Category: News

Cray gets nukes

Posted on November 6, 2019 by - News

Global supercomputer leader Cray, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company, announced that the United Kingdom’s Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) has selected the Cray Shasta supercomputer to look after its nukes.

The Shasta system, purpose-built for the exascale era, was chosen due to its ability to run mixed workloads and applications at the best total cost of ownership (TCO) for a system across five years.

AWE’s supercomputer, named Vulcan, will feature a single Shasta supercomputer with a performance of more than 7 petaflops. Shasta will play an integral role in maintaining the UK’s nukes.

Simpson Associates couples with Information Builders

Posted on November 6, 2019 by - News

Business intelligence analytics, and data management outfit Information Builders announced that Simpson Associates, a leading data analytics consultancy, has joined the company’s Partner Programme as a Signature Partner.

Through this new partnership, Simpson Associates will provide its clients in the UK government, education, housing, retail, media, publishing, legal, and manufacturing sectors with data quality and master data management solutions based on Information Builders’ Omni-Gen technology.

Cybersecurity budgets missing

Posted on November 6, 2019 by - News

Cybersecurity budgets are failing to keep pace with the rise in cyber threats, according to new research, which has found that half (50 percent) of IT decision-makers say their security budget won’t increase before at least 2021.

In contrast, just 18 percent of respondents expect their budget to increase by double-digits within the next two years, while a quarter only (28 percent) forecast single-digit growth.

The study, by ESET, the security solutions provider, questioned 100 IT decision-makers on their attitudes and future plans around cybersecurity. With previous studies showing that cyber-attacks are growing year-on-year and that security spending in the UK is already the lowest in Europe, the findings suggest that the budget that organisations are allocating to combatting cyber-crime does not match the risks they face.

ESET appoints new UK channel boss

Posted on November 5, 2019 by - Moving People, News

Cybersecurity and anti-virus outfit ESET has appointed David Mole as its new UK channel director.

The outfit has been carrying out some improvements to its channel model of late to provide “perfectly matched skills and expertise” and enhance customer service for its 3,000-strong partner base in the UK.

Huawei woos Euro partners

Posted on November 5, 2019 by - Events, News

Yan Lida, president of enterprise business group, Huawei, started its Eco-Connect Europe’s second day here, in Paris, today.

He opened by saying the US Department of Commerce has put Huawei on a blacklist and that “shocked the whole world”, but nevertheless in the first three quarters Huawei managed to grow its business by 24 percent.

HPE improves partner support

Posted on November 5, 2019 by - News

HPE is sprucing up its partner support as part of its drive towards an aaS model.

HPE started talking about subscription models back in June, setting a 2022 deadline to offer customers a choice of subscription-based pay-as-you-go and as a Service offering on its portfolio.

New technologies set to grow

Posted on November 5, 2019 by - News

UK business investment in new technologies such as quantum computing, blockchain and other distributed ledger technologies, and artificial intelligence (AI) is set to jump in the next five years.

The  CBI and Accenture Tech Tracker survey indicates the proportion of firms seeking to invest in quantum computing is set to nearly triple (from 11 percent today to 32 percent in five years). Though still in its research phase it has the potential to speed up complex calculations – doing in just a few minutes what a computer would take thousands of years to do.

Microsoft backs down

Posted on November 4, 2019 by - News

Software King of the World, Microsoft, has backed down its much-criticised self-service scheme and made it possible for IT departments to switch off.

The move would have let employees within an organisation bypass their IT departments to buy licenses for three Office 365 products –  for Power BI, PowerApps and Flow using just their Azure Active Directory (AD) login details and own payment details, without having to consult with their IT departments.

CDW doing well

Posted on November 4, 2019 by - News

CDW has reported a record third quarter as sales neared $5 billion.

For the quarter ending 30 September, the reseller giant saw revenue climb 12.2 percent, while net income rose 9.8 per cent to just over $200 million.

Less than half of cybersecurity professionals can handle IoT attacks,

Posted on November 4, 2019 by - News

Only half of cybersecurity professionals have a plan in place to deal with attacks on their IoT devices and equipment, despite that fact that nine out of ten express concerns over future threats, according to new research from the Neustar International Security Council (NISC).

These findings come at a time in which 48 percent of organisations admitted to experiencing a cyberattack against their IoT or connected devices and equipment in the last year alone. Just over a quarter reported feeling ‘very confident’ that their personnel would know how to protect against such attacks, while 38 percent claimed they are in the process of developing a plan.

Cloud infrastructure services market soars

Posted on November 1, 2019 by - News

The worldwide cloud infrastructure services market increased by 37 percent  in the third quarter, according to beancounters at Canalys.

As you might expect AWS was at the top, followed by Microsoft Azure then Google Cloud.

Canalys research analyst Daniel Liu said that a lot of customers were using a mixture of providers to house their data and applications the analyst house is arguing that the big cloud providers need to make sure they have a decent network of channel relationships to reach the largest number of customers.

Giacom helps resellers to get server smart

Posted on November 1, 2019 by - News

Giacom, a reseller-only Cloud Services Provider (CSP), has launched its newest product, Cloud Server. Powered by Azure, Cloud Server claims to be a simple out-of-the-box replacement for an on-premises end of life server.

The outfit said that the cloud services market has grown rapidly over recent years and is projected to grow exponentially through to 2022. Yet, the complexity and pay-as-you-go pricing models of Azure can be a steep learning curve for IT companies supporting small businesses. Cloud Server, fits in the market by offering a simple, fixed cost server solution hosted in the cloud.

Computacenter’s business bounces back

Posted on October 31, 2019 by - News

Computacenter has seen its business bouncing back after a challenging first half.

The reseller saw strong trading across the whole group, with revenue and profitability well ahead of its 2018 Q3 year-to-date performance, without taking acquisitions into account.

Computacenter’s Technology Sourcing and product business continued to flourish in the UK, it added.

Avaya denies losing partners

Posted on October 31, 2019 by - News

Avaya has denied that it is losing partners because it lacks a cloud product.

For those who came in late rival, Genesys claimed it was luring away Avaya and Alcatel partners because it has a bulky cloud offering which customers loved.

Avaya maintains it does have cloud options, pointing to the recent UK rollout of its enterprise private cloud offering dubbed ReadyNow. 

ContactEngine scores a gong

Posted on October 31, 2019 by - News

ContactEngine, the conversational AI technology used by large corporations to automate customer communications, together with BT’s Enterprise business, has won a gong in the category of ‘Use of Technology’ at the UK Customer Experience Awards 2019.

The award recognises the success of BT’s ‘Brilliant Installations’ initiative, whereby its Enterprise unit implemented ContactEngine conversations across broadband and landline customer services in order to deliver a ‘brilliant customer experience’.