Category: News

AI Eptica gets in on Gartner’s magic roundabout

Posted on May 22, 2017 by - News

magic-roundaboutEptica has been included in Gartner “Magic Quadrant for the CRM Customer Engagement Center (CEC)” for the fourth year running.

This is the fourth consecutive year that Eptica has appeared in this Magic Quadrant.

Olivier Njamfa, CEO and co-founder of Eptica said that the digital customer experience market is changing rapidly, driven by the rise of artificial intelligence and increasing consumer demands, and is becoming ever-more central to business success.

“I am therefore very proud that Eptica has retained its position in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for the CRM Customer Engagement Center,” Njamfa said.

According to Gartner, this Magic Quadrant for the CRM Customer Engagement Center examines the global market for customer service and support applications designed to enable customer service and support agents to engage customers through their preferred communication channel.

The functionalities evaluated in this Magic Quadrant include those for knowledge-enabled service resolution, social media/community management and offer management.

Also evaluated are interaction assistance tools and service analytics dashboards. Ideally, the applications should have tools for both agents and customers, and the vendors should have a clear point of view on how to escalate customer support from self-service to human agents and back again, while retaining the context of the interaction for reporting and future customer engagements.

Gartner evaluated vendors on their completeness of vision and ability to pull it off.

Eptica has been pouring cash in to Natural Language Processing (NLP) and linguistics.

“Coupled with our strong, self-learning knowledge management capabilities, this means we are ideally positioned to help brands deliver digital CX across email, chat, social media and self-service, through a single, cloud-based platform, ” Njamfa said.

Windows Server shrinks its footprint  

Posted on May 19, 2017 by - News

giantfootprintSoftware King of the World, Microsoft, has shrunk Windows Server’s footprint when you run it in Azure.

The slimmed down version of Windows Server is destined for use in Azure’s Managed Disks. This is a storage option that allows the creation of disks without first creating a storage account and without the need to manually assign a universal resource indicator.

Microsoft offers Managed Disks at 32GB, 64GB, 128GB, 512GB and a terabyte, with the two smallest sizes a recent addition. But it looks like users had trouble squeezing Windows into the little ones, because Microsoft’s now announced it has “added a second set of Windows Server offerings with 30GB OS disks for Windows Server 2008R2, Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2012R2 and Windows Server 2016”.

Microsoft channel partners can now put it into 32GB Managed Disks and save customers “US$2.18 per VM if you choose to deploy with 32GB Standard Managed OS disk vs. 127GB”.

Windows Server 2012 could be installed onto a 32 GB partition that was an absolute minimum value needed for successful installation. It was providing a  Windows Server Core with IIS and no GUI, which was not very useful.

The new Azure version, though, makes it fit rather well into the tighter partition which makes it an easier sale.

HPE channel boss spills the beans

Posted on May 19, 2017 by - News

C--zInpVYAAfVBaThe recently appointed global channel chief at HPE said that he is working out a cunning plan to ensure partners navigate through an era of “digital transformation”.

Denzil Samuels joined HPE from GE Digital. He said that “digital transformation” is an industrial revolution there are lots of technology shifts going on at the edge.

Samuels thinks that HPE has the best plan, portfolio and partner programme to take advantage of the change that is going on in the world.

However, he now wants to take the plan to the next level which means announcing pay at net, which lets HPE partners get the highest level of back-end rebates in the industry. It is also announcing the inclusion and development of competencies.

HPE already has product certifications but now Samuels wants to introduce “competencies”, because knowing how to use the  product portfolio and putting it into an outcome for the customer is the way “to drive success”.

To do that you need to have the competencies, the industrial or vertical know how and the horizontal know how, Samuels said.

HPE had a partner programme which encourages different types of partner categories, different geographies and countries, different verticals, different horizontal solutions and different business models.

Samuels said that one size does not fit all but embraces the dynamic nature of the market but taking the very complicated but making it simple.

HPE is planning a new “solution” to do all that already but it is still on the drawing board. The plan is to do a cautioned roll out of some of it over the next year to 18 months.

He said that HPE did not want to disrupt what is already 70 percent of its business, which comes from the channel.

TechUK and FSB give election candidates their wish-lists

Posted on May 19, 2017 by - News

pinocchio-17Lobby group TechUK has brought forward its requests to those hoping to be elected.

It is calling for more of a proactive stance by the next government on digital technology.

TechUK CEO Julian David said that the pace of global digitisation will not slow down and the UK had a choice about whether we want to shape the digital future or be shaped by it.

“The course of the next parliament will see significant technological developments in the way we work and live. It’s crucial that all political parties avoid broad brush and reactionary policy solutions to the complex challenges of the digital age. Politicians must do all they can to cultivate a world-leading tech sector, where a new wave of tech talent can start and scale the next generation of world leading tech companies,” he said.

Resellers want tougher steps to tackle late payers and to make supply chain bullying illegal. Federation of Small Businesses Chairman Mike Cherry has also asked future governments to step up and do something.

He said that there are a series of decisions required by new Government Ministers in their first 100 days in office.

These include export support to tackling our late payments crisis, to co-funding apprenticeships and a new consensus on the future of business rates, to the survival of small businesses.

“Our manifesto sets out what small businesses want to see from all major parties and candidates standing on 8 June. Millions of votes are at stake,” said Cherry.

