Category: News

IT budgets fail to meet demands

Posted on June 30, 2021 by - News

A Kaseya report says that a third of IT professionals feel that they are not being given enough budget or resources to do the job.

The 2021 IT Operations Report surveyed nearly 1,000 IT professionals worldwide between April and May 2021 about their top priorities and challenges.

The survey found that 30 percent of respondents felt that there was not enough IT budget or resources to meet demands, making it one of the top three most significant challenges for IT professionals surveyed. Furthermore, 62 percent of participants stated that their IT budgets were cut, remained the same, or were unsure of what their budget would be in 2021.

Organisations across the globe have experienced crippling cyberattacks over the past year that have significantly impacted the global supply chain. Due to the growing number of threats, 61 percent of respondents said that improving security measures continues to be the dominant priority.

Devon and Birmingham talk up China’s new smart cities

Posted on June 29, 2021 by - News

Lord Robin Teverson, The Earl of Devon and leaders of top UK universities, join the Lord Mayor of Birmingham to unite with the committee behind one of China’s new smart cities to announce joint research and innovation projects.

The team leading the development of the Nanjing Jiangbei New Area, one of 13 new technology hubs and free trade zones in China, will be outlining plans for the latest research centre, called the ‘Nanjing Jiangbei New Area Sino-UK Innovation and Development Centre’.

In recent years, the Nanjing Jiangbei New Area committee has been working with players in the UK to develop the new centre for collaboration at both national and regional levels.

HPE talks up the “age of insight.”

Posted on June 29, 2021 by - News

HPE CEO Antonio Neri claims that humanity is entering the “age of insight”, with opportunities arising for those that can help customers to cope with increasing amounts of data.

Talking to the gathered throngs at the firm’s Discover event, Neri said that data was being generated at an incredible and unstoppable pace. The past 18 months had changed the landscape even further.

“We live in a truly distributed enterprise, the digital economy is taking a significant foothold in digital transformation for the enterprise and it is accelerating at a pace we haven’t seen before”, Neri said.

Proximity Data Centres appoints Dominic Thomas

Posted on June 29, 2021 by - Moving People, News

Regional edge data centre outfit Proximity Data Centres has appointed Dominic Thomas as Business Development Director.

Thomas has form flogging Cloud and Managed Services solutions to enterprise and service provider organisations. He joins Proximity’s expanding sales team from InterCloud, where he was UK Sales Manager.

His previous jobs have included Enterprise Account Director at Exponential-e and ten years with Singtel, where he had responsibility for generating new business and high-end solution sales from European clients requiring international WAN, data networking, Colocation and Managed Services.

Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise teams up with RingCentral in UK

Posted on June 28, 2021 by - News

Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise has joined forces with RingCentral to offer what it claims is a unified comms (UC) solution for channel partners.

Dubbed The Rainbow Office powered by RingCentral, the stuff is for medium and large-sized enterprises and is a unified communication-as-a-service (UCaaS) solution, being launched in the UK, it is claimed.  It has been available other European countries, including Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Ireland, Spain, and in The Netherlands.

For Alcatel-Lucent, the UCaaS launch comes at a time when customers are evaluating their comms options because of the impact of the coronavirus pandemic and the anticipated shift to more hybrid working.

KCOM sells ICT business to Nasstar

Posted on June 28, 2021 by - News

KCOM has announced the sale of its national ICT business to Nasstar, a managed services specialist provider that delivers an integrated suite of services from cloud computing to networking and communication solutions.

The company said that the sale of the national business will allow KCOM to focus on its core strategy as a regional provider of full-fibre broadband, growing our presence in both retail and wholesale markets as we continue to invest in our network expansion.

This follows a strategic review of the national business to look at opportunities for its development and its fit with KCOM’s long-term strategy, which began in 2019. 

Sophos launches first UK distie deal with Arrow

Posted on June 28, 2021 by - News

Security outfit Sophos has struck a UK distribution agreement with Arrow Electronics.

Under the agreement, the first in the UK for Sophos, Arrow will distribute Sophos’ portfolio of business security stuff and services that help protect users, networks and endpoints against ransomware, malware, exploits, phishing and other cyberattacks.

Sophos vice president of sales in Northern Europe Jonathan Bartholomew said: “Arrow has an established reputation as a global supply chain partner, helping businesses to harness the power of complex and innovative technologies. As such, they can now expand our reach to MSPs and resellers, arming them with our innovative portfolio of next-generation products and threat response services that offer organizations of all sizes better protection against fast-changing cyberattacks.”

Schneider Electric installs WALLIX Inside into Harmony P6 industrial PCs

Posted on June 25, 2021 by - News

Schneider Electric has integrated WALLIX Inside into its line of Harmony P6 industrial PCs.

WALLIX and Schneider Electric’s partnership spans over five years, and the pair will be launching an integrated solution that ensures the enhanced security of connections for the systems of industrial plants, commercial buildings, hospitals, and data centres.

WALLIX Inside allows industrial engineering specialists to manage identity and access between their solution and connected industrial machines to secure access to data in transit.

Through the partnership, Schneider Electric has integrated WALLIX’s “by design” technologies directly into its new line of industrial PCs called Harmony P6. This i-PAM (Industrial Privileged Access Management) device is a plug & play secure connectivity solution for industrial PLC programming and maintenance operations.

Remote work and security is the new black, says Barracuda

Posted on June 25, 2021 by - News

A global survey of 419 managed service providers (MSPs) conducted by Barracuda Networks finds that remote work and security are emerging as a primary driver of new business in the last year.

