Author: Nick Farrell

New Egg in hot water across the pond

Posted on February 15, 2022 by - News

PC retailer Newegg has found itself embroiled in a broad controversy over refusing to make refunds or accept returns.

It hit the headline when tech outlet Gamers Nexus returned a motherboard having realised that it was no longer required. Newegg then claimed that Gamers Nexus had damaged the motherboard, and then declined to offer a refund. After several months of wrangling with Newegg, it seems the company had attempted to get the motherboard repaired themselves, while also denying the refund.

After exhausting all customer service options, Gamers Nexus went public on his sizeable YouTube channel. As you might expect, this led to an immediate refund from Newegg, and a return of the motherboard in question.

Insight warns of supply and talent shortages

Posted on February 14, 2022 by - News

According to Insight executives, supply chain constraints and a shortage of qualified talent will continue to impact the IT environment in 2022.

Insight CFO Glynis Bryan said that a big focus for the company has been on ensuring customers get the products they need.

“In the second year of the pandemic, we continued to focus on helping our clients forecast their needs and ensure that they received supply as it became available,” Bryan said.

“This led to rapid bookings and backlog levels exiting 2021. For 2022, industry analysts expect low-single-digit growth in hardware. However, in our first quarter, we’re seeing hardware bookings in North America improve double digits year over year, compared to the first quarter of 2021.”

UK populated by tech unicorns

Posted on February 14, 2022 by - News

The Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport has declared 2021 the ‘best year ever’ for the UK tech sector, with significant growth in VC investment, IT jobs, unicorns and futurecorns.

Growth in the UK technology sector was fuelled by £29.4 billion of new investment, a 230 percent increase on the 2020 figure of £11.5 billion.

This is the biggest annual percentage increase in money raised by UK startups and scale-ups since 2013/14 when investment grew from £1.5 billion to £3.5 billion.

PC market grew by double digits claims Sirius Computer Solutions

Posted on February 14, 2022 by - News

Sirius Computer Solutions claims the health of the PC market grew by double digits in the fourth quarter.

SCS CEO Christine Leahy said that the company’s UK business delivered “high teens local market growth” fourth quarter, contributing to a 20 per cent year-on-year increase for its “Other” business segment which includes sales for the UK and Canada.

Sales for this segment reached $699 million during the quarter.

Leahy added that customer priorities in the UK and Canada were “similar to those in the US”, with cloud adoption growing and security remaining a top priority.

Apple iPhones need an urgent update

Posted on February 11, 2022 by - News

 

Apparently the security is wide open again

Apple has released an update for its iPhone and iPad for an already exploited attack which exploits a software bug.

Jobs’ Mob’s released iOS 15.3.1 and while it comes with various bug fixes for the “perfect operating system”, but one which surprised the Tame Apple Press was a that one of the fixes was a  security flaw. Now, everyone in the Tame Apple Press knows that Apple never have security flaws, that only happens to Microsoft based software.

Apparently this security flaw is a vulnerability in WebKit where it would let hackers create a website that could then execute code.

This means that fanboys could visit a website and find that hackers had control of their Coldplay and U2 collection.

Apple is aware of a report that this issue may have been actively exploited. The Tame Apple Press, desperate to deny the existence of any security vulnerability, said that the fact that Apple is aware of a report, did not necessarily mean that the “feature” had been exploited really.

Proact suffers delivery delays due to supply shortage

Posted on February 11, 2022 by - News

Proact claims that delivery delays are behind a dramatic decline in its Systems sales in the UK.

The outfit claims that chip shortages continue to affect the business on a pan-European level and its UK revenues tumbled by 19 per cent year on year.

The decline was driven by a 42 percent year-on-year drop in so-called “System” revenues, which Proact claims were a result of delivery delays linked to ongoing chip shortages.

Adjusted EBITDA for its UK business also saw steep declines, falling 73 percent as a result of lower System sales.

Services revenues fared substantially better, with UK sales up eight percent during the fourth quarter with support revenue growing by eight per cent and cloud services revenue growing by five per cent.

Atos issues another profit warning

Posted on February 11, 2022 by - News

Atos has announced another downward revision of its 2021 financial forecast.

The services giant now expects a revenue drop of 2.6 percent at constant currency to €10.8 billion, compared to its previous forecast of a 2.4 percent dip from last month.

The group also predicts its operating margin to come in at 3.5 percent versus the four percent announced in January. The free cash flow remains unchanged at negative €420 million.

Atos confirmed it will report its full-year earnings on February 28, as well as its 2022 plan.

This is the third profit warning in eight months for the company, which recently named a new CEO following the unexplained departure of the previous chief executive, just days after its second forecast revision.

Insight doing well

Posted on February 11, 2022 by - News

Channel player Insight is delivering a decent set of numbers in its fourth quarter and full year results.

CEO Joyce Mullen said the outfit saw sales increasing 12 percent  in the fourth quarter and 13 percent to $9.44 billion for the full year.

“During the fourth quarter, our net sales were $2.6 billion, representing record net sales in a quarter for Insight. We had hardware net sales growth of 13 percent and drove services gross profit growth of 14 percent, year over year, allowing us to maintain gross margin of 15 percent, which was consistent with the prior year quarter”, she announced.

