Category: News

Currys pushes itself as a super “one stop shop”

Posted on October 11, 2021 by - News

Currys is pressing its “superbrand” with an initial ad campaign, which sees the tech retailer flogging its staff expertise.

For those who came in late, Currys now has  Currys PC World, Carphone Warehouse, Team Knowhow, and Dixons Carphone under the same umbrella.

Now Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO, has put out TV spot positions touting Currys as a one-stop hub for tech expertise, highlighting its in-store experts, as well as its 24-7 ShopLive video chat feature.

Currys brand and marketing director said that technology was such an intrinsic part of our lives now that how you buy it matters more than ever before.

SoftwareONE buys out Nottingham SAP outfit Centiq

Posted on October 8, 2021 by - News

SoftwareONE has announced the acquisition of UK SAP Services Partner Centiq. M&As are proliferating this year.

Founded in Nottingham in 1998, Centiq provides SAP-related professional and managed services and solutions across Europe. Centiq has expertise in Microsoft Azure, too.

SoftwareONE SAP Services global practice leader Daniel Da Vinci said that his outfit was thrilled to welcome Centiq to the SoftwareONE organisation.

“Through this acquisition, we are continuing to strengthen our global SAP Services practice and extending our reach in the EMEA market”, he said. 

Simoco Wireless Solutions snaps up a majority of Thorcom

Posted on October 8, 2021 by - News

Derby-based critical communications company Simoco Wireless Solutions will acquire a majority shareholding in Thorcom Systems and its subsidiaries.

The move will give Simoco a platform to expand its presence in the UK emergency services market, while giving Thorcom the opportunity to access international markets such as Asia-Pacific, North America and Australia, where Simoco already has established operations. Simoco has seen international success in the public safety sector and it is anticipated that this move will now accelerate its growth in the British emergency services market.

In 2019 TST Systems, the joint venture that includes Thorcom Systems, was a successful bidder on a Framework Agreement further to a procurement exercise with the Home Office. TST became one of two suppliers of vehicle-based communications devices for use on the soon to be launched ESN network.

Huawei to help save red squirrels

Posted on October 7, 2021 by - News

The University of Bristol, the Mammal Society,  Rainforest Connection and Huawei are collaborating to help save the endangered squirrel in the UK.

The project involves monitoring UK woodlands with red, with grey and with joint squirrel populations. The red and the grey squirrel don’t live together very happily.

It’s estimated that the red cohort has lost 60 percent of its range over the last 13 years. There are redoubts where red squirrels still have reasonable populations – the Wild Life Trusts believe there are 140,000 red squirrels and 2.5 million grey squirrels. But it believes that the red species may become extinct in 10 years.

The project will use artificial intelligence, bio-acoustic and cloud tech with Huawei software analysing sounds in the environment.

Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise and RingCentral launch Rainbow Office

Posted on October 5, 2021 by - News

Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise has teamed up with cloudy communications provider RingCentral to launch Rainbow Office in the UK.

The Unified Communications as a Service solution combines the latest in UCaaS technology from RingCentral with networking, communication, cloud solutions and services from Alcatel-Lucent’s portfolio.

Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise’s UK Country Business Leader Heather Zhang, said the solution will address the needs of both middle and large enterprise customers.

“This public UCaaS solution, which includes outbound and inbound calling minutes, represents a fantastic opportunity for companies who want to accelerate their transformation to the cloud,” she explained. “These businesses can benefit from a secure business communication platform, which is both easy to implement and to use. The Rainbow Office carrier-grade communication suite provides an all-in-one solution with multiple security layers, offering protection for applications and devices from potential attacks.”

Rainbow Office apparently means users can efficiently and securely collaborate from anywhere and across any device, using RingCentral’s integrated Message Video Phone (MVP) capabilities.

The platform also provides HD audio and video, virtual backgrounds, screen share capabilities, the ability to check presence, share files, as well as seamlessly switch between devices with integrated carrier-grade voice.

NetApp snaps up CloudCheckr

Posted on October 5, 2021 by - News

NetApp is to acquire cloud visibility management vendor CloudCheckr.

NetApp Public Cloud Services EVP Anthony Lye, said CloudCheckr’s multi-cloud infrastructure management solutions will be used to bolster Spot by NetApp, the vendor’s analytics and automation platform. He claimed that CloudCheckr’s platform will help partners increase margins, maintain security and compliance.

The product is used to help businesses scale cloud infrastructure and services.

Lye said:”Managing costs while accelerating cloud applications is a significant challenge for organisations as they work to maximize the return on investment of their cloud investments, all while running at cloud speed. By adding cloud billing analytics, cost management capabilities, cloud compliance and security to our CloudOps platform through the acquisition of CloudCheckr, we are enabling organisations to deploy infrastructure and business applications faster while reducing their capital and operational costs.

CloudCheckr CEO, Tim McKinnon, said the solution provider wants to help NetApp create an industry-leading suite of CloudOps services.

