Author: Nick Farrell

Using bitcurrency could get you sued

Posted on June 20, 2022 by - News

Suggesting cryptocurrency for clients could get you sued, as poor-little-rich-boy Elon Musk has found out.

A Dogecoin investor is taking Elon Musk and his two companies Tesla and SpaceX to court, over claims of running a pyramid scheme with Dogecoin, which Musk once hailed as the “people’s crypto”.

Musk was so fond of Doge that he would tweet about it regularly. He also announced the sale of Tesla merch for Doge and asked customers whether they’d like the chance to pay for Tesla cars with the token. He would share memes and insights into Doge, and ended up branding himself the DogeFather.

Fujitsu builds a C-CAT in North-West

Posted on June 17, 2022 by - News

Fujitsu is investing  £22 million in a cognitive and advanced technologies (C-CAT) centre in the North West of England.

Fujitsu says the centre will bring “further innovation” to the UK and bring 200 high skilled jobs over the next year.

The company’s global CTO Vivek Mahajan said :”Fujitsu is committed to and has confidence in the UK. We share the UK Government’s ambitions to thrive as a science and technology superpower.

Most companies cannot cope with cloud security threats

Posted on June 17, 2022 by - News

Nearly 90 percent of organisations cannot detect and respond to security threats across their cloud environments, a new study has found.

Cloudy provider Aptum surveyed 400 senior IT professionals from organisations with at least 250 staff across the UK, Canada and the US and found 86 percent of respondents said their organisation has adopted a hybrid cloud or multi-cloud model, partly driven by remote working during the pandemic, with workloads spread across cloud and non-cloud infrastructures.

Sage finds cloud and cyber security most demanded skills

Posted on June 10, 2022 by - News

Sage has discoveredthat cloud computing and cyber security skills are the most demanded from new talent, with a sizeable portion also looking for evidence of coding skills.

There were clear signs that partners have been investing in skills, with many upskilling the workforce with a focus on technical and ecommerce areas.

Schneider Electric launches new partner programme

Posted on June 10, 2022 by - News

Schneider Electric has launched a new partner programme, which it claims will capture all partner types and become an attractive destination for a “new wave” of channel players.

The power management specialist has been using a programme that has remained largely unchanged for the best part of a decade.

The firm has opted to roll out its mySchneider IT partner programme across Europe, with the emphasis on making it easier for more partners to engage with the vendor.

Phase one of the programme, which starts now, introduces an “IT Solution Provider” specialisation, with partners able to certify on three levels – Select, Premier and Elite – enabling them to combine multiple specialisations, including identifying, reselling and configuring.

Schneider Electric’s Marilia Ferreira said partners had been calling for greater flexibility in the way the vendor segmented its programme. Surveys it had carried out showed one-third were dissatisfied with the structure on offer.

Security outfit ComplyAdvantage hires Watson

Posted on June 10, 2022 by - Moving People, News

ComplyAdvantage has appointed Mark Watson has been named as the company’s Chief Technology Officer and newest addition to the leadership team.

In his role, Watson will lead all engineering and technical innovation efforts including the expansion of the company’s proprietary knowledge graph called ComplyData which contextualises insights across the company’s award-winning Transaction Risk Management and KYB solution sets.

IDC fears PC and tablet slump

Posted on June 9, 2022 by - News

Beancounters at IDC said COVID-19 lockdowns in China, the war in Ukraine and global inflation are slowing demand for personal computers and tablets.

The firm expects global shipments to decline 8.2 percent year over year in 2022 to 321.2 million units shipped. Tablets are expected to fall 6.2 percent in 2022.

Businesses spend too much on cloud

Posted on June 9, 2022 by - News

Businesses are spending far too much on cloud computing services according to beancounters at  Couchbase.

The number cruncher found that enterprises are over-spending by more than $8.75 million on cloud services, with inflexible pricing and a lack of robust data management tools contributing to the problem.

IBM retreats from Moscow

Posted on June 9, 2022 by - News

Biggish Blue is closing its business in Russia and firing all its staff due to the country’s war on Ukraine.

The letter, which was written by IBM CEO Arvind Krishna, said the decision was made as “consequences of the war continue to mount and uncertainty about its long-term ramifications grows”.

He said the shut down process began on May 30 and will result in the separation of its Russian workforce.

Redcentric takes on Sungard assets

Posted on June 8, 2022 by - News

Redcentric has acquired assets from Sungard Availability Services, which went into administration earlier this year.

The MSP says it has exchanged conditional contracts to acquire the operations and assets relating to three Sungard datacentres [DCs], with completion being conditional on certain revenue thresholds being met within 23 days based on customers agreeing new contract terms.

In the event the thresholds are not met in relation to each of the Sungard datacentres, the acquisition of the relevant datacentre will not complete, Redcentric claims.

The initial minimum consideration payable on completion of all three Sungard DCs is £11 million, while the maximum is £22 million.

Redcentric has meanwhile announced it has completed the acquisition of Sungard’s consulting and AWS cloud services business for £4.2 million, paid in cash.

IBM buys Randori

Posted on June 8, 2022 by - News

Biggish Blue is acquiring Randori to help further simplify threat detection and response, it said.

The attack management software provider (ASM) helps clients identify external facing assets that are visible to attackers – and prioritise exposures which pose the greatest risk.

IBM thinks that this move will add automation and skills to IBM X-Force’s offensive cybersecurity team and advance IBM’s Hybrid Cloud strategy and strengthens its portfolio of AI-powered cybersecurity products and services.

Randori’s ASM software will be integrated with the extended detection and response (XDR) capabilities of IBM Security QRadar.

By doing this, security teams will be able to use real-time attack surface visibility for intelligent alert triage, threat hunting, and incident response, IBM claims.

Unit4 agrees to buy Scanmarket

Posted on June 8, 2022 by - News

Unit4 has entered into a definitive agreement to purchase the vendor of cloud source-to-contract software,  Scanmarket allowing it to build on its existing ERP and procure-to-pay (P2P) offerings.

Unit4 CEO Mike Ettling said: “We are delighted to have added Scanmarket to the Unit4 portfolio. Their market-leading global strategic procurement capabilities and cloud-based solutions are trusted by 324 customers, across more than 85 countries, and have received strong recognition from industry analysts, such as Gartner, Info-Tech Research Group and SpendMatters.

Ultima snaps up AntiSocial Engineer

Posted on June 7, 2022 by - News

Ultima has  expanded its cybersecurity business by writing a cheque for the AntiSocial Engineer.

AntiSocial Engineer provides cybersecurity services, ironically including social engineering and penetration testing assessments.

Ultima says the Barnsley-based firm uses online security training and auditing services to ensure businesses “do all they can to protect against the wave of sophisticated online attacks conducted by nefarious social engineers”.

Mobile use picking up

Posted on June 7, 2022 by - News

Beancounters at Context think that mobile computing devices sales should pick up soon  with supply problems expected to ease in the second half of the year.

Context expects continued improvement in supply as the industry moves deeper into the second half of 2022.

Context senior analyst Marie-Christine Pygott said that some products that have been in transit for many months are outdated by the time they arrive. Russia’s war in Ukraine and additional COVID lockdowns in Asia have added to supply chain headaches and costs.

Mode Solutions buys EACS

Posted on June 7, 2022 by - News

EACS has been acquired by managed print provider Mode Solutions.

The move is supposed to help the outfit’s push into managed print services.

Cambridgeshire-based EACS is a managed services provider which turned over £23.1 million in its latest financial accounts for the year ending 31 March 2021, down three per cent on the previous year.