Category: News

The technology company Atea has signed two new agreements with cloud-based contact centre provider Puzzel.

Atea Group has chosen Puzzel for its own contact centres in the Nordic and Baltic countries and has also become a Puzzel partner, offering cloud-based contact centre solutions to its own customers.

Jan Gisle Ytterdal, Product Manager at Atea Norway, said, “The flexibility of Puzzel’s solutions means that it is easy to integrate with other suppliers.  In addition, the entire contact centre is in the cloud. There were many reasons why we chose Puzzel when we modernized our own customer contact centres.  To date, Atea has delivered contact centre services from its own data centres in Norway. However, the company’s long-term strategy is to deliver similar services working with public cloud providers. This new partnership with Puzzel supports Atea’s long-term strategy.”

”We are delighted that Atea has chosen Puzzel for its contact centre solution and at the same time to partner with one of the region’s largest IT companies.  The solution is currently being implemented at Atea’s own internal contact centres and we look forward to a long term relationship working together with their customers,” said Gunnar Aasen, CCO at Puzzel. Read more…

Cloud services provider Mphasis has appointed Paul Duvall as its new Chief AWS Evangelist.

Duvall is a founder of Mphasis Stelligent; a company focused exclusively on DevOps automation on AWS since 2009. Mphasis acquired Stelligent in late 2018 and Duvall took on the role of Chief Technology Officer for the newly formed Mphasis Stelligent business unit.

In his new role, Duvall will be responsible for sharing his team’s considerable cloud and AWS expertise across the broader Mphasis organisation based on the work that Mphasis Stelligent has done with its customers. In addition to working closely with the different development groups at Mphasis, Duvall will also share his expertise and experience via blogs, industry articles, training videos, speaking at industry events, and other available mediums. He’ll continue to advise the Mphasis leadership team on emerging technologies.

Duvall and Stelligent have a long-standing relationship with AWS.  Stelligent is an AWS Partner Network (APN) Premier Consulting Partner, recognising the top APN Consulting Partners for their significant investment in their AWS practice. It has attained the AWS Security Competency and the AWS Financial Services Competency and was one of the first service providers in achieving AWS DevOps Competency status back in 2015. It was also one of the first APN Consulting Partners to participate in the AWS Service Delivery Program.  Today, Mphasis Stelligent has over 100 AWS certifications with half of its engineers holding AWS professional certifications. Read more…

Nearly two-thirds of organisations that currently use cloud also use some level of managed services, a new report has revealed.

The report entitled 451 Research, Demystifying Cloud Transformation: Where Enterprises Should Start was commissioned by the cloudy Virtustream

The report said that  71 per cent of large enterprise respondents revealing that managed services would be a better use of their money in the future, and a substantial majority is saying it allows their teams to focus on more strategic and productive IT projects.

The Virtustream-commissioned report examined the significance of managed services for cloud, driven by the increasing complexity of enterprise IT. The report’s findings highlight key areas of managed cloud services that should expect to see growth in the next 12 months, including managed security, migration and integration, cost and performance optimisation, and monitoring.

Melanie Posey, Research Vice President & General Manager, Voice of the Enterprise, 451 Research said: ” While enterprise companies are astutely aware of the breadth of cloud options available to them today, they are looking to cloud-managed services partners to bridge their in-house skills and resources gaps, and for access to their deep expertise across cloud assessment, planning, migration and domain experience.”

Joy Corso, Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer at Virtustream, said, “Organisations face a constant challenge to maximise and modernise their IT investments to future-proof their businesses. These new findings from 451 Research underscore the broad benefits enterprises can realise in partnering with a cloud company like Virtustream to orchestrate the cloud migration and management of their mission-critical applications and complex IT environments.” Read more…

UK businesses remain underprepared for cyber incidents says Cyber Security Connect UK, the leading conference and industry forum for CISOs.

According to the government’s Cyber Breaches Survey 2019, 32 per cent of businesses that experienced an attack in the past 12 months needed new measures to prevent further attacks and only 31 per cent of businesses surveyed had carried out a cyber risk assessment in the past 12 months. With the risk of cyber-attacks heightened and the cost of cyber incidents rising, the stakes have never been higher for British business, says CSCUK.

Michele Hanson, global CISO at MicroFocus and CSCUK steering committee member said: “Research shows that in the first half of 2019 cyber-attacks on British businesses were up by 45 per cent on last year. With this in mind, it is not ridiculous to assume that an attack will likely happen to your business in the near future. Despite this fact, surveys also consistently show that companies feel underprepared or not prepared for cyber-security breaches. There are many reasons why this is the case for businesses, including complex IT infrastructures and a lack of planning perhaps but the reasons to rectify these issues are much more prolific. Reputation, customer confidence and therefore customer loyalty could all be effected by a breach so being prepared is vital.”

