Category: News

Kaseya snaps up Graphus

Posted on September 2, 2020 by - News

Kaseya has snapped up anti-phishing supplier Graphus.

Graphus uses artificial intelligence (AI) to defend email inboxes from a variety of threats, including phishing and spear phishing, business email compromise (BEC), account takeover (ATO), identity spoofing, malware and ransomware.

The service has already been integrated into the ID Agent Digital Risk Protection Platform. The firm’s cyber security offering now includes dark web monitoring platform Dark Web ID, phishing simulation and cyber security awareness training solution BullPhish ID and secure identity and access management solution Passly.

Cognizant makes another cloudy purchase

Posted on September 2, 2020 by - News

Cognizant has snapped up Azure specialist 10th Magnitude, which is its sixth cloudy acquisition this year.

The big idea of the latest purchase is that the deal will expand the Azure expertise in Cognizant’s new Microsoft Business Group – which houses its other recent acquisition, New Signature – as well as adding managed services hubs throughout the US.

10th Magnitude is a Microsoft Gold Partner that offers managed services, including datacentre transformation, application modernisation and data intelligence.

Printer toner sales slow down reveals much about UK offices

Posted on September 2, 2020 by - News

Weak sales of printer toner show that many firms are not rushing a return to the office in the wake of the coronavirus lockdowns.

Context bean counters have added up some numbers and reached the conclusion that the UK is behind the rest of Europe trying to get workers back to their old desks.

The firm found that toner is one of the products that is closely linked to workplace presence, and examined four week rolling sales through distribution in the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain.

The results were that the UK lagged behind other most other European countries in terms of staff returning to offices, with only Norway, Denmark, the Baltics and Brazil registering slower rates of a shift away from mass working from home.

Rain falls in cloud as NetApp cuts workforce

Posted on September 1, 2020 by - News

Hybrid cloud data services firm NetApp has revealed it has cut its workforce by almost six percent and said it will “narrow its business focus”.

NetApp said it was “realigning resources and investments” capture opportunities and “position the company for long-term success”.

“We continue to sharpen our focus on markets where we have both a significant presence and clear competitive advantage, specifically with our storage software and systems and cloud data services”, NetApp rationalised.

Tricentis does deal with SAP

Posted on September 1, 2020 by - News

Tricentis has extended its flirtation with SAP to get its software-testing tools added to the products sold through the vendor’s channel as SAP Solution Extensions.

The move is seen as an attempt to increase the outfit’s exposure to more channel partners and a chance to widen a reputation.

Jonathan Boswell, director of strategic content for SAP and packaged applications for Tricentis, said that the visibility Tricentis gets from this partnership expands opportunities across the board and means that Tricentis solutions have a place in every SAP deal.

Dell warns that working will never be the same

Posted on September 1, 2020 by - News

Grey tin box shifter Dell has warned its channel that they need to assume that things will not get back to normal after the pandemic.

Dell  vice-chairman and COO  Jeff Clarke believes the future is going to be different.

“In our 10 years as a connected workplace, we’ve learned that it’s a combination of technology, the right tools for workforce enablement and culture. And we are sharing these best practices with our customers as they embark on this

Salesforce punishes staff after record breaking quarter

Posted on August 29, 2020 by - News

Salesforce logoA day after CEO Marc Benioff praised the company’s 54,000 staff for delivering a record-breaking quarter he was busy sending out P45s and pink slips to 1,000 staff that made its success.

Those affected by the cuts have 60 days to find a new role in the company, with those who don’t find a job within the organisation being offered a redundancy package.

Those most likely to be affected are reportedly those who joined the organisation through acquisitions such as Tableau and MuleSoft.

NetApp culls five percent of jobs

Posted on August 28, 2020 by - News

NetApp CEO George Kurian told analysts in its first quarter earnings call that it is reducing its 10,800-strong headcount by 5.5 percent, despite reporting a five percent year on year increase in net revenues to $1.3 billion.

Kurian said the global job cuts are motivated by “strategic alignment and focus” on its storage systems and software divisions. He confirmed that SolidFire – which NetApp acquired in 2016 – and its hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) teams would be most affected by the cuts.

“We realigned about 5.5 percent of our workforce and those were in parts of the business – in all the functions of the business, but in those parts of the business that were not particularly aligned to our go-forward priorities”, he explained on the call

Cloud-based infrastructure speed IT Initiatives

Posted on August 28, 2020 by - News

land [yeah it does start with a lower case “i”, Ed.]Product Marketing Manager, Sarah Doherty, says that companies are hesitant to adopt a cloud infrastructure because they still look at IT assets and think about budget cycles and performance/capacity per the pound or dollar.

