Category: News

RedstoneConnect is flogging off its managed services and system integration divisions for £21.6 million.

The outfit said that it wants to focus solely on software development.

In a note to the London Stock Exchange,  RedstoneConnect said it would offload two of its three divisions, leaving it with just its software unit.

Included in the sale is Commensus Limited, which RedstoneConnect acquired in 2016, and Comunica Holdings.

RedstoneConnect CEO Mark Braund said: “The proposed disposal of our systems integration and managed services divisions represents another exciting development in the evolution of our business.

“Since the acquisition of Connect IB in 2016, we have been developing our smart software solution capabilities with a particular focus on OneSpace, our occupancy management software solution.

“We firmly believe that the significant global demand for workspace management solutions, coupled with the market-leading suite of services already being deployed within our software division, creates an ideal base from which to accelerate our growth.”

RedstoneConnect’s financial results for the year ending 31 January 2018, showed total revenue was up 15 percent year on year to £47.57 million.

The sale of the MSP and SI divisions will see the firm’s revenue decline 89 percent, leaving it with the £5.3 million software unit.

The SI arm reported revenue of £24.21 million and gross profit of £3.7 8 million while the MSP division reported an income of £18 million and a gross profit of £5.14 million.

Digitisation and the disruptive effects of the online revolution are among the greatest business priorities over the next two years, according to a survey of business leaders in GCC countries.

At the same time, increasing threats to companies from online hackers is placing a much greater emphasis on the need for cybersecurity.

Digitisation and the disruptive effects of the online revolution are among the greatest business priorities in the Gulf over the next two years, according to a survey of business leaders in GCC countries published by FT | IE Corporate Learning Alliance in the annual Pulse Report

The findings come from a survey of business leaders: Global Perspectives on Corporate Learning in the GCC, commissioned by the Financial Times | IE Business School Corporate Learning Alliance.

The research is conducted annually and seeks the opinions of almost 1,000 businesspeople in GCC, Western Europe, China and Japan on issues around leadership development and executive education.

Vice President of Corporate Partnerships said that the digital revolution is transforming the Middle East and the rise of big data is driving new market entrants, particularly in the financial, insurance and HR sectors in GCC countries. Tech is fast becoming the number one disrupter of established business practices in the region.

According to the Corporate Leaning Pulse report, while the top three business priorities for 2017 globally were growth, strategy and financial management, over a third of business executives surveyed in the GCC identified digitalisation as one of their top business challenges in the next two years, alongside business growth and financial management.

Ingram Micro told the assorted throngs at its Cloud Summit that channel partners are not selling enough cloud subscriptions

Ingram Micro Cloud, director of Cloud & Software UK&I Apay Obang-Oyway, said that selling subscriptions was how you move from being a build partner to a scale partner. However many of its partners are still selling one or a few subscriptions to their customers.

“The breath customers make up about 30 percent of the base and they are selling three to six subscriptions but when you look at the cross-sell it’s only 10 percent of their customer base they are cross-selling into, which means 90% of their base they are only selling one subscription, which tends to be Microsoft Office 365”, he added.

Digital transformation customers were looking to drive greater change and were looking to digitise their business, which meant that more solutions and subscriptions needed to be sold to them.

“The opportunity to working with us is to move along the roadmap from build to scaling the business and you are able to get greater customer reach and depth”, said Obang-Oyway.

He added that some of the causes for reticence in those selling low numbers of subscriptions were due to the challenges that some partners were facing transforming their own businesses to sell cloud services.

“In many cases the partner is going through the transition from being a traditional IT player to becoming a services orientated, cloud-first business and that takes time and has its challenges and you have to work your way through that. It is all about being fast and fluid and what we are saying to partners is that you have to have a tunnel vision about that change”, he added. “It is adapt or die without a doubt.”

Some top US websites are unavailable in Europe, and several of the top web companies are being investigated after new EU data protection rules came into effect on Friday.

The Chicago Tribune and LA Times were among those saying they were currently unavailable in most European countries.

Within hours of the law starting complaints were filed against US tech giants within hours of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) taking effect. Facebook, Google, Instagram and WhatsApp are accused of forcing users to consent to targeted advertising to use the services.

Under the rules, companies working in the EU – or any association or club in the bloc – must show they have a lawful basis for processing personal data or face hefty fines.

There are six legal bases for using personal data, including getting express consent from consumers. However, in most cases, firms must also show that they need the personal data for a specific purpose.

News sites within the Tronc and Lee Enterprises media publishing groups were affected. This includes the New York Daily News, Chicago Tribune, LA Times, Orlando Sentinel and Baltimore Sun.

Its message read: “Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in most European countries. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to the EU market.”

