Category: News

COVID enables an environmentally friendly channel

Posted on January 18, 2021 by - News

The COVID-19 pandemic enabled the channel to implement a more environmentally-friendly way of working, according to Agilitas  Marketing Director of Richard Eglon.

Eglon said that Sustainability continues to dominate corporate discussions on a global scale. With consumers more aware of their everyday choices and what this means for the environment, businesses must step up and take responsibility for the products and services that they sell.

“Companies are beginning to adjust and adapt their behaviours and attitudes towards sustainability, with many looking at circular methods to eliminate waste and re-use resources. This includes the products and devices that they use across the workforce”, he said.

Nutanix scores Auto Europe deal

Posted on January 18, 2021 by - News

Cloudy Nutanix has scored a big contract with Auto Europe, a global leader in international car rental services.

The car rental outfit is implementing Nutanix hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) software to support a fully remote workforce amid the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as improve system performances, enhance disaster recovery and simplify management of their IT infrastructure.

Auto Europe serves travel agents and brokers at approximately 24,000 car rental locations in 180 countries around the world. Their service enables customers and travel agents to search and compare rates across leading car rental providers. With so many customers and locations, Auto Europe needed a solution that would improve scalability and performance.

Hyperoptic offers free high fibre broadband

Posted on January 18, 2021 by - News

Hyperoptic is offering a free broadband service to families who currently do not have a reliable broadband connection.

The offer is available for local authority tenants in homes covered by Hyperoptic’s network. It is being enabled via its partnerships with registered housing providers. The service will enable children who do not currently have access to adequate connectivity to easily access virtual education resources and learn from home.

Residents who meet the criteria will be given a promotion code from their local authority. They can then order a free 50Mbps service from Hyperoptic, which will run until the end of this academic year (31 August 2021). A router and installation will be arranged free of charge, on a convenient date. The resident is under no obligation to continue or pay for a service after this date. 

European channel did well in 2020

Posted on January 15, 2021 by - News

Beancounters at Context claim that the European channel did rather well in 2020 despite the pandemic,

The outfit reported that distribution sales hit €26.3 billion with year-on-year (YoY) growth of 10.2 percent for the fourth quarter. Full year sales were €83.3 billion, and growth stood at 7.2 percent on last year.

This year is expected to do just as well thanks to digital transformation along with increased demand for home working and homeschooling technology.

ConnectWise expands “leadership” team

Posted on January 15, 2021 by - News

ConnectWise has expanded its leadership team with three new executive appointments across the information security, growth and engineering departments.

Chris Timms joins ConnectWise as EVP of growth from his former role at ACI Worldwide, Tom Greco is promoted from director of information security to chief information security officer (CISO) and Tony Clancy has been named SVP of engineering from his previous position at CentralSquare Technologies.

The company said that Timms leads a newly created growth organisation within ConnectWise focused on creating value for partners through the ConnectWise ecosystem and the larger industry. His responsibilities include corporate strategy, corporate development and the partner ecosystem, as well as helping drive innovation across the company.

Datto joins Ransomware Task Force

Posted on January 15, 2021 by - News

Datto has been invited to join the Institute for Security and Technology’s Multi-Sector Ransomware Task Force as a founding member and representing the MSP community.

Datto CISO Ryan Weeks said that governments, enterprises, and SMBs  need to approach the serious threat of cyberattacks with the same collaborative concept.

“Working in silos against these sophisticated attackers is no longer an option. Threat actors have built successful businesses exploiting the fragile cyber defenses and recovery practices at many organisations. Only by working together across industries and sectors can we hope to make progress against these threat actors”, Weeks said.

Tech Data launches hardware apprenticeship scheme

Posted on January 14, 2021 by - News

Tech Data has launched an IT Hardware Technical Apprenticeship scheme and is hoping to mirror the success of its training for new salespeople, which is now in its third year.

Seven Tech Data colleagues who have been with the company for some time and others who are relatively new have been enrolled on the scheme. Over the next 15 months, they will be put through a series of training modules that will enable them to acquire the skills to deliver good technical services and advice.

The training modules will cover a variety of disciplines, technologies, and vendors, some of which will be provided by CompTIA. They will include foundation courses in Cybersecurity and DevOps, and ITIL4 project management training.  Apprentices will finish the course with six recognised technical accreditations.

Kaseya grows on the back of COVID-19

Posted on January 14, 2021 by - News

IT and security management solutions for managed service providers (MSPs) and small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs), Kaseya announced today that the company grew by over 20 percent.

In response to the impact that COVID-19 had on the industry, Kaseya has continued to expand IT Complete, its workflow integrated platform of IT solutions.

The company also launched Kaseya Cares, a COVID-19 assistance program that helped businesses navigate government relief programmes and provides access to direct financial assistance and complimentary business guidance and assistance via Kaseya Powered Services. To date, the programme has assisted more than 4,500 customers and provided over $10 million in direct financial relief.

