Author: Nick Farrell

Havas swallows Inviqa

Posted on February 22, 2022 by - News

Havas Group has snapped up “digital experience” outfit Inviqa.

More than 150 Inviqa employees across eight offices, will be integrated into Havas Creative’s dedicated customer experience network, Havas CX, to significantly expand its specialism, scale, and capabilities in experience design, software engineering, technology consulting, and ecommerce.

As part of Havas CX, Inviqa will merge with Havas’ existing UK-based digital experience agency, ekino London. The combined company, which will be headquartered out of Havas’ UK Village in London’s King’s Cross, will retain the Inviqa brand and be led by Inviqa founder and CEO Yair Spitzer. ekino will continue to operate as a standalone brand within Havas CX in non-UK markets including France, New York and Singapore.

Dell wants to boost partner relationships

Posted on February 21, 2022 by - News

Dell Technologies has a new vice president of channel strategy and VMware channel sales.

The Grey Tin box shifter has promoted Lukas Bedi, who says he has a cunning plan to  “strengthen” partner relationships and ensure the channel has the “tools” it needs.

He will be responsible for setting Dell’s overall channel strategy, designing Dell Technologies Partner Programme incentives, competencies and requirements, as well as accelerating Dell’s solid VMware channel business. Bedi’s focus in his new role will be on the operational and strategic momentum of Dell partners.

Snyk has Fugue

Posted on February 21, 2022 by - News

Security outfit Snyk has snapped up cloud security and compliance company Fugue.

The outfit claims the buy will allow it to enter the cloud security market. Fugue claims to protect the entire cloud development lifecycle—from infrastructure as code through the runtime—with the same platform and the policies across AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud.

Snyk highlighted Fugue’s Unified Policy Engine which connects cloud posture back to configuration code, using one set of policies in order to manage compliance and security throughout the entirety of the software development lifecycle (SDLC).

Number of women tech CEOs falls

Posted on February 21, 2022 by - News

The numbers of female CEOs running Fortune 500 tech companies have sharply declined over the last five years.

Cloud talent creation firm Revolent added up some numbers and divided by its shoe size and found that only seven percent of CEOs of tech companies in 2016’s Fortune 500 identified as female.  This fell to just 4.41 percent in 2021 – a 14 percent decrease during the five-year time frame.

The research also found that none of the female tech CEOs in either 2016’s or 2021’s Fortune 500 list were founders of their company.

Check Point’s new UK head heralds expansion

Posted on February 18, 2022 by - Moving People, News

Israeli security outfit Check Point’s new UK head will grow the volume of business the security player does with its channel partners, the company has announced.

Adam Bradley has worked for Sophos, Appsense and Forcepoint as regional director for UK and Ireland.

Check Point said that UK companies experienced, on average, 399 cyber attacks per week last year, which was a 103 percent increase from 2020.

Earlier this month, Check Point launched its SMB Security Suite, which armed its channel with a package that includes a firewall, cloud email protection, and endpoint and mobile security. It is available in four options to appeal to a range of customer needs.

Chess takes TTNC

Posted on February 18, 2022 by - News

Chess boardChess has acquired telecommunications solutions provider TTNC which is its second buyout in six months.

TTNC provides cloud-based telecoms solutions to businesses, including services including call management packages, cloud numbers, voice over IP services, SIP trunks, call tracking and bespoke telephone answering services.

The vendor’s portfolio spans connectivity, cloud, digital and security solutions, business broadband, telephony, unified communications and professional managed services.

In August it wrote a cheque for penetration testing services firm Armadillo.

The company said the rationale behind its latest acquisition is to enhance its “small business customer experience”.

Daisy buys XLN as phone expansion

Posted on February 18, 2022 by - News

Daisy has snapped up broadband provider XLN to expand its broadband and phone division.

London-based, XLN claims it has 100,000 small businesses with business broadband, phones and card payments for clients.

Becoming part of Daisy will create a division with upwards of 200,000 customers. It will extend Daisy’s own portfolio and enable it to offer the “widest choice of solutions” to the business market.

An upcoming analogue switch-off will mean UK businesses will need to shift to digital services, Daisy claims, putting it in an advantageous position to help customers make the transition.

Daisy chairman Matthew Riley said: “With so much investment across the UK to improve the fibre infrastructure, Daisy is now well-positioned to help unlock the enhanced speed, reliability and security that customers want in their offices and shops up and down the country. There is also a vast opportunity in the creation of jobs as we need more staff to help deliver that service.”

AI market set to boom

Posted on February 17, 2022 by - News

Beancounters at IDC have added up some numbers and divided them by their shoe size and reached the conclusion that the AI market – which includes AI software, services and hardware will break the $500 billion mark by 2023.

For partners investing in artificial intelligence, it’s services that IDC are forecasting to deliver the fastest spending growth over the next five years with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 22 percent.