The new chairwoman of the European Data Protection Board, Andrea Jelinek, told the FT she expected cases to be filed “imminently”.

“If the complainants come, we will be ready,” she said.

Bean counters at Canalys have added up some numbers and have concluded that the long slide of the PC market might be over.

Windows 10, and the arrival of Device as a Service (DaaS) and some marketing have all paid off.

Canalys is forecasting a 2.1 percent decline this year, which is set to be the smallest reduction for the last four years and should usher in a period of stability and peace on earth.

The consumer end of the market has been a significant problem over the last 18 months and although demand will remain weak the decision by vendors to get canny and focus on specific areas, like gaming machines, is starting to pay some dividends.

Canalys research analyst Ishan Dutt said the channel was starting to get a handle on the consumer market and work out what customers want.

“Despite the sector’s weak performance, there are lower barriers to entry from a channel perspective compared with the commercial sector. Huawei and Xiaomi are already attempting to disrupt selected markets, but neither yet has a range of products or channel, partners to trouble the incumbents,” he said.

Dutt said that growth was also possible in the more lucrative commercial market.

“Commercial customers will be a vital driver for PC shipments in 2018. Vendors now have several strategic options for achieving growth. Firstly, several vendors are now tracking their customers that are still running Windows 7 and will specifically target these accounts with sales teams. Secondly, vendors will invest further in Device as a Service (DaaS) offerings, which lock-in PC refresh cycles,” he said.

Although DaaS is a good idea but flogging the model is proving trick for some resellers.

“Shifting from a transactional to contractual model is a major operational challenge for customers and channel partners, and this will prevent DaaS becoming a major revenue stream in the near-term,” said Dutt.

Another area that should reap some growth, and has already caught the eye of some distributors, is the option to push the Chromebook product line into some verticals, with education one of the main targets.

Coms outfit Chess saw its revenues swelled above £110 million in its year to 30 April 2017 after sweeping the board in mergers in acquisitions.

Recently it bought the Frontier Voice & Data and StoneHouse Logic and added more than 2,200 customers as a result.

Chess’ revenues swelled above £110 million in its year to 30 April 2017 on the back of an M&A run that has taken in over 100 firms.

Essex-based Frontier provides business-grade telecoms solutions and boasts around 2,000 customers. StoneHouse Logic is a Microsoft Gold and Sage Strategic Business partner.

Chess CEO David Pollock said: “We’re delighted to have made these two acquisitions in the space of one month. Frontier and StoneHouse are businesses that have built reputations for quality in their respective markets. Technically and culturally, we see these two acquisitions as a great fit. We are very much looking forward to welcoming their people and their customers to the Chess family.”

MSP Barracuda has released a report with the catchy title “The Evolving Landscape of the MSP Business”, which reveals the vast majority of UK SMEs are now subscribing to some form of IT managed services. However, narrow adoption and a lack of trust in third-party data governance means there’s still more work to be done.

This research is a detailed analysis of the appetite and application of managed IT services within UK SMEs. The views of those offering managed services have been compared with the observations of those who are using them to gain a comprehensive understanding of the opportunities and challenges likely to affect further growth in this sector.

The report shows widespread adoption with 95 percent of the UK channel offers managed services, and 83 percent of UK SMEs are using them.

IT channel cites managed services as the No.1 revenue opportunity in 2018 and 2019

It predicts that managed service adoption remains narrow. The services most commonly offered by MSPs don’t match the services most commonly purchased by UK SMEs.

Trust is an issue with  83 percent of UK SMEs who won’t touch managed services cite lack of trust to handle their data as the reason. Less than eight percent of UK SMEs either never received a contract from their MSP or admit to having never read the Ts & Cs.

While it could be said that the findings paint a competitive market with a generally positive outlook, clearly there remain many areas for MSPs to work on to improve the experience and commercial benefits for all concerned.

As part of the research, it partnered with independent IT analyst Clive Longbottom, which provides a foreword and independent conclusions from the findings. “On the surface, it’s logical that the desire to reduce capex while increasing efficiency, coupled with the need to overcome a lack of available skills internally to battle mounting security threats, would prompt many to turn to managed services”, he commented.

“Although the research reveals cost reduction as the biggest motive behind opting for managed services, I’ve warned in the report that any relationship with a supplier should not be purely driven by upfront perceived cost savings”, Longbottom said. “Effective cost savings will come through the MSP meeting the business needs against multiple areas, such as high availability and effective information protection. Even so, the market cannot stand still. Moving forward, it will the more integrated, business-focused offerings pulling together more services from around the public cloud while combining the discrete and demonstrable skills of the MSP itself around domain and technical expertise that will raise the bar.”