Author: Nick Farrell

Summit Hosting swallows Tech Commandos

Posted on September 14, 2022 by - News

Summit Hosting has acquired Tech Commandos, another step in a glorious five-year plan to become a leading financial cloud hosting provider with cloud computing and Desktop-as-a-Service (DaaS) products.

The expansion will immediately grow the Summit Hosting customer base and add a new practice area focusing on ACT Hosting, further solidifying Summit Hosting as a leader in small and medium-sized business (SMB) hosting providers.

Summit Hosting CEO Warren Patterson said that he was excited about the Tech Commandos acquisition as part of his outfit’s glorious five year acquisition plan.  The buy-out will expand Tech Commandos’ hosting expertise and solidify our place atop the list of cloud hosting services in the SMB marketplace, he said.

Summit Hosting is a cloud hosting provider for financial applications, including QuickBooks, Sage, and SAP Programmes.

 

 

Google completes Mandiant acquisition

Posted on September 14, 2022 by - News

Google has completed its $5.4 billion acquisition of security outfit Mandiant.

The deal, announced in March, will see Mandiant retain its brand and join Google Cloud.

Together they will deliver an end-to-end security operations suite with “even greater capabilities to support customers across their cloud and on-premise environments”, a statement said.

Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google Cloud, said buying Mandiant will help organisations reinvent security to meet requirements.

“The completion of this acquisition will enable us to deliver a comprehensive and best-in-class cybersecurity solution”, he said.

“We believe this acquisition creates incredible value for our customers and the security industry at large. Together, Google Cloud and Mandiant will help reinvent how organizations protect themselves, as well as detect and respond to threats.”

It also means that Google Cloud gains threat intelligence and incident response services capabilities.

Mandiant CEO Kevin Mandia said Google’s acquisition will create an “incredible opportunity”.

“Mandiant is driven by a mission to make every organisation secure from cyber threats and confident in their readiness”, he added.

“Combining our 18 years of threat intelligence and incident response experience with Google Cloud’s security expertise presents an incredible opportunity to deliver with the speed and scale that the security industry needs.”

Aerospike appoint James EMEA Vice President.

Posted on September 14, 2022 by - Moving People, News

Aerospike has appointed Martin James as EMEA Vice President. He is responsible for driving regional growth.

James brings 25 years of database sector expertise to Aerospike. He joined the company from Percona, where he trebled the business in EMEA and APAC. Prior to Percona, he was regional Vice President for Northern Europe at DataStax, managing enterprise sales to achieve double-digit growth. For Aerospike, James will develop regional sales teams that meet the exacting SLAs of today’s data-driven enterprise.

His job is to push the Aerospike Real-time Data Platform to businesses seeking to build large-scale real-time applications.

Ellison claims he is cheaper than Amazon

Posted on September 13, 2022 by - News

Oracle co-founder and Chief Technology Officer Larry Ellison claims he is beating Amazon Web Services on price.

Ellison claimed that some of AWS’ “most famous brands” plan to move to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI).

He said. “And the AWS bill is getting very large. And they can save a huge amount of money by moving to OCI. And we expect next quarter we’ll be announcing some brands and companies moving off of Amazon to OCI that will shock you.”

He continued: “The amount of money these huge companies, these very famous companies, spend with Amazon is kind of staggering. I mean, everyone assumes, ‘Hey, I move to the cloud, and I save a lot of money.’ Depends which cloud you move to. And Oracle is much less expensive than the competition. … We’re talking to the most famous brands that are running Amazon and some of them are going to be moving very soon.”

MSPs and resellers flat out with school business

Posted on September 13, 2022 by - News

Classrooms in schools and colleges were busy with MSPs and resellers over June to August as they boosted their IT after the corona virus panic died down, according to reports from Zyxel.

The networking supplier has seen the education business going through its channel partners increase in the past three months by double figures year-on-year, with Zyxel continuing to encourage more sign-ups to its Education Partner Programme.

Babble makes its sixth acquisition this year

Posted on September 13, 2022 by - News

Cloudy comms provider Babble has made a double acquisition making it the sixth this year.

The London-based business has acquired Berry Telecom and Cavendish Communications Group. The companies have 2,400 customers between them. Babble claims acquiring the companies gives their customers the chance to “enhance their technology and switch to cloud-based services”.

CEO Matt Parker said: “Berry and Cavendish have a strong track record of providing their customers with an exceptional level of service. Where we will add value is bringing even more innovation and variety with the technology we can offer.

Gamma Communications sees profits rise

Posted on September 12, 2022 by - News

Gamma Communications has announced its half-year results and an eight per cent rise in revenue and gross profit.

Revenue was £234.7 million while gross provide was £120.4 million. The company also reported its  partner business was improving.

SIP Trunks, driven by voice enablement of Microsoft Teams via Direct Routing, was the company’s top product along with Cloud PBX users, which climbed by six per cent to 716,000 from 676,000. The number of Cloud PBX seats in Europe increased by seven percent to 137,000.