Comtec expands data centre

Posted on January 14, 2021 by - News

Comtec today announced a “significant upgrade” to its network infrastructure, enhancing bandwidth provision at its primary Comtec House data centre and adding two new data suites to cope with increased customer demand for managed IT services.

This upgrade, which uawa technology from Schneider Electric and other key technology suppliers, is the latest in a series of company-wide advancements following promising growth opportunities in its data centre, infrastructure and communications divisions throughout 2020.

Comtec CEO Nick Claxson said: “While not without its challenges, 2020 saw incredible growth for Comtec. Wanting to end the year on a high, and ensure we hit the ground running in 2021, we used the holiday period to replace much of our existing network with new infrastructure that would allow us to meet these growth opportunities head-on.”

Calligo and Reed Smith team up

Posted on January 13, 2021 by - News

Calligo and Reed Smith announced a non-exclusive joint services agreement to market and jointly deliver data protection, governance and privacy services to one another’s clients.

In a joint statement, the pair said that Reed Smith’s IP, Tech & Data Group and the firm’s technology subsidiary, GravityStack, will work together with Calligo to provide mutual clients with a full suite of data protection services. These will include the legal frameworks for data’s compliant use, plus a range of continuous data protection services, including outsourced Data Protection Officer (DPO) services, cybersecurity support and technology infrastructure.

For those who came in late, Reed Smith is a global law firm with more than 1,800 lawyers in 30 offices throughout the US, Europe, the Middle East and Asia. Calligo is the world’s first end-to-end managed data services provider offering data privacy, outsourced IT and data insights services, with offices in the U.S., Canada, the Channel Islands, Luxembourg, the UK and Ireland.

Nutanix appoints Rob Tribe as new veep

Posted on January 13, 2021 by - News

Nutanix has named Rob Tribe as Vice President, Systems Engineering, for the Europe, Middle East & Africa (EMEA) region.

Tribe was Senior Director, Systems Engineering and will play a strategic role in supporting Nutanix’s expansion in EMEA, whilst assuming overall responsibility for the company’s growing team of systems engineers in the region. Within this remit, Rob will oversee the teams that provide pre-sales consulting, technical guidance, and assistance to customers and channel partners.

Tribe said: “Throughout my years at Nutanix, I have seen the company evolve at breakneck speed, delivering the constant innovation required to delight our customers and partners. Thanks to our commitment to delivering both innovation and simplicity, the opportunity ahead of us is still immense and I am honoured to be part of the team that will drive that next stage of growth.” 

Agilysys announces two new top appointments

Posted on January 13, 2021 by - News

Cloudy SaaS outfit Agilysys has appointed Ben Curtis, as Managing Director, EMEA and Matthew Prosser as Senior Sales Director in EMEA.

Curtis has 25 years of international hospitality experience in both property management and as a software solution sales executive, most recently as General Manager of Verteda, an Agilysys reseller in EMEA.

Prosser recently held senior positions at Verteda, including Business Development Director and Sales Director, and was most recently Managing Director for MSL Solutions’ new UK subsidiary following MSL Solutions’ acquisition of Verteda. His hospitality career began over 25 years ago in the Far East and includes senior management roles with 5-star hotels as well as at solution vendor MICROS.

Public service organisations forced to make cost cuts

Posted on January 12, 2021 by - News

Almost all European public services organisations (94 percent) are under pressure to reduce costs due to the coronavirus pandemic, according to new research.

Beancounters at Insight have added some numbers and divided by their shoe size and reached the conclusion that over half public services organisations have downsized their workforce, 46 percent are making an effort to sweat IT assets for longer and 23 percent have downsized their IT teams.

Meanwhile, the same organisations are also overspending on IT, with each wasting an average of £2.4 million on unused software licences alone – enough to cover the wages of 50 skilled IT specialists, says Insight.

Agilitas opens new Dutch European logistics hub

Posted on January 12, 2021 by - News

Following the UK’s Brexit moves, global channel services provider, Agilitas IT Solutions opened its new European logistics hub in Amsterdam, the Netherlands to make sure that everything still works.

The outfit said it wanted to ensure its customers and partners are provided with continuity of service following the recent Brexit deal between the United Kingdom and the European Union.

The new hub will be used to hold technology hardware and enable Agilitas to continue EU business without impacting its logistics services and supply chain management.

Snowplow raises $10 million for expansion

Posted on January 12, 2021 by - News

Behavioural data management platform, Snowplow, has raised 10 million in Series A2 funding to fund its expansion plans.

Snowplow was recognised in Gartner’s Cool Vendors 2020 Report as a ‘Cool Vendor in Marketing and Data Analytics’ and has reported considerable growth during 2020 as accelerated digital transformation has made the significance of behavioural data even clearer.

Snowplow CEO Alex Dean said that 2020 was a challenging year for everybody – but Snowplow saw more businesses realising the need to unify customer behaviour across all platforms, in a way that isn’t dictated by packaged vendors.