Category: News

WalkMe hires Hatsor as its new Senior Vice President of EMEA Sales

Posted on November 14, 2023 by - News

WalkMe has appointed  Ofir Hatsor as its new Senior Vice President of EMEA Sales.

The new regional sales leader will take on the increasing demand for WalkMe’s Digital Adoption Platform (DAP) as businesses across industries seek to maximise the value from its software investments while boosting productivity and provide “seamless user experiences” for users with seams.

Hatsor returns to WalkMe after serving as the CEO of DGTL Ventures, one of WalkMe’s strongest implementation partners in the EMEA region. He previously held the role of Executive Vice President of International Sales for WalkMe and brings his learnings from his recent chief executive role back to WalkMe.

He will take on the burgeoning demand for digital adoption technology in EMEA, leading dedicated sales teams in London, Paris, and Munich.

Hatsor said: “As a veteran in the digital adoption space, it’s an honor to rejoin the original DAP pioneer and market leader and take a front seat to the innovation being built every day at WalkMe.”

 

 

Midwich buys prodyTel

Posted on November 14, 2023 by - News

Midwich Group snaps up professional audio and technical solutions products distributor prodyTel Distribution.

The outfit will acquire 51 per cent of prodyTel’s share capital for £7.4 million with plans to buy the rest in June 2024 for £7.1 million. An additional performance-linked £4.8 million will be payable in cash in 2026.

Midwich Group MD Stephen Fenby said: “We are delighted to have reached an agreement to acquire prodyTel, which will strengthen our technology offering in the DACH region.

Based in Stein, Germany prodyTel was founded in 2003, originally as a manufacturer of audio codecs before switching its focus to distribution in 2014.

Becthle business grows by six per cent

Posted on November 13, 2023 by - News

Reseller Becthle reported a six per cent increase in business volume to €1.9 billion in its third quarter of 2023.

The outfit’s earnings before tax (EBT) increased 6.4 per cent to €93.9 million, and its EBT margin grew from 6 per cent to 6.3 per cent.

The company’s incoming orders during the third quarter surged 18.3 per cent.

Bechtle chairman of the executive board, Dr Thomas Olemotz, said: “Although our medium-sized customers, in particular, are still rather reluctant to invest, we can compensate for this situation using the positive performance of our software and service business as well as the stable demand of our large customers and public-sector clients.”

NHS contract appears to have gone to Palantir

Posted on November 13, 2023 by - News

The UK government has quietly awarded big data analytics firm Palantir a £0.5 billion contract to create an NHS patient data platform.

Health news website Digital Health said that the contract for the Federated Data Platform has been awarded to Palantir but failed to give any sources.

Digital Health reported that Ming Tang, chief data and analytics officer for NHS England, told health IT experts at an event last week that the procurement was complete, but the sign-off was with ministers.

The contract is is controversial because the contract had been rumoured to have been given to the controversial company for several months before the procurement process had been completed.

Even now an NHS spokesperson insists that NHS England is still in a procurement process and will make an announcement in due course.

Kick acquires Dundee’s C2 Software

Posted on November 10, 2023 by - News

Cloudy reselling outfit, Kick has acquired Microsoft Dynamics business C2 Software.

The deal is Kick’s ninth in eight years as the business continues to focus on expanding its service offerings to customers across the UK.

The deal is designed to grow Kick’s Dynamics division – with more product options, services, and support for both SMEs and large enterprises.

By acquiring a specialist in Microsoft Dynamics services, Kick is hoping to continue its expansion as an IT service provider in the UK.

AI not a priority yet

Posted on November 10, 2023 by - News

Beancounters at Gartner have added up some numbers and divided by their collective shoe size and worked out that IT spending in Europe is projected to total $1.1 trillion in 2024, an increase of 9.3 per cent.

But the report said that, despite all the hype, AI is not something that companies are making a priority — yet.

Within the five key areas of managed services – datacentre, application, customer product, network, workspace, service desk, Europe is expected to bring in $69.5 billion in 2024, growing 6.9 per cent.

NTT DATA snaps up Sapphire

Posted on November 9, 2023 by - News

NTT DATA Business Solutions has snapped up London-HQ channel partner Sapphire to improve its  ServiceNow business.

Sapphire has a headcount of around 420 people and delivers software and services to primarily mid-market customers in the US and UK through its partnerships with SAP, ServiceNow and more.

The buy out will help NTT DATA improve its efforts in the SAP mid-market sector while Sapphire, will help its global expansion.

Cisco shakes up flagship incentives

Posted on November 9, 2023 by - News

Cisco has shaken-up its flagship incentives for hardware, software, and as-a-service solution partners.

The networking vendor is adding up to six new solution specialisations within the next nine months.

Cisco VP of partner strategy and programmes Marc Surplus said the new Cisco Partner Incentive is the biggest change his outfit has made in more than a decade and is the capstone on the Cisco partner programme evolution started in 2020.