“When we talk to business leaders, the idea of moving from a CAPEX model to an OPEX model is appealing for pretty much everything but IT.  This can put them into situations where they are purchasing hardware on three to five-year cycles, subsequently discovering after two years that the hardware they have invested in isn’t doing what it needs to do. However, at that point, the business is committed”, she said.

They may be locked into a certain vendor or platform and the pain of moving seems overwhelming or they may have concerns about moving to the cloud in general. In a nutshell, this approach is not compatible with the flexibility and scalability that many businesses need in their toolkit.

Zortrex appoints Michael Boevink CEO

Posted on August 27, 2020 by - News

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Data security outfit Zortrex  has appointed Michael Boevink as its new CEO.

Boevink will be responsible for shaping the future direction and development of the company, realising its goal to help organisations reduce the cost and complexity of protecting against data breaches, safeguard customer privacy, and ensure compliance with ever-changing regulatory requirements.

Boevink brings over 20 years of experience spent in the new media, telecom and financial services sectors. He holds an MBA from the University of Bradford. He is said to have an in-depth understanding of the security threat landscape. Zortrex’s goal is to stem the rising tide of data breaches. It will do this by using “tokenisation”, which replaces confidential personal information with randomly generated substitute characters (tokens), as placeholder data, to mitigate the impact of any cyber-attack by devaluing all sensitive data.

Boston distributes Swiss Prime

Posted on August 27, 2020 by - News

Boston Limited will include Prime Computer in its product portfolio and distribute the Swiss manufacturer’s IT hardware solutions in the UK and Ireland.

Prime Computer’s fanless design in servers are used in a wide range of operating environments across a variety of sectors including hospitality, medical practices, and hospitals. The products are silent with no other mechanical parts generating noise. As many businesses currently rely on digital services, Prime Computer products are designed to provide continuous operation and reliability for all business needs.

Prime’s chief sales officer Bianca Brinker said: “Prime Computer is determined to further expand its presence in the UK and Ireland, enhancing the status of the Prime Computer brand as the leading Swiss manufacturer of energy-saving, passively cooled mini-PCs and servers, including our brand new PrimeMini IoT.

Diegesis scores managed services agreement with ONS

Posted on August 27, 2020 by - News

Systems intergrator Diegesis  has been awarded a managed services contract by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) under the Digital Outcomes and Specialists 4 framework.

Under the two-year agreement, Diegesis will support and maintain ONS’s existing Ingres/Actian-X systems written in Applications-By-Forms (ABF) and OpenROAD while maintaining business as usual (BAU) during the organisation’s critical period of IT transition.  The programme requires Diegesis to provide a team of experienced, skilled staff requiring government Security Clearance to support a number of systems that collect and process data for a variety of surveys conducted by the ONS.

Diegesis will carry out a range of activities including essential support and maintenance of operational systems, responding to service desk requests and providing updates to existing systems to help meet strategic and legislative changes.  The Diegesis team and its progress will be monitored and measured against ONS-defined Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).

Telent does well despite CEO’s death

Posted on August 26, 2020 by - News

Telent has reported a five percent rise in revenue in a financial year that saw its former chief executive Mark Plato’s shock death.

The network services giant posted revenues of £568.2 million and saw operating profit rise 2.5 per ent to £32.2 million for its year ending 31 March 2020.

Chairman David Naylor-Leyland struck a sombre tone as he reported on the loss of long-term boss Plato and economic uncertainty in the UK.

Long-term CEO Plato died suddenly in early September.

Dell gives partners credit where it’s due

Posted on August 26, 2020 by - News

Dell is extending its $9 billion  of zero interest credit to its partners until 30 October, in an effort to keep projects from sinking amid COVID-19 financial pressures.

Dell president of financial services, Bill Wavro, said partners will be able to defer payments until 2021 “to continue helping their customers adapt to the changing landscape”.

“Our commitment extends to our channel and global alliances partners with Dell Financial Services accessible to thousands of partners. Partners whose customers use DFS can improve their cash flow and liquidity by being paid within days. Additionally, qualifying partners can get a payment extension of 45 to 90 days with the Dell Technologies Working Capital Solutions Programme”, he said.

Palo Alto Networks snaps up Crypsis

Posted on August 26, 2020 by - News

Palo Alto Networks has acquired an incident response and digital forensics consultancy, Crypsis, in a deal worth $265 million.

The deal is designed to spruce up its own enterprise security oversight platform and Crypsis will be  integrated with Palo Alto Networks to strengthen its Cortex XDR services.

Cortex XDR already provides prevention, detection and incident response capabilities but Palo Alto wants Crypsis’ consultancy and forensics services to allow the platform to collect telemetry data, manage data breaches and initiative rapid response actions.