Category: News

Livingston told to diversify UK’s telecom supply chain

Posted on September 25, 2020 by - News

Former BT  CEO Lord Ian Livingston has been appointed as a chair of a task force into diversifying the UK’s telecom supply chain.

The big idea is connected to the decision to ban the use of new Huawei 5G equipment from the end of this year. The government is worried that UK telecoms network is too exposed to ‘high-risk vendors’.

The government is expected to publish its Telecoms Diversification Strategy later this year to end the practice of mobile companies being limited to using just three major suppliers in their telecom networks.

The Telecoms Security Bill is also in the pipeline to give the government the ability to control the presence of high risk equipment vendors, and at the same time for Ofcom to drive up security standards.

Hyperscience scores One Insurance contract

Posted on September 24, 2020 by - News

Automation outfit  Hyperscience  has scored a deal with digital insurance provider One Insurance.

One has selected the Hyperscience Platform for its advanced Intelligent Document Processing capabilities to reduce manual keying and validation, improve data quality, and streamline application processing across their motor, home (personal contents) and personal liability lines of insurance.

Philip Klossner, Chief Operating Officer, ONE Insurance said Hyperscience will be instrumental in helping us achieve fast and efficient applications processing and underwriting, automating critical tasks with high levels of accuracy.

Pay-once-use-forever ain’t dead yet says Microsoft,

Posted on September 24, 2020 by - News

Software King of the World is dusting off an Office licence which you only need to pay for once.  This is much like the good old days, when you owned your own software and did not have to always pay for a subscription.

A new perpetual licence version for Office will be released in the second half of 2021, Microsoft announced on Tuesday at the Ignite 2020 virtual event.

While the company did not disclose the name of the product, it did reveal that the new version of Office will be available for Windows and Mac.

Vole said that the details regarding the official name, pricing and availability of the product will be revealed later — so be still your beating hearts.

Kaspersky hosts tech summit

Posted on September 24, 2020 by - News

Kaspersky is hosting its  first European Tech Summit for its Silver, Gold and Platinum partners are cordially invited, alongside heavyweights of the wider tech community

The event starts on 24 September at techsummiteurope.kaspersky.com and  is supposed to tackle some of the biggest cyber discussions in the industry.

The first session delves into the theme of Cloud Adoption in Cybersecurity, touching upon the need to secure hybrid cloud environments, and the trend of cloud-based EDR. Industrial Security is then initiated through the introduction of live simulation options, before our Kaspersky Roadmap is detailed in session three. Roadmap insights are likely to be a highlight of the event following partners’ calls for greater engagement around this subject, and it leads seamlessly into session four which includes further insights across Threat Intelligence. Session five addresses Tech News in Managed Services, before a final 30-minute discussion concludes the day on a productive note.

Lexmark devises channel devices

Posted on September 23, 2020 by - News

Lexmark wants partners to encourage customers to move to more digital print services.

Partners will now be able to go out to market with third-party device monitoring, an expanded and free premium app catalogue, and touchless print.

The device-monitoring feature gives those that like to provide managed services the chance to use the firm’s Cloud Fleet Management to manage printers from any location.

Brock Saladin, senior vice-president and chief revenue officer at Lexmark- great name! – said partners wanted third-party device monitoring.

Microsoft spruces up Defender options

Posted on September 23, 2020 by - News

Microsoft campusSoftware king of the world, Microsoft, has announced a host of new security updates as part of its cunning plan to shove all its detection and event management services under the new Microsoft Defender brand.

The move means Vole’s extended detection and response (XDR) tools will now sit alongside its suite of security information and event management (SIEM) software, offered as a single umbrella brand .

For customers, this new direction will take the form of two separate packages, namely Microsoft 365 Defender, tailored for end-user environments, and Azure Defender, built for cloud and hybrid infrastructure. Both of these packages bring their own product name changes, with Microsoft effectively abandoning the ‘advanced threat protection (ATP)’ theme for most products.

Hybrid workforce is the future

Posted on September 23, 2020 by - News

The government has now u-turned on its drive to get people back into the office, but they shouldn’t have expected people to bounce back to it anyway according to Pete Braithwaite, COO at Computacenter’s KIT Online.

Braithwaite said that the the future is no longer 9-5 office days, five days a week, even once the pandemic passes. The future comes in the form of hybrid working, which could make cities outside of London and Manchester have access to a larger pool of talent.

