Computacenter said that it had a record 2021 with its services business reaching its highest growth rates in 20 years.
The Hatfield-based reseller said total group revenues are set to increase by 23 percent for the year ending 31 December 2021 including the effects of acquisitions made since the beginning of 2020. Revenues will increase by 27 percent.
The reseller claims it finished the year strongly and ahead of expectations, and expects adjusted pre-tax profits for the year to be slightly higher than £250 million.
Nuanix research has found that more than half of UK respondents have a multi-cloud IT environment, substantially more than the rest of the EMEA region and globally.
Continuing this trend, 82 percent of UK respondents said they intend to be using multiple clouds in the next one to three years, with 21 percent already using three or more public clouds and 80 per cent naming hybrid multi-cloud as the ideal operating model for their business.
Survey respondents were asked about their current cloud challenges, how they’re running business applications now and where they plan to run them in the future. Respondents were also asked about the impact of the pandemic on recent, current and future IT infrastructure decisions and how IT strategy and priorities may change because of it.
Nutanix General Manager Alan Campbell, said: “UK companies are leading the global pack in deploying multi-cloud environments that span a mix of private and public clouds while acknowledging the potential hurdles with multi-cloud management, security and application mobility as they ramp up adoption.” He said:
“These concerns represent an urgency for cloud-agnostic tools that provide unified visibility, security and control of an entire hybrid multi-cloud infrastructure as the vast majority of UK businesses now cite this as the optimal operating model for their businesses.”
Cloudy security outfit Acronis has released details of its Acronis #CyberFit Partner Programme which it claims places increased emphasis on supporting partner development.
Acronis’ cloud ecosystem has more than doubled since 2018, with 2021 proving to be the most significant year in Acronis history, with now over 750,000 businesses using Acronis Cyber Protect and receiving a recent $250 million round of funding from CVC Capital Partners VII and others.
Acronis has made yearly updates to its partner programme, based on feedback and says the changes will enable partners to earn more while deploying cloud-based solutions that are uniquely suited to meet their clients’ modern protection challenges and marketing needs while offering a competitive migration programme for those looking to make the switch to Acronis.
Decarbonisation or net-zero strategies will soon be a prerequisite for any IT provider wishing to compete for public sector procurements.
Resellers have lost business due to a lack of credentials around sustainability, and it is widely expected that a net-zero requirement for suppliers will soon become a pre-requisite for most public sector procurements in the future.
Chris Blight has joined in-game advertising company Anzu.io to lead its global demand team.
Blight has been part of the UK ad industry for 18 years, having worked as UK Commercial Director at Opera Mediaworks and Sales Director at Autotrader, and spent significant time working at various titles across Haymarket Publishing and Reed Business Information.
He was part of the original team from 4th Screen Advertising acquired by Opera in 2012 and was instrumental in itsrapid growth ahead of the surge in mobile advertising.
UKCloud has been acquired by its own chairman Jeff Thomas.
Hadson 2, an investment firm led by Thomas and supported by BGF Group and Digital Alpha, has bought UKCloud to “facilitate the expansion of UKCloud’s product portfolio via soon-to-be-announced strategic partnerships”.
Cybersecurity software firm Datto has announced that it has bought threat detection and response company Infocyte.
Datto, which provides cloud-based software and security solutions for MSPs, says the acquisition will enhance its security capabilities that “protect, detect and respond to cyberthreats found within endpoints and cloud environments”.
Datto CEO Tim Weller said: “Datto has always focused on enabling its MSP partners to secure the digital assets – both applications and data – of their small and medium business (SMB) clients.
The UK government is proposing new laws to improve MSP cybersecurity standards which involve fines of up to £17 million for those with shonky cybersecurity measures.
As part of its £2.6 billion National Cyber Strategy 2022, the government says new laws are needed “to drive up security standards in outsourced IT services used by almost UK businesses”.
It is consulting on proposals that include making improvements in the way organisations report cybersecurity incidents and reforming legislation so that it is “more flexible and can react to the speed of technological change”.
The UK Cyber Security Council is going to be granted powers to “raise the bar” and “create a set of agreed qualifications and certifications for those which work in cybersecurity and IT services”.
Managed infrastructure solutions provider “11:11” whose name ever prevents it from beginning a sentence has completed its acquisition of cloudy outfit iland.
The outfit recently acquired Green Cloud Defense, a channel-only, cloud Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) provider.
The merged entity uses iland’s Secure Cloud Console, natively combining deep-layered security, predictive analytics, and compliance to deliver unmatched visibility and ease of management for all of its cloud services.
Symphony Technology Group has unveiled Trellix, an extended detection and response (XDR) provider with a focus on accelerating technology innovation through data science and automation.
The outfit was created by last year’s crossing of McAfee Enterprise and FireEye. The new cyber security firm’s platform combines automation, machine learning, extensible architecture, and threat intelligence.
STG said that with Trellix’s security platform customers can expect bold innovation across the XDR market.
STG managing partner William Chisholm said Trellix will build resilient and confident organisations using something which it calls ‘living security’, which learns and adapts to protect operations from advanced threats across multiple attack vectors.
BT has teamed up with Rackspace to sort out BT’s multinational customers’ cloud services.
Under the terms of the agreement, BT hybrid cloud services will be based on Rackspace Technology’s cutting-edge solutions, which the company will deploy in BT data centres along with its Rackspace Fabric management layer.
BT said that its customers will benefit from the integration of Rackspace Technology’s cloud management expertise and automation, analytics, and AI tools with BT’s world-leading network and security capabilities.
Dell has given its Apex platform partners data storage services to play with which it claims will give them an opportunity to earn new referral incentives.
Data storage services will now be available to partners and customers in the UK through its as-a-service platform Apex.
The portfolio of storage resources is deployable on-premises or in a secure Dell-managed Equinix datacentre. Punters will pay for the storage capacity they use and can scale at the service level they need.
Organisations can select from three performance tiers available in one or three-year terms through the APEX console, with base capacity options starting as low as 50 terabytes.
The newly-formed MSP Managed IT Services Group (MITSG) has acquired London-based CSS Group.
Manchester-based MITSG was only founded late in 2020 and is led by the former executive team of unified comms giant GCI.
MITSG claims the acquisition of CSS Group brings its headcount to 70 across the UK and gives it new IT services expertise in the legal and professional services sectors.
GCI’s former CEO is now non-executive chairman of the MITSG business, while Mark Allen is CFO and Phil Smith is COO.
GCI rebranded to Nasstar last year following its acquisition of the AIM-listed business, which propelled its revenues to almost £120 million.
Tech Data will flog Microsoft’s holographic mixed reality headset to its B2B enterprise partners in Europe.
For those not in the know, Vole’s HoloLens 2 claims to offer users an immersive experience, enabling increased precision on complex physical tasks, remote collaboration using holograms, and a secure ecosystem combining intelligent edge technology and cloud applications.
It’s M&A time again, folks! Rackspace Technology has agreed to acquire Just Analytics, a leading provider of cloud-based data, analytics, and Artificial Intelligence (AI) services.
It’s said this brings strong regional ties into the Microsoft Azure ecosystem with Just Analytics recently being awarded four regional Microsoft partner of the year awards.
Just Analytics was founded in 2011 and has more than 100 employees in Singapore with an additional employee presence in Vietnam and India.
Just Analytics helps clients design and create scalable data pipelines using its proprietary data platform, Guzzle, coupled with new-age cloud-based data and analytics services that transform data into insights, giving customers a unified view of their information assets.
Computacenter said that it had a record 2021 with its services business reaching its highest growth rates in 20 years.
