpass non-cloud infrastructure spending in 2023.

Vertiv launches better partner programmes

Posted on October 5, 2022 by - News

Vertiv is enhancing its partner and incentive programmes which it claims focus on rewarding its network of expert distributors and resellers.

The two programmes are available to partners in some countries across Europe and the Middle East, including the UK and Ireland.

It has introduced an improved partner portal, which brings together all of the resources partners need to engage with the Vertiv team and earn and redeem rewards.

Kocho snaps up Mobliciti

Posted on October 4, 2022 by - News

Cloudy Kocho has acquired Mobliciti as it looks to grow its service portfolio.

Mobliciti was founded in 2009 and specialises in enterprise mobility, security and wireless connectivity solutions.

A statement says the deal will see Mobliciti’s mobile security expertise “complement and enhance” Kocho’s existing services capabilities.

“The deal adds strategic mobile management and security capabilities to Kocho’s growing service portfolio, allowing customers of both organisations to benefit from an end-to-end range of best-in-class services that will further accelerate their digital transformation programmes,” it added.

Nokia upgrades Hyperoptic’s IP core network

Posted on October 4, 2022 by - News

Former rubber boot maker Nokia is upgradeing Hyperoptic’s IP core network.

The outfit expanded its relationship with ISP  Hyperoptic. Nokia has been selected to upgrade the provider’s IP core network, enabling future-proofed scale and capacity, along with increased power efficiency, for its growing UK customer base.

Hyperoptic will deploy Nokia’s 800GE-capable 7750 SR-s routers, which are powered by its ground-breaking FP5 routing silicon, a critical enabler for building higher-capacity IP networks that consume significantly less power per bit. FP5 allows the delivery of more than three times more capacity in the same space and power envelope as the Nokia FP4 hardware, currently in Hyperoptic’s IP network.

Start-up sector at risk

Posted on October 4, 2022 by - News

The UK’s startup sector is navigating through severe turbulence following a steep drop in valuations in H1 of 2022, according to CEO and Founder of business advisory, Trachet, Claire Trachet.

The recent announcement of the mini-budget, coupled with further interest rate increases and soaring inflation, has led many UK tech stocks to crash, further affecting private company valuations.

Trachet said that this resulted in substantial lay-offs across the sector, with an array of companies like Zapp – the grocery delivery app – to propose a staff reduction of up to 10 per cent.

Maintel frustrated by global supply chain issues

Posted on October 3, 2022 by - News

Maintel’s CEO said the first half of 2022 was “hugely frustrating” due to global supply chain issues.

Ioan MacRae said supply challenges were much worse than  first anticipated during the six months to 30 June 2022.

Projects had to be delayed and this adversely impacted revenue. Maintel’s sales fell by 12.7 percent year on year to £46.7 million during the half-year period. Adjusted EBITDA also reduced to £3.6 million.

“The first half of FY22 has proved hugely frustrating with anticipated challenges exceeding our initial expectations”, MacRae said.

Intel’s Mobileye files for IPO

Posted on October 3, 2022 by - News

Intel’s self-driving technology subsidiary Mobileye, has filed for an IPO nearly a year after Chipzilla said it wanted to do it.

The Israeli outfit generated 2021 revenue of $1.4 billion with a net loss of $75 million for that same period. In 2020, Mobileye revenue was $967 million with a net loss of $196 million.

Despite losing more cash than a UK mini-budget Reuters reported Mobileeye could be valued as high as $50 billion.

Mobileye said that as of this past July its solutions had been installed in approximately 800 vehicle models and its system-on-chip technology had been deployed in over 117 million vehicles.

MoD spends £50 million on cyber training centre

Posted on October 3, 2022 by - News

The government is spending £50 million on expanding a cyber training centre to improve the cyber defence in the UK and increase cooperation with the US.

The facility, based in Shrivenham, Oxfordshire, will benefit international partners, including the US, by exchanging knowledge and ideas in cyberspace operations.

Dubbed the new Defence Cyber Academy will develop sovereign and international courses to support the UK’s goal in advancing the national cybersecurity profession.

DCMS statistics show that cyberattacks across the government, including espionage activity and ransomware, cost an estimated £100 million last year.

Daisy calls in Knight

Posted on September 30, 2022 by - Moving People, News

Daisy Corporate Services has appointed a new managing director of operational resiliency and cyber security.

Iulia Knight, who has more than 10 years of experience in the enterprise operational resilience and critical event management software solutions space, will be responsible for further developing Daisy’s combined proposition and go-to-market strategy.

She comes from Cutover where she had a similar role. Before that she spend nine years at OneSolve, which included five years managing the company’s international division.

Channel lacking marketing skills

Posted on September 30, 2022 by - News

Research from BT Wholesale claims that the channel has a marketing skills shortage.

The comms giant found that 73 percent of channel partners were experiencing a shortage of in-house marketing and finance skills and 89 percent felt there were challenges in maximising brand awareness.

The research found that the top business priorities in the channel over the next 12 months will be generating new leads, attracting fresh prospects, and increasing revenue from existing customers. However, these require decent marketing and branding, which reseller lacked.

Channel partners were listening to customers, with 55 percent reporting that business plans were shaped by their feedback, and a similar percentage looking at industry trends. Guidance from vendors and fellow partners was also useful.

Bad numbers for Maintel

Posted on September 30, 2022 by - News

Maintel has experienced some bad numbers during the first half of 2022 due to global supply chain problems.

Maintel’s sales fell by 12.7 percent year on year to £46.7 million during the half-year. Adjusted EBITDA also reduced to £3.6 million reflecting the revenue dynamic.

Maintel CEO Ioan MacRae said supply challenges were much worse than it first anticipated during the six months to 30 June 2022, with shortages leading to delayed project implementations. This adversely impacted revenue.

OutSystems partners with UiPath

Posted on September 29, 2022 by - News

OutSystems and UiPath have teamed up to mix UiPath Business Automation Platform with OutSystems high-performance low-code.

The outfits think that this will enable customers to securely and intelligently automate core business processes and applications, while saving time, improving efficiency, and delivering transformational app experiences.

The partnership integrates solutions and services with a new connector that allows UiPath software robots to be managed from within OutSystems applications. The best-of-breed approach helps prevent vendor lock-in and maximises ROI.