Martin Smith, Cyber Security Connect UK Conference Chair and Chairman and Founder The SASIG, said: “The excuses for being underprepared for cyber incidents are running out. Having the basic defences in place, as well as a clear idea of how your processes are tested and how you would act should an incident occur is within everyone’s grasp, with the right information and support and this is out there. We would urge British businesses to start acting now and to put incident response at the core of any plans made. Waiting too long and paying the consequences for doing so could be devastating.”

Best practice in regard to cyber incident management will be a key area of discussion during Cyber Security Connect UK 2019. CSCUK takes place in Monaco from 13-15 November and brings together more than 300 top-level cyber security professionals.

Beancounters at GlobalData say that infrastructure vendors are promoting flexible consumption options for on-premises IT to attract new customers,.

There has been a growing demand for more flexible approaches for consuming on-premises IT, and infrastructure vendors ranging from HPE, Dell EMC and Lenovo, to IBM, Cisco and NetApp are all targeting, what they see as, growing enterprise demand for flexible on-premises IT consumption, says GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.

Flexible approaches include pay-per-use offerings, vendor-managed private clouds, and flexible financing for on-premises IT investments. Public cloud providers, including AWS, Microsoft, Oracle, and Alibaba are also honing in this emerging need for more adaptable IT delivery and contracting models with managed (or easy to manage) on-premises versions of their platforms.

Chris Drake, Principal Technology Analyst at GlobalData, said: “The growing demand for more flexible ways to consume on-premises IT is being driven partly by the widespread popularity of the public cloud as an elastic and often more cost-effective way of delivering and accessing IT resources.”

At the same time, many enterprises need to maintain at least some of their IT resources on-premises, within their own data centers – rather than rely on public cloud providers for those resources. Alongside these drivers are various perceived benefits of malleable on-premises IT consumption, including reduced upfront costs, the avoidance of overprovisioning, elastic provisioning, and improved consumption-to-cost alignment.

Drake added: “Several factors suggest that flexible consumption offerings for on-premises IT will continue to attract new customers and generate growing revenue for vendors and service providers. These include the tendency among providers to offer pay-per-use options for a growing share of their overall solutions portfolio.

“Nevertheless, flexible consumption offerings for on-premises IT will complement, rather than replace, traditional IT businesses. Things that could contribute to weaker than expected growth for the former include the risk that solution portfolios will be poorly organized and communicated to potential markets, as well as factors that encourage enterprises to favor a CapEx approach for particular solutions, over an OpEx model.”

Threekit, a 3D visual outfit has launched into Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) with the opening of their offices in Paris and London.

Threekit gear creates 3D, photorealistic images and augmented reality visuals from a single design file.

Threekit in EMEA will be led by Director Franck Devaux, who joins Threekit after having contributed to successfully establishing Salesforce France, driving 30X growth in the French Enterprise & CAC40 market.

Devaux said: ‘With retail e-commerce sales in the five largest EU countries expected to surpass $400 billion in 2022, the market is growing fast. And with that, so are customer expectations. Threekit is on the cutting edge of bringing companies into this new reality.’

Devaux is joined by Katy Collins, managing market development from London.

The Threekit platform has three products, which will be showcased this month at Paris Retail Week and Ecommerce Expo London:

• Virtual Photographer – Creates thousands of product images from a single design file so that companies can provide buyers with a view of every possible colour, feature and combination.
  3D Configurator – Designs 3D images that can be rotated in any direction and can be configured with different features, colours and textures. This allows for a high level of customer interaction.
  Augmented Reality – Allows customers to use their phone cameras to see what a product would look like in real life, thus increasing buyer confidence.

Godard Abel, Threekit chairman and leader behind enterprise software companies BigMachines, Steelbrick and G2 said: ‘We’re thrilled to bring Threekit into the eCommerce ecosystem growing in the region. More EMEA companies want to deliver an exceptional visual experience, and Threekit – with its highly experienced team – is offering an enterprise-grade platform unlike any currently in the market. The company is uniquely positioned to help brands provide remarkable customer experiences.’

Threekit’s leadership team are experienced in international markets: the company’s innovation lab is based in Ottawa, Canada, and Threekit President and Chief Operations Officer Joachim Klein ran the EMEA operations for pricing software company BigMachines from 2000 to 2014. Also, the company already work with several European retailers, such as CÎROC UK, Bamford Watch Department and Oak Beams Direct.

Channel services provider, Agilitas IT Solutions, has announced that its Chairman, Tom Kelly, has been awarded an OBE for services to the information and communications technology sector in Wales.

Kelly has been a significant influence in helping to shape and grow many successful technology businesses over the past 30 years.

He was MD of Managed Services Provider, Logicalis, where he earned a strong reputation for turning the firm into one of the UK’s leading systems integrator and managed service providers. He has been a Chairman for several high growth channel firms including Agilitas.

During his career, Kelly has forged several close relationships with some of the industry’s leading figures, and he is held in high regards with them as being personable, open and frank in his approach to business.