“In broadening Cisco’s suite of solution specialisations, we are helping our partners differentiate in the market and demonstrate their expertise in the technologies and solutions sought by customers,” he said.

Punters are still refusing to take their tablets

Posted on November 8, 2023 by - News

Global tablet shipments declined by 14.2 per cent year-over-year in the third quarter of 2023, totalling 33.2 million units.

According to some figures created by IDC beancounters,  Chromebooks contracted in the third quarter with shipments totalling 3.5 million units and marking a year-over-year drop of 20.8 per cent.

IDC number crunchers think the Chromebook market may have some resilience due to a pending refresh in the education segment and available budgets within government spending.

Exclusive Networks has a good third quarter

Posted on November 8, 2023 by - News

Exclusive Networks has had a good third quarter and seen gross sales up nine per cent.

EMEA saw the biggest growth for the security outfit, reaching gross sales of €973million which is a 14 per cent increase.

The region benefitted from momentum resulting from the quality of vendor portfolio across all countries, Exclusive said.

Most of the reported growth (five per cent) was driven by business with existing vendors in their current geographies.

Fraudulent data roaming traffic set to grow

Posted on November 7, 2023 by - News

Juniper Research has released a study in which growth in fraudulent data roaming traffic will reach 218 PB by 2028, driven by the evolution of sophisticated dishonest tactics such as SIM card swapping.

The new report, Global Roaming Fraud Market 2023-2028, predicts that Global outbound roaming data will grow from 230,000 PB in 2023 to over 2.2 million PB by 2028, driven by the rise of data-intensive 5G roaming connections.

However, this growth in roaming traffic will lead to increased opportunities for fraudsters, such as SIM box fraud, where data is allocated through local routes rather than monetisable roaming channels.

Smart Communications appoints Leigh Segall

Posted on November 7, 2023 by - News

Smart Communications has appointed Leigh Segall to be its new Chief Executive Officer.

James Brown, who has served as CEO for over five years, will assume the role of Executive Chairman of the Board.

Apparently, the management reshuffle will position it for “continued innovation and growth.”

Leigh joined Smart Communications in 2017 as Chief Marketing Officer, bringing over a decade of executive experience within the enterprise SaaS technology space.

As CMO, she played a pivotal role in driving consistent double-digit growth, the integration of acquired brands, and the development and launch of the Conversation Cloud™. Leigh was appointed President in February 2023.

Cisco taps Microsoft’s Rodney Clark as SME senior VP

Posted on November 7, 2023 by - News

Cisco has announced that Rodney Clark will join the company as Senior Vice President, Partnerships and Small and Medium Business.

Clark has a history as a global sales and business leader with deep channel experience.

In his new Cisco job, Clark will work on the company’s global ecosystem of marketplaces and the company’s position in managed services and cloud marketplaces, helping Cisco and its partners do better in the SME market.

Clark has worked for Microsoft for the last 25 years and held various senior sales leadership positions, including Corporate VP, Global Channel Sales and Channel Chief.

Before Microsoft, he spent nine years with IBM in sales, marketing, and management capacities. Most recently, he was the Chief Commercial Officer at Johnson Controls.

Lumen sells EMEA business to Colt

Posted on November 6, 2023 by - News

Lumen Technologies has sold its European, Middle Eastern, and African (EMEA) business to Colt Technology Services in a deal that will give the outfit $1.8  billion.

Lumen plans to use the proceeds on debt reduction, which will free the company up to fund its plans for future growth, which include a focus on Network as a Service (NaaS) – specifically, the Lumen Internet on Demand offering, fibre, and Secure Access Service Edge (SASE).

Flogging the family silver has been part of the company’s strategy over the last year as things have not been going very well for the outfit.

Lumen in November 2022 announced the exclusive arrangement for the proposed sale of its EMEA business to Colt Technology Services.

The company in 2022 also finalised the $7.5 billion sale of its incumbent local exchange carrier (ILEC) business, which included its consumer, small business, wholesale and mostly copper-served enterprise customers and assets in 20 states to Brightspeed, a brand new company that launched its operations last fall.

Smart traffic management could be the next big thing

Posted on November 6, 2023 by - News

A new study by Juniper Research found by 2028, smart traffic management spending will be up 75 per cent from a 2023 figure of $10.6 billion.

This significant growth will be due to increasing government funding for smart city initiatives, with transport being at the centre of urban transformation projects.

Juniper found it is vital to deploy traffic analysis and systems at the earliest stage of city planning to avoid costly retrofits later, given the fundamental nature and impact of traffic flow on a city’s infrastructure.

Research author Cara Malone said: “Cities need to avoid solutions that will likely become obsolete quickly or result in vendor lock-in. By opening their process to a wide pool of vendors and developers, cities will encourage innovation and interest from various stakeholders and partners.”