Excelero gets closer to Micron

Posted on May 19, 2017 by - News

dc34c48293d48b194affb44168216351Micron has written a cheque investing in Excelero, the software supplier for its SolidScale all-flash NVME array.

SolidScale has been around since May and is a serious bit of kit with NVME SSDS and an NVMe over Fabrics class access latency, adding one percent to the access latency of a direct-attached NVMe SSD.

It uses Excelero’s NVMesh server SAN software. SolidScale can function as a shared external array block target, made up from from clustered server nodes, or as a virtual SAN in a hyper-converged style configuration.

The investment is a few million, although no one is saying officially how much.

Excelero was founded in 2014 and has had a single £20 million funding round in 2015.

The investment moves Micron closer access to Excelero’s software development, and a better ability to tune its SSD controller software to optimise SSD performance characteristics of the software.

It might help Excelero software to make better use of QLC (4 bits/cell) flash drives.

3D Scanners joins Strathclyde’s Advanced Forming Research Centre

Posted on May 19, 2017 by - News

SCANNERS - Italian Poster 3UK Polyworks Software reseller 3D Scanners has signed up to work with Strathclyde University’s Advanced Forming Research Centre.

Polyworks is computer based technology used by manufacturers across the world when designing or analysing products. The Coventry based company is interested in the AFRC’s work in reverse engineering of surfaces.

Dr Lynne O’Hare, chief business development officer at the AFRC said: “The broad scope of the new members reflects the diverse range of activity that the centre is involved in across the UK’s manufacturing sector.

“These relationships will be bilaterally beneficial and I’m really excited about each of the new partnerships. The AFRC helps companies of all shapes and sizes from across the manufacturing sector and these partnerships will boost that capability, expanding our offering as a centre of manufacturing excellence.”

Progress Distribution wants London tech incubator

Posted on May 18, 2017 by - News

13196_0Progress Distribution will launch an emerging technology incubator in London, once it has completed an investment deal.

Progress is a specialist security VAD peddling TrapX, Ironscales and Cybereason in the UK.

It is believed that the distributor is close to agreeing funding of between £2m and £2.5m with a secret investor worth around £130 million.

Progress founder John Quinn said that once the cheque clears, the company will buy a 10,000 sq ft building in London to house emerging tech vendors as they enter the UK, with the rest of the investment being used to fund two acquisitions.

Quinn claimed that the standard distribution model was broken. If you speak to the vendors they all want something different because gone are the days when you want distributors for banking and finance, logistics, tax – all the sort of things that come from standard distribution services.

“The problem with standard distribution, or the broadliners, is they don’t really have the ability to create demand. Tech incubation is the future of VAD,” Quinn said.

CCS Media is aiming to hit £250 million revenue within five years by expanding its headcount, investing in staff development, and building its services business.

CCS Media planning expansion

Posted on May 18, 2017 by - News

willy-wonka-violet-blow-upCCS Media is planning to add another five academies across the UK by 2022, on top of its existing two, which would raise headcount from 400 to 1,000.

The Chesterfield-based firm is investing in two services and solutions centres in the north and south of the UK. These will provide managed services, as well as advanced technology services for devices and infrastructure.

CCS Media’s deputy managing director James Hardy said that instead of building legacy managed and professional services business the rest of the industry it can work from the ground up.

It has £5 million services business already with 5,000 transactional customers every month and only 10 percent buying services. This allows the company to build some robust value with customers.

Ultimately the plan is to get a quarter of the customer base which is happening relatively quickly.

This will help ensure CCS Media has the management bandwidth to continue growing its transactional reseller business as it pushes into services, he said.

Gemalto teams up with Enfuce in Nordic alliance

Posted on May 18, 2017 by - News

Screen-Shot-2017-03-11-at-6.59.36-PMDigital security Gemalto has signed a deal with the Finnish-based financial services provider Enfuce.

The idea is to offer enterprises a rapid and cost-efficient deployment of convenient and strong customer authentication using mobile devices.

Enfuce has launched its cloud-based ‘authentication as a service’ solution, designed to make it simple for financial institutions, retailers and fintechs to secure their mobile applications.

It is built on Gemalto’s Mobile Protector Software Development Kit (SDK) and Confirm Authentication Server (CAS).  Users can decide to be authenticated for the transactions using a PIN code, fingerprint or facial recognition,

Using its Mobile Protector SDK, Enfuce’s customers can deploy secured mobile applications in a matter of weeks, helping them to comply with PSD2 banking regulations.

Gemalto Mobile Protector SDK provides Enfuce’s customers with APIs, needed to embed security into their mobile applications, without requiring developers to master security principles.

Initially targeting the Nordics, where it has already been sold, Enfuce plans to extend the service across Europe.

Enfuce CEO for Monika Liikamaa said: “The introduction of this ground-breaking ‘authentication as a service’ solution reflects our commitment to enable profound changes in the payment industry. By combining our extensive knowledge of the financial sector with Gemalto’s authentication capabilities, we can offer a ‘plug and play’ service that leaves clients free to focus on core activities.”

Sky is the limit on Ingram Micro cloud

Posted on May 18, 2017 by - News

grandpa_simpson_yelling_at_cloudIngram Micro is expanding the automated services it can provide resellers to encourage more to sell cloud services

The idea is to encