Category: News

US/China trade war will harm smartphone shipments

Posted on June 5, 2019 by - News

The US and China  trade war will hurt global smartphone shipments in 2019, according to Canalys.

The research outfit predicts that smartphone shipments will reach 1.35 billion units this year, representing a 3.1 percent year-on-year decline.

Chinese manufacturer Huawei has been a key figure in the dispute between the two superpowers, with the US last month banning the vendor from using American components and code for its products. It then issued a 90-day reprieve in order to prevent huge disruption to Huawei’s supply chain and users.

Sophos takes Rook

Posted on June 4, 2019 by - News

Sophos has acquired US-based Rook Security to provide managed detection and response (MDR) to its channel partners.

Rook was founded in 2008 and is headquartered in Indianapolis. Sophos said the acquisition adds to its recent deal for DarkBytes, which was announced in January.

Joe Levy, chief technology officer at Sophos, said: “Cybercriminals are relentlessly trying to exploit organisations with techniques ranging from tried-and-true phishing emails to the more recent trend of ‘hacker pen-testing’ to find weaknesses in their surface area.

There’s a skills gap for digital roles

Posted on June 4, 2019 by - News

A CBI/TCS report has highlighted the UK’s rapidly accelerating digital talent gap and claims that the country is missing out on £63 billion a year as companies struggle to find people with digital skills.

The report, entitled report “Delivering Skills for the New Economy” warns that the skills gap could  jeopardise the country’s competitiveness, deter investment and limit people’s ability to access the jobs and services that technology offers.

GCI gets extra Modality

Posted on June 4, 2019 by - News

Converged ICT Services Provider GCI has acquired Modality Systems, which claims to be the world’s largest dedicated Microsoft communications and collaboration practice with operations in the UK, USA, Asia and Australia.

The move means GCI can expand its international business and capitalise on the growing global market for its Microsoft-based, cloud-enabled intelligent communications services.

Industrial internet market could slow

Posted on June 3, 2019 by - News

The $145 billion industrial internet market is at risk of slowdown over integration concerns, according to GlobalData analysts.

If this is the case, the industrial internet, which is expected to redefine the way the global industrial economy operates, is in danger of failing to take off because of integration problems, GlobalData said.

Juniper named as BT cloud supplier

Posted on June 3, 2019 by - News

Juniper Networks has been chosen by British Telecommunications (BT) to deliver its Network Cloud infrastructure initiative. This deployment will pave the way for BT’s Network Cloud roll-out – and also enable a more flexible, virtualised network infrastructure that can deliver the technology requirements of various lines of business for BT from a single platform.

Software demonstrations might be pointless

Posted on May 31, 2019 by - News

It might be that providing software demos to customers are a waste of time.

Research by Peter Cohan, author of Great Demo! suggests that nearly half of all software demonstrations given during the sales process are “wasted” because they are premature.

“Software vendors often attempt to use an ‘overview’ demo to start a dialog with a customer – and may try to use these to do Discovery along the way. If you ask presales managers how many of these ‘overview’ demos actually lead to a qualified prospect, the answer can be painfully low”, said Cohan.

We need more AI education

Posted on May 31, 2019 by - News

Many firms are in the dark over AI and need better training on its advantages

According to research into US firms from CompTIA just 29 percent of firms are using AI regularly, which is not much different from 2017.

The industry group has found that UK businesses are often following the same trends and reported that a lack of knowledge is holding back customers with more than half the customer base admitting to having a low understanding of the technology.

Tech Data’s Euro revenues slide and fall

Posted on May 31, 2019 by - News

Tech Data’s European revenues tumbled the first quarter and CEO Rich Hume expects things to get worse this year.

Tech Data was doing well worldwide and Europe was the only region to under perform. Revenues in Europe slumped by eight percent year on year to $4.3 billion.

Across the pond the Americas segment was meanwhile elevated by a five percent year on year revenue boost to $3.8 billion, while Asia Pacific sales jumped by 15 percent to $310 million.

Avaya releases new cloud product

Posted on May 30, 2019 by - News, Products

Avaya introduced its new cloud-native, Unified-Communications-as-a-Service product to its partners.

The system runs on the Google Cloud Platform.

Initially available in 24 markets globally, this new offer enables Avaya partners to move SMBs more effectively to Google Cloud communications.

Colt uses ADVA gear

Posted on May 30, 2019 by - News

ADVA announced that Colt Technology Services is using its ADVA FSP 150 with ConnectGuard security technology to deliver its new Ethernet Line Encryption service.

It’s said to provide end-to-end data protection for low-latency high-speed performance of up to 10Gbit/s. It claims to protect enterprises dealing with overly sensitive information to simply and  safeguard against increasing security threats and meets strict new regulatory requirements including the EU’s GDPR.

Major PC renewal cycle kicks off next year

Posted on May 30, 2019 by - News

The end of Microsoft’s support for Windows 7 at the start of next year will create a spurt of PC renewal throughout the rest of 2019, according to beancounters at IDC.

According to IDC, shipments of traditional PCs (desktops, notebooks and workstations) will decline by 0.4 percent year on year in 2019, but the commercial market will experience “significant growth” as a result of the operating system upgrades.

CSI gets Fresche

Posted on May 29, 2019 by - News

CSI has partnered with Fresche Solutions (Fresche), a provider of IBM “i” modernisation solutions, to unblock access to the cloud for IBM “i” applications.

CSI’s private cloud offering (CSI PowerCloud) allows IBM i and AIX systems to be migrated to the cloud and directly connected to the world’s leading public clouds whatever the platform.

Managed services and hosting is pulled all over the place

Posted on May 29, 2019 by - News

While most attendees at the third annual Managed Services and Hosting summit this week in Amsterdam thought life was grand, many of them reported that the industry was being pulled in different directions.

Several surveys discussed for the first time at the event point to continuing growth in what is a maturing industry, but issues remain on customer relationship management, security and a lack of skilled resources.