“When we’ve seen how well we can perform at home, the idea of going back into the office five days a week is a little unnecessary. Of course with some roles, including many in healthcare, working from home isn’t an option, some do not have the space or desire to work from home and others prefer the social and creativity aspect of working in the office, which is fine. But we can’t scare people to return to the office when they’re trying to protect themselves and their family’s health, and they can do their jobs perfectly well at home”, Braithwaite said.

ChannelHub announces Retail Connect One-to-One event

Posted on September 22, 2020 by - News

ChannelHub, the first online portal for matching buyers and sellers in the consumer electronics sector, has announced the dates for its first Retail Connect One-to-One event for EMEA (Europe, Middle East & Africa).

The online event, scheduled for 3-5 November 2020, will allow each registered vendor to access and connect to over 400 registered buyers across the EMEA region. This will allow them to set up direct one on one meetings with key decision makers at some of the leading retailers and distributors in the EMEA region. The event will host keynotes and workshops conducted by event partner, GfK, and pitch sessions from vendors for key consumer electronic segments including mobile accessories, smart tech, PC, gaming, and AV.

Demand for digital building product marketplace rises by 125 percent

Posted on September 22, 2020 by - News

Specification-led marketing and product data specialist, SpecifiedBy, has reported substantial quarterly growth in its online marketplace as COVID-19 building product manufacturers embrace digital transformation.

The Newcastle-headquartered company, whose clients include Dyson, VELUX, Tarmac and SIG, has seen a 125 percent increase in manufacturers signing up to its platform between April and June 2020, compared to the same period last year. During this time, traffic to the platform has also increased by 60 percent as architects and specifiers are among the professions that have moved more of their work online during the pandemic.

Don’t rush to get back to work

Posted on September 22, 2020 by - News

The COO of B2B self-service portal KIT Online has warned that reverting back to our old ways is unrealistic and not the answer to fix the ‘Pret Economy’.

Pete Braithwaite, COO at B2B self-service portal KIT Online, said despite the major drive to get people back to the office, the future comes in the form of hybrid working, which could make cities outside of London and Manchester have access to a larger pool of talent.

Pure plays zeroC hand

Posted on September 21, 2020 by - News

A Leeds firm has struck a deal with access recovery firm S2S to create a recovery and refurb outfit.

The partnership, dubbed zeroC, wants to create end to end management of kit including laptops, phones and tablets for small businesses up to corporations.

Pure COO Cliff Fox said: “This is all about the salvaging and re-use of IT equipment.”

Cloudy snowflake valued at $70 billion

Posted on September 18, 2020 by - News

Cloud vendor Snowflake saw its share price more than double on its opening day of trading, and its valuation rocket to $70 billion, just months after it reportedly mulled a listing that would value it at $20 billion.

Snowflake CEO Frank Slootman told Bloomberg he was “thrilled with the reception.

“What we have on the whole industry is a product that was built from the ground up, a clean sheet of paper by a group of people who are some of the world’s greatest database technology architects. It’s one that was lacking all this time and one that gets completely redesigned and re-imagined for cloud scale computing. It’s a completely different product architecturally.

Silver Peak launches certified deployment partner programme

Posted on September 18, 2020 by - News

Silver Peak is rolling out a global certified deployment partner programme.

The idea is to create a partner network which can deliver enterprise grade SD-WAN.

The outfit is starting the scheme with a select number of partners that have got themselves into a position to gain the sales, technical and deployment certifications. CDW, InterVision, INVITE Networks, Teneo, WWT and Xalient have all been signed up.

UK schools and universities under threat

Posted on September 18, 2020 by - News

Universities and colleges are being warned by the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) that rising numbers of cyber attacks are threatening to disrupt the start of term. The NCSC has been investigating an increased number of ransomware attacks affecting education establishments in the UK, including schools, colleges and universities.

According to Microsoft’s Global Threat Activity tracker, 61 percent (nearly 4.8 million) of malware encounters reported within the past 30 days took aim at the education sector, making it the most affected industry. The business and professional services sector came in second with just under one million incidents.

The warning from the NCSC follows a spate of ransomware attacks against academic institutions – in which malicious software or “malware” is used to lock out users from their own computer systems, paralysing online services, websites and phone networks.

Axeman cometh at Dell

Posted on September 17, 2020 by - News

Tin box shifter Dell has confirmed it is going to be axing more jobs.

In July, the tech giant confirmed it would be cutting an unspecified number of jobs, but said that the decision was made earlier in 2020 and was not a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

COO Jeff Clarke told staff of the layoffs during a quarterly all-hands meeting  and that the job losses will span across the organisation.

Dell said it was addressing  its cost structure to make sure it’s as competitive as it should be now and for future opportunities.