Meanwhile, the CAGR for AI hardware will be 20.5 percent, while AI software will see its share of spending decline slightly in 2022 as spending for hardware and services grows more quickly: a trend that IDC says will continue into 2023.

IDC group vice president, worldwide AI and automation research Ritu Jyoti said that AI emerged as the next major wave of innovation.

Blue Blue snaps up cloudy Neudesic

Posted on February 17, 2022 by - News

Biggish Blue has acquired Microsoft Azure partner Neudesic to expand the tech vendor’s portfolio of hybrid multi-cloud and artificial intelligence services.

IBM said that Neudesic gives it more Azure cloud, data engineering and data analytics capabilities  The company has more than 1,500 cloud and data workers in the US and India.

IBM and Neudesic signed a definitive agreement for the acquisition in the fourth quarter of 2021, according to the statement.

Communication service providers are behind on 5G

Posted on February 17, 2022 by - News

Nokia has presented new research showing that communication service providers (CSPs) are behind in having the right software solutions to help them monetise their 5G networks with new services and network management tools.

The report said that CSPs and enterprises need to modernise their legacy monetisation systems with new service offerings and application development ecosystems to generate returns beyond the traditional data plans of the 3G/4G era. New monetisation systems that enable operators to deliver new services, like slicing, faster and at scale, are a critical enabler of helping CSPs and enterprises realise faster returns on their network investments.

But the Nokia-commissioned global survey of 100 CSPs worldwide found that only 11 percent of respondents have sufficient Business Support Systems (BSS) in place to meet the needs of 5G-enabled business models. BSS is a critical patchwork of business applications, including monetisation tools, that help CSPs manage their operations and supply chains through functions like billing and charging and deliver a solid customer experience.

Cisco wants Splunk

Posted on February 16, 2022 by - News

Networking giant Cisco is trying to buy the data analytics software company Splunk.

Cisco has made an offer worth more than $20 billion for the outfit recently although neither side is in active talks over a deal.

If it goes through the deal would mark Cisco’s biggest ever acquisition – smashing the $6.9 billion acquisition of Scientific Atlanta in 2005.

Splunk, which is currently searching for a new chief executive after Doug Merritt stepped down from the role in November, sells a platform that monitors and searches and visualises machine data.

The two companies already have a partnership, and Cisco has continued to put its efforts into moving towards software in recent years, with CEO Chuck Robbins praising partners in November for helping the company’s shift toward software and services.

 

Education supplier RM comes up with “satisfactory” results

Posted on February 16, 2022 by - News

RM chief executive Neil Martin said his outfit came up with “satisfactory” sales results in 2021.

Martin said that in the face of ongoing challenges in the education sector sales jumped 12 percent and revenue was £210.9 million for the full year ending 30 November 2021.

During the same period last year the company’s results were £189 million.

Adjusted operating profit grew 22 percent to £18.5 million but statutory profit after tax was down 45 percent, which RM said was due to “£8.3 million of investment programme costs expensed following a change in accounting treatment”.

Telefonia Tech gives five percent pay rise

Posted on February 16, 2022 by - News

Telefonia Tech has released that the secret to keeping staff during the post-pandemic “Great Resignation” is to give them cash.

The outfit has given all of its staff in the UK and Ireland a five percent pay increase.

CEO Martin Hess said that staff retention and recruitment was the biggest threat to any channel business in 2022.

He added that the pay increase will help reduce staff attrition rates at a time of wage inflation and an abundance of vacancies across the channel job market.

Redcentric CFO guilty of misleading financial statements

Posted on February 15, 2022 by - News

The former CFO of  MSP Redcentric has been found guilty of making misleading financial statements.

Ex-CFO Timothy Coleman has been found guilty of four charges for making false and misleading statements to the market after Redcentric overstated its cash position in results published in 2016 and will be sentenced in March.

Former finance director Estelle Croft was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment prior to the trial at Southwark Crown Court after pleading guilty to charges of making false statements and false accounting, and making false statements to Redcentric’s auditors PwC.

She was ordered to pay £120,346.70 following confiscation proceedings.

A third defendant, former CEO Fraser Fisher – who stepped down from the position at the end of 2017 – was acquitted by the jury on all charges.

SCC gets Civica’s licensing and cloud software lifecycle arm

Posted on February 15, 2022 by - News

SCC has snapped up Civica’s Licensing and Cloud Software Lifecycle (LCSL) business.

SCC gets the LCSL team and its customers, which include local councils, universities and housing associations, plus its partner relationships, with a plan to add those skills to existing software asset management and licensing efforts.

SCC chief executive James Rigby said: “We’re excited to welcome Civica’s talented team into SCC, and we look forward to meeting customers old and new, as this acquisition helps us to drive growth in a key strategic area. The depth of Civica’s knowledge, capability and customer relationships presents a wonderful opportunity to complement our existing software business. By joining SCC, Civica’s team gains access to a larger market and support team.”