Computacenter sees revenues fall

Posted on September 12, 2022 by - News

Despite improvements to its supply chain, Computacenter says revenues for its UK arm declined amid reduced demand.

The reseller has released its interim results for the six months ending 30 June 2022 in its latest trading update.

While the business as a whole saw its revenue increase 16.6 percent year over year to £2.84 billion, there were drops in performance from the UK side.

Revenue in the UK business decreased by 7.1 percent to £653.8 million, with the technology sourcing business seeing a 10.5 percent reduction in revenue.

Intel warns that there are more troubles ahead

Posted on September 12, 2022 by - News

Intel CEO Pat [kicking] Gelsinger has warned that the company’s pants performance is likely to get worse before it gets better.

Talking to the gathered throngs at the Evercore ISI TMT conference, Gelsinger warned Intel will continue to lose share in the server processor market next year, with recovery starting in 2025.

After selling off its Optane memory business earlier this year, Intel is also likely to take further steps to streamline the bloated product portfolio of its dross.

Gelsinger’s return in early 2021 appeared to breathe new life into the firm, but he appears to be dealing with shedloads of more woe.

Dell opens new executive briefing centre

Posted on September 9, 2022 by - News

Dell is opening a new executive briefing centre (EBC) in London for executives to show off their mighty briefs.

The $5 million EBC will be Dell’s 10th globally. Dell claims it will help organisations across all sectors and industries to define a path for digital transformation.

The centres offer dedicated spaces for companies to meet with senior Dell executives, subject specialists, partners and peers to discuss their challenges, opportunities and goals.

Distology invades Germany

Posted on September 9, 2022 by - News

Security outfit Distology has acquired German software consultancy Squareball, its first-ever acquisition.

Squareball was founded in 2017. It started as a digital products consultancy and specialises in software engineering, product design, solution architecture and identity access management.

It is the third European office for UK-based Distology, the deal marks its first expansion into Germany.

CEO Hayley Roberts said Squareball was a “very credible services practice” that will add new technical capabilities to the distributor.

Kaspersky revamps channel

Posted on September 9, 2022 by - News

Security outfit Kaspersky has unveiled a revamped channel programme in the middle of a trying time amid ongoing controversies over the firm’s possible ties to the Russian government.

The Moscow-based cybersecurity firm, which has denied repeated suggestions by the US government that it has ties to the Kremlin, has announced new features to its United Partner Programme that include a revised rebate system, extended training programs, and more rewards for MSPs.

The move is being makes Kaspersky “more transparent and predictable” as well as covering more Kaspersky products and services. It includes new courses for MSPs and 10 new authorised training centres across the globe.

It is unclear if this will be enough to get Kaspersky out of trouble as the Ukraine war and the Russian government’s cyber attacks have drawn the AV company into the spotlight.

Distology becomes a Jamf distributure

Posted on September 7, 2022 by - News

Distology, the specialist IT cybersecurity distributor, has today announced it is now a distribution partner of Jamf.

Jamf, the standard in Apple Enterprise Management, helps organisations manage and secure an Apple gear. It claims to be the only company that provides a complete management and security solution for an Apple-first environment that is enterprise secure, consumer simple and protects personal privacy.

Over the last two years, remote and hybrid working has become the norm yet, according to research from Distology, almost half of IT leaders admit their organisation’s cybersecurity isn’t good enough for remote working.

This demonstrates the importance of implementing managed security solutions, such as Jamf, which help to protect the mobile experience.

Midwich does well on the back of acquisitions

Posted on September 7, 2022 by - News

Midwich is telling the world+dog that its Nimans and DVS acquisitions have had a positive impact on its bottom line.

The distributor had a strong set of interim H1 numbers which were not not be sneezed at, reporting a 46 per cent increase in revenue from £390.1 million to £568.6 million for the six months ended 30 June.

Adjusted pre-tax profits improved at almost the same percentage of 47.7 percent, to come in at £19.2 million.

The acquisitions also increased the distributor’s exposure to the unified communications (UC) market and took it into a fresh space of video security products.

Stephen Fenby, managing director of Midwich Group, was able to strike an upbeat tone around the numbers and highlight the progress it had made compared to the rest of the market.

Elastisys teams up with Avassa

Posted on September 7, 2022 by - News

Kubernetes-based Elastisys and Avassa, which provides an edge-native application orchestration platform, have teamed up to offer a product which manages applications across distributed and centralised environments.

Avassa CTO Carl Moberg said that enterprises were looking to augment their central clouds with edge clouds for reasons including business continuity, improved customer experience and reduced bandwidth spend.

“As they look to place applications where they provide the best value for the business, they design applications with a mix of centralized and distributed components. Leveraging the benefits of both domains can provide significant value to the business when done right”, he said,

A two-tier approach to application management — the distributed edge being one and centralised public clouds being the other — can be seen in a variety of industries such as retail, manufacturing, logistics, and hospitality. This hybrid approach to application placement leads to a synergy effect as the two environments are combined using the compatible and innovative technology that Elastisys and Avassa jointly offer.