FCDO hit by secret hack

Posted on February 10, 2022 by - News

The UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) was the target of a “serious cybersecurity incident”.

The details – which were first revealed by The Stack – came from a tender document published on a government website that showed that BAE Systems was called upon for “urgent support”.

The BBC report claims that “unidentified hackers got inside the FCDO systems but were detected” and that it is “not believed that any classified or highly sensitive material was breached”.

It added that the contract – which finished on 12 January of this year – was valued at £467,325.

Microsoft mulls snapping up Mandiant

Posted on February 10, 2022 by - News

Microsoft campusMicrosoft is in talks to acquire cybersecurity firm Mandiant after the company has been involved in a game of pass the parcel with other buyers.

Mandiant was acquired by FireEye in 2013 for a deal in excess of $1 billion, but its security product business was then sold to a consortium led by Symphony Technology Group for $1.2 billion in June last year.

Both Mandiant and Microsoft declined to comment on the reports and the talks may not go anywhere.

Vole has been spending a lot on security outfits lately and wrote cheques for CloudKnox Security and RiskIQ last year. To be fair though, it has needed their services having been attacked itself rather too many times of late.

 

Businesses want better police protection from hackers

Posted on February 10, 2022 by - News

A Kaspersky survey says that many organisations feel they do not receive the same level of police protection or assistance for cybersecurity incidents compared to other types of crime in the real world.

The findings are outlined in Kaspersky’s latest report, Must-have cybersecurity insights for proactive business decision-makers, which highlights that business leaders feel more government and police support is needed. More than 68 per cent say the government needs to go to greater lengths to provide the same level of police protection and punishment for cybercrimes, as it does other crimes.

With serious repercussions facing CEOs who fail to protect personal data, cybercrime is a real concern for those in leadership positions. The report reveals that more than two-thirds of leaders are worried they could be held personally liable if any cybersecurity incidents occur within their organisation.

With the stakes high for leaders, it is concerning that 60 percent of business leaders feel they do not receive the same level of assurance for cybercrimes as they do if they fall victim to other crimes. In addition,  more than half say the government does not provide enough support or assistance to organisations that are impacted by cybercrimes.

Synaxon announces partnership with UFP

Posted on February 9, 2022 by - News

Channel services outfit Synaxon is teaming up with specialist print products distributor UFP.

The agreement means resellers now have access to UFP’s expansive specialist print and IT portfolio through Synaxon’s online procurement platform EGIS.

In a statement Synaxon said that UFP brings the total number of distributors on the platform to 40 and broadens the range of offerings available to resellers, retailers, and office product suppliers.

UK MD Mike Barron said that UFP was a valuable addition to EGIS. “It’s a thriving and dynamic business built on delivering the best products and services and we’re delighted to have them onboard.”

Rubrik hires Ghazal Asif

Posted on February 9, 2022 by - Moving People, News

Data security vendor Rubrik has poached Google’s former customer solutions channel partnerships boss as its new vice president of global partners and alliances.

Ghazal Asif joins from Google where she was head of channel partners in EMEA for Google Customer Solutions, leading channel go-to-market strategy and execution for the region.

She has been senior vice president of worldwide channels at Cybereason, vice president of worldwide channels for GSP & cloud providers at AppDynamics, and director of global channel sales at Cisco Meraki.

Rubrik chief revenue office Brian McCarthy said: “We keep investing in the success of our extensive partner strategy and Ghazal’s leadership and channel experience will continue to fuel our data security growth. She will act as a catalyst for scaling our partner enablement and accelerating our go-to-market channel strategy around the world.”

 

Midwich snaps up Nimans for £27.5 million.

Posted on February 9, 2022 by - News

Midwich has written a cheque for distributor Nimans along with other subsidiaries from Nycomm Holdings Limited for £27.5 million.

For those not in the know, Manchester-based, Nimans distributes telephony hardware as well as solutions such as unified communications, VOIP, security and networking, and partners with a wide range of vendors including BT, Microsoft, NETGEAR and Yealink.

Apparently, the deal does not include  Avoira, a £21.5 million revenue comms partner which was formed through the fusion of four resellers in 2019. However, Niman’s makes most of Nycomm Group’s cash. The distributor generated consolidated revenues of £114.3m and pre-tax profits of £5.8 million for the year ending 31 December 2020 while currently trading with over 2,500 telephony, IT and retail customers and employing over 200 staff.

Dell releases new partner programme

Posted on February 8, 2022 by - News

Dell has unveiled its 2022 partner programme which features a new incentive structure, additional storage rebates and a “simplified” tech refresh process.

The new structure is based on a single structure with regional rebate variations with one set of requirements that combine revenue and training for partners.

Dell claims the restructure enables partners to focus on positioning the best solution for their customers while earning consistent, lucrative incentives, regardless of route to market.

Dell’s global channel chief Rola Dagher wrote in his bog that Dell was anticipating a data-centric culture, a multi-cloud world, a more distributed environment and a resounding corporate impact on the communities.