A full 85 percent of MSPs said there was an opportunity to grow their business in 2021 because the overall market was not saturated. More than half of MSPs (59 per ent) have expanded their services portfolios in the past 12 months, with some security service being the most frequently added.

Backup and recovery (90 percent), endpoint security (82 percent), email security (80 percent) and network security (80 percent) are the top four managed services most commonly provided, with email security, endpoint protection and network security among the services in highest demand in 2021, according to survey respondents. However, since the start of the pandemic, backup and recovery (48 percent), business applications (39 percent) and email security (39 percent) are cited as seeing the most increase in demand.

In terms of new opportunities, 90 percent of the respondents cited remote work as their most lucrative opportunity, followed by security at 80 pe cent, the survey finds.

Druva launches new MSP programme

Posted on June 25, 2021 by - News

Cloudy security outfit Druva has launched a new MSP programme, which it says offers the SaaS platform’s simplicity, security, and scale.

The cunning plan is part of the Druva Compass partner programme to help MSPs accelerate their customers’ cloud transformation with a resilient and simplified data protection service.

Druva senior vice president Robert Brower said that Druva had a cloud-first mentality to ensure its partners had the tools to succeed. The programme is a multi-tenant SaaS solution that cuts out time-consuming hardware management and streamlines deployment.

Businesses need clear vaccination strategies that put their people first

Posted on June 24, 2021 by - News

HR surveys reveal a high level of confusion amongst employers around their employee’s COVID-19 vaccination status and how to protect the health and safety of workers.

According to Mark Shaw, CEO of Tento Applied Sciences said a recent Gartner HR survey revealed that nearly half  large global organisations will not track the vaccination status of their employees, with less than eight percent requiring staff to show proof of vaccination. While a nationwide survey in Ireland this month showed that well over half of Irish employers want the right to ask their staff if they have received a COVID-19 vaccine.

Shaw said: “One of the biggest challenges organisations face now, and in the future, is ensuring the safety of their staff and customers during the present pandemic and those to come. Most organisations plan to reopen with social distancing and mask-wearing protocols in place, but it is clear to us that they will also need, as part of their overall strategy, a secure, confidential platform for managing the exchange of verified digital health documents between employers, staff, and customers.

Ping Identity snaps up SecuredTouch

Posted on June 24, 2021 by - News

Ping Identity has written a cheque for SecuredTouch as part of a cunning plan to accelerate its identity fraud capabilities.

Founded in 2015, SecuredTouch specialises in bot attack prevention, identity risk and fraud intelligence.  Ping thinks that with its bot detection and account takeover protection, SecuredTouch can be used to deliver a more secure and seamless experience for customers.

Ping Identity CEO Andre Durand said: “As companies undergo massive digital transformation initiatives, the need for seamless, frictionless, and secure identity solutions to confidently understand both those situations is imperative. The acquisition of SecuredTouch accelerates our vision for cloud-delivered intelligent identity solutions that combat malicious behaviour such as bots, emulators, and account takeover.”

Tech Data sets up SPECTRUM

Posted on June 24, 2021 by - News

Tech Data has launched a new business resource group (BRG) for LGBTQ+ personnel to the UK and Ireland. Known as SPECTRUM, the group provides colleagues with a workplace community in which everyone can express themselves openly.

The group has been launched to align with Pride Month. Allies and anyone at all interested from Tech Data UK and Ireland have been invited to attend an initial, online meeting on Friday 18 June. This introductory session will be an open forum on the subject of Gender and Sexuality. Attendees will be invited to express their views and put questions to the SPECTRUM panel for UK and Ireland, which consists of lesbian, gay, bisexual, pansexual, and non-binary gender colleagues, and one colleague who is the parent of an LGBTQ+ teenager.

Lenovo launches three-tier DaaS model in the UK

Posted on June 23, 2021 by - News

Lenovo has launched its device as-a-service (DaaS) offering in the UK spanning its entire device portfolio. The news means that all its partners can now sell Lenovo’s device portfolio through a monthly as-a-service model.

Lenovo director of SMB and channel for the UK and Ireland Jane Ashworth said the DaaS offering is split into three tiers: Simplify, Accelerate and Transform accessible through the Lenovo Partner Hub or through Lenovo.com.

Its Simplify tier is intended as a “starting point” and is targeted at small businesses. Partners can use Lenovo’s online tool to add devices and services on behalf of the customer and calculate the total monthly cost of the service.

The Accelerate tier enables partners to add their own services to the quote, which could include configuration or consulting services.

A third of workers will stay at home

Posted on June 23, 2021 by - News

Research firm Gartner is predicting that there is going to be a huge uptick in the number of workers who are home-based.

“By the end of 2021, 51 percent of all knowledge workers worldwide are expected to be working remotely, up from 27 percent of knowledge workers in 2019”, Gartner said in a report. It estimates that remote workers will represent 32 percent of employees worldwide by the end of 2021, up from 17 percent in 2019.

So-called “knowledge workers “are those involved in knowledge-intensive professions such as writers, accountants and engineers. While a remote worker is an employee working away from his/her company, government, or customer site at least one full day a week (hybrid workers) or who works fully from home (fully remote workers).

“India and China will produce some of the largest numbers of remote workers, but their overall penetration rates will remain relatively low with 30 percent of workers in India being remote (by 2022) and 28 percent of workers in China working remotely”, Gartner projected. Remote working varies from country to country depending on IT adoption, culture, and mix of industries.