Author: Nick Farrell

Maintel outsources 65,000 tech device to another

Posted on January 10, 2022 by - News

Maintel has outsourced its inventory management and stock ownership to Agilitas.

The deal will see the cloud and managed comms provider outsource its hardware infrastructure using an as-a-service model.

Agilitas will manage the contract for five years through a “fully flexible service” that can be scaled up and down according to its requirements.

The service will include engineering resources, multi-vendor tech spares to support customers and nationwide storage and distribution of all project stock.

Whitty exits Cisco to join rivals

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

Former Cisco UK&I channel boss Angela Whitty has left the networking giant to head Crawley-based IT solutions provider Ampito Group.

Whitty said taking the CEO role at Ampito was a “compelling opportunity” after 29 years at Cisco, the last seven of which were spent as MD of UK&I partner sales.

She said that it intrigued her to see how the other half lived after being part of the vendor space for so long.

Lattice Semiconductor teams up with Lenovo

Posted on January 10, 2022 by - News

Lattice Semiconductor Corporation is teaming up with Lenovo by integrating Lattice’ CrossLink-NX FPGAs and AI-optimised software into Lenovo’s ThinkPad X1 portfolio.

Vice President of Segment Marketing and Business Development at Lattice Semiconductor, Matt Dobrodziej, said: “We are proud of this collaboration with Lenovo that resulted in exciting user experiences offering smarter human-computer engagement, privacy, collaboration, and better energy management.”

Rural businesses updating to mooove with the times

Posted on January 7, 2022 by - News

Rural businesses in parts of England have shown remarkable resilience during COVID-19 by innovating and adapting in response to the severe economic challenges of the pandemic, according to a major new survey from the National Innovation Centre for Rural Enterprise (NICRE).

More than a third of rural firms in the North East, South West and West Midlands diversified their business in the wake of Covid with half of these developing new sales channels and two-thirds expanding their customer base.

Assis named Big Blue’s EMEA GM

Posted on January 7, 2022 by - Moving People, News

Ana Paula Assis has been appointed general manager for IBM Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA)succeeding Marta Martínez Alonso, who is retiring from IBM after 19 years as a suit.

Assis will be responsible for the business operations, driving revenue growth, client satisfaction, and employee engagement across EMEA.

Cohesity to obey the Law

Posted on January 6, 2022 by - Moving People, News

Cohesity has hired Kirk Law  as senior vice president of R&D where he will have global responsibility for engineering, product management and Cohesity’s ecosystem business.

The tech veteran brings over 30 years of relevant experience to Cohesity with a passion for developing products.

Law said: “We will continue to deliver next-gen solutions that can help organisations radically simplify data management, improve their security postures in the face of sophisticated ransomware attacks, benefit from AI-powered insights, and do more with data, which is their most valuable digital asset.”

Renovotec acquires Jade Solutions

Posted on January 6, 2022 by - News

Yes, it’s M&A time again. Rugged solutions reseller Renovotec has snapped up wireless and mobility specialist Jade Solutions.

Castleford-based Renovotec claims it is now the “largest consultative company in its industry” following the acquisition, which boosts its headcount to 160 staff across the UK and continental Europe and worth a cool £50 million.

Tactus PC snaps up gaming brand Chillblast.

Posted on January 6, 2022 by - News

Ecommerce business outfit Tactus Group has acquired PC gaming brand Chillblast.

Located in Poole, Dorset, Chillblast is the official PC supplier of Williams eSports and provider of  VR technology used in RAF Air Cadet training simulators. It is an Intel Platinum Member and Microsoft Silver OEM Partner.

Palo Alto Networks names new EMEA CEO

Posted on January 5, 2022 by - Moving People, News

Palo Alto Networks has appointed former Orange Business Services CEO Helmut Reisinger to the position of CEO for Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA).

Reisinger led a global organisation of 28,000 employees supporting the digital transformation of enterprise customers around the world. Before joining Orange Business Services in 2007, Reisinger held leadership positions across Europe at Avaya, NextiraOne Germany and Alcatel Austria.

Harris snaps up Big Blue’s i2 intelligence analysis

Posted on January 5, 2022 by - News

Harris has acquired the i2 intelligence analysis product portfolio of IBM, including the i2 Analyst’s Notebook, i2 Enterprise Insight Analysis (EIA) and i2 iBase platforms. The acquisition is part of Harris’ cunning plan to get into the defence, state & local law enforcement, maritime security as well as evidence management markets.

Monitor market dims

Posted on December 22, 2021 by - News

Beancounters at IDC have been adding up some markets and noticed that the global demand for PC monitors has run out of steam.

The market has declined by 7.2 pe cent compared to the same quarter in 2020. IDC has concluded that the global demand for PC monitors is “cooling” following five consecutive quarters of year-over-year shipment growth.

IDC has attributed the decline to “softening in consumer demand” in North American and Western European markets, as well as supply constraints and changing spending priorities.

Edge data centres spring up everywhere

Posted on December 22, 2021 by - News

Recent Telehouse research showed that already more than two-thirds of UK IT decision-makers have implemented a strategy for edge.

The outfit thinks that as we move into 2022, and 5G is deployed more widely, we will see even greater demand for edge data centres and an increase in acquisitions, mergers and the launch of new data centres across the UK.

Edge computing, delivered from this fast-emerging network will provide the capacity to support smart cities, and a latency of less than one millisecond.

The report said that despite challenges from hyperscalers, the colocation market will continue to thrive in 2022. Telehouse research shows that 99 percent of UK enterprise IT decision-makers are using colocation, with 40 percent of enterprise IT infrastructure outsourced.

Oracle sharks Cerner 

Posted on December 22, 2021 by - News

Oracle has snapped up the digital medical records business Cerner for $28.3 billion an all-cash tender offer for $95 per share and the transaction is expected to close in 2022.

For those who came in late, Cerner is a leading provider of digital information systems used within hospitals and health systems to enable medical professionals to deliver better healthcare to individual patients and communities. Oracle said the company has more than 40 years of experience in modernising electronic health records, improving caregiver experience, and streamlining and automating clinical and administrative workflows.

Kronos castrated by ransonware attack

Posted on December 21, 2021 by - News

Human resource products outfit Kronos has confirmed its Kronos Private Cloud has been hit with ransomware that has knocked some of its services offline.

The global supplier of business software said that all its products had been hit. Bob Hughes, executive vice president at Kronos addressed customers on Monday saying the incident was indeed ransomware-related.

Hughes also said “it may take up to several weeks to restore system availability” and that customers should take additional measures to ensure the smooth running of their business while the outage persists. We are working with leading cyber security experts to assess and resolve the situation, and have notified the authorities,” said Hughes. “The investigation remains ongoing, as we work to determine the nature and scope of the incident”, he said.