Commenting on the announcement, Kelly said: “I’m honoured to be recognised for my contribution to the IT sector with this OBE. I have found working in the channel very rewarding. It is fantastic to work with a fast-growth business like Agilitas, and to work closely with Shaun Lynn and his team to help make the company’s ambitious plans a reality.”

A new survey of NordVPN users discovered that many people decide to use a VPN after being affected by cybercrime. 20 per cent of the respondents said they had fallen victim to cybercrime in the past. Predictably, these customers also tend to use a VPN more often.

NordVPN Head of Communications Ruby Gonzalez said: “This data is not that surprising in 2019 when digital criminals are more active and creative than ever, but it’s still a huge number. No one likes to think about cybercrime until they are affected. But if it does happen, people start looking for ways to make sure it never happens again.”

More than 53 percent  of the respondents affected by cybercrime say they use a VPN daily or almost daily. The rate is  five percent  lower in the group unaffected by cybercrime in the past.

Ruby Gonzalez, Head of Communications at NordVPN said more than 46 per cent of NordVPN users claim they turn on a VPN when connecting to public Wi-Fi and another 46 per cent use it when accessing sensitive and private content. This shows that the main reason for using a VPN is online security. Read more…

.Andy Bogdan Head of UK SMB Channel at AV outfit Kaspersky says companies committed to the two-tier distribution model need to track the changes that are happening in the industry and help partners evolve.

Bogdan said that The partner ecosystem continues to change, affecting all parties. Each new business model demands new skills and processes from partners and vendors alike.

He said that businesses are increasingly delegating their cybersecurity and broader IT functions to third-party service providers or trusted advisors.

“In fact, in our global survey in 2018, we found that half of the businesses intend to use or increase the use of outsourced IT support companies or managed service providers. It is no surprise. Thanks to outsourcing, they can have assistance in managing their core processes, while saving on human resources and money. Partners, therefore, need to mirror this trend and meet customers’ desire to purchase services instead of products,” Bogdan said.

He said, switching to a value-added model is not even a trend, it is a necessity. Partners who still only do simple offer transactions can’t remain profitable anymore. The margin of transactions is very low. This has driven the emergence of value-added business models, such as managed service providers (MSPs) and managed security service providers (MSSPs). Read more…

Microsoft is switching from Intel to AMD chips in its coming new Surface.

German IT outlet WinFuture reported that Microsoft’s new Surface laptop will use an AMD CPU, and will be unveiled at its hardware event on 2 October.

“There are some open questions around the new Microsoft Surface Laptop 3, but so far neither exact specifications nor first pictures are available. However, due to a series of corresponding entries in non-public databases of European retailers, we are confident that the new Surface Laptop 3 15-inch model will definitely be equipped with AMD CPUs.

“According to the current state, we have encountered three AMD-based models of the Surface Laptop 3 with a 15-inch display, although this number may of course change. It is still unclear whether Microsoft might also offer the 15-inch model, at least as an option, with Intel chips, but we do not have any relevant information yet.”

Intel has been suffering a supply shortage for the past number of quarters and had expected the issue to be resolved in its Q2, but in its last earnings report, it extended this to Q3.

AMD has taken advantage of its competitor’s woes and has carved out an increasingly larger slice of the market in recent years.

The dark satanic rumour mill has manufactured a hell on earth yarn claiming that Avaya is in talks to form a joint venture with RingCentral.

The source of the rumour is Bloomberg. Last month, Bloomberg reported that Mitel had made a bid to takeover the Avaya, proposing a reverse merger that would result in a telecommunications vendor worth over $5 billion.

If Avaya is now in talks to partner with RingCentral, it could mean abandoning any plans to sell the company. The sources added that there is still a possibility that those talks could collapse and the outcome of the strategic review remains uncertain.

In its Q3 earnings report in August, Avaya CEO Jim Chirico told investors that the company was in talks with a number of parties “on a range of strategic transactions to maximise shareholder value”.

He said at the time that he expected the strategic review would conclude within 30 days, but that timeline has now expired. Read more…

IT provider Ivanti has splashed out cash on sprucing up its EMEA partner community.

The programme now includes three new EMEA channel initiatives for businesses: a new Platinum Elite partner status, a deal registration promotional period, as well as an enhanced partner portal.

The new Platinum Elite level of Ivanti’s Partner Program has been designed to recognise those partners driving Unified IT to their customers and reward those with whom it has developed strategic and collaborative working relationships.

Softcat, COMPAREX, SCC and Invent AG have already been given top status, but Ivanti says it aims to expand the collective to include additional partners.

Due to be implemented in a “multi-stage process”, the new hub will include full integration with Ivanti’s internal Customer Relationship Management system from Autumn of this year.

The addition will allow SLAs to be added to all deal registrations to track and guarantee response times, as well as speed up the time it takes to deliver solutions to customers.

From January 2020, phase two of the portal upgrade will also see distribution partners able to quote new business directly from the portal, Ivanti added, to enable order to license fulfilment within 15 minutes.