Clavister moves to subscription model

Posted on October 5, 2021 by - News

Security outfit Clavister has decided to move to a subscription model to help resellers avoid having to spin large capital investments to their customers.

The outfit said that customers wanted to reduce their CAPEX burden and gain access to technologies that otherwise might have been out of their reach.

It said that there are shedloads of companies that need protection but find the big upfront investment too daunting, its sales team has noticed. By creating a budget-friendly payment and service model, Clavister wants to give its UK resellers and service providers something to tell their clients about.

The service proposition has been shaped in time for its latest product launch, involving new versions of its Firewall systems: NetWall 6000, NetWall 500 and NetWall 100. These all promise 10-40Gbps connectivity options at a “significantly lower price”.

Redcentric snaps up Piksel Industry Solutions

Posted on October 4, 2021 by - News

Redcentric has aquired Piksel Industry Solutions (Piksel IS) for £9.5 million.

Based in York and London, Piksel IS employs 93 people and specialises in providing IT modernisation and digital transformation services to businesses. A partner of both AWS and Microsoft Azure, the firm also delivers managed services across verticals such as security, DevOps, application development, and public cloud.

More than half of MSP clients are on the cloud

Posted on October 4, 2021 by - News

A global survey of 1,884 MSPs conducted by Strategy Analytics on behalf of Datto, finds half of MSPs reporting their clients now have 50 percent to 75 percent of workloads in the cloud.

Another nearly 20 percent report clients have 25 percent to 50 per ent of their workload running in the cloud.

At the same time, 99 percent of respondents report they also offer managed security services. Those services are being provided by hiring dedicated cybersecurity personnel in addition to reselling services provided by other MSPs or services provided by security vendors.

LogPoint appoints Wallen UK regional director

Posted on October 4, 2021 by - Moving People, News

Security outfit LogPoint has appointed Tim Wallen as Regional Director for the UK & Ireland. Wallen will be responsible for driving strategic growth and leading the growing team of LogPoint sales, marketing, and technical professionals working out of the new LogPoint offices in the City of London.

Wallen said: “I’m excited to join LogPoint at a time where large-scale digital transformation is accelerating, and remote working projects are redefining the way organizations work. As an application development and delivery is being revolutionalised, there has never been a bigger need to understand the threat landscape for any kind of organisation, big or small.”

 IDE Group sees green shoots of recovery.

Posted on October 1, 2021 by - News

 After a few miserable years, IDE Group sees green shoots of recovery as it plans to offload its Connect business.

Revenues of £7.6 million were up from £6.8 million in the equivalent period last year and group profits of £3.6 million were up on £2.5 million. Adjusted EBITDA profit of £2.1 million was a significant improvement on £0.5 million in the first half of 2020.

IDE chairman Andy Parker said that the group has taken advantage of this period to continue to restructure the operational side of the business and has decided to concentrate on the profitable Manage side of the operations.

The sale of Connect was seen as a moment to get the business finally back on track and discussions are advanced to sell the unit. Between 1 January and 30 June 2021, IDE Group Connect with Nimoveri made a combined operating losses of £1.4 million.

Armour hatches a partnership with a partnership with Samsung Electronics and Targus

Posted on October 1, 2021 by - News

Armour Comms has teamed up with Samsung Electronics and Targus to let enterprises extend the business use of smartphones.

Armour Mobile has been optimised to provide a desktop-like user experience on Samsung DeX devices with the Targus USB-C phone dock.

The idea is to provide enterprises with a solution to support secure homes working, on enterprise-level Samsung Galaxy Android smartphones, using Armour Mobile and a Targus DeX USB-C phone dock – as an alternative to laptops. Designed with the end-user in mind employees will be can work remotely with a desktop feel, with Armour Mobile providing fully integrated secure communications for voice, video, messaging, conferencing and associated data files.

Zoom and Five9 give up on merger

Posted on October 1, 2021 by - News

Zoom and Five9 have mutually terminated the merger agreement started by the parties on July 16, 2021.

At Five9’s special meeting of stockholders held on September 30, 2021, Five9 did not obtain the requisite stockholder support for the merger agreement. As a result, Zoom and Five9 each had the ability to terminate the merger agreement.  It is rare that a merger gets as far as the shareholder stage and one of the parties shareholders say “nah, not good enough”.

Eric S. Yuan, Chief Executive Officer and Founder of Zoom was putting his best spin on the situation saying that it would have been good for both and his outfit has not given up on wanting a foot in the door of the contact centre market. He said that the contact centre market remains a strategic priority for Zoom, and we are confident in our ability to capture its growth potential.

Channel forget TCO when choosing software

Posted on September 30, 2021 by - News

An ESET report claims that the channel may be overlooking the total cost of ownership (TCO) when it comes to choosing software.

According to the report The True Cost of Security less than half of the senior decision-makers factoring it into purchasing decisions.

Alongside the research report, ESET has also produced a calculator that lets businesses discover the total cost of owning their current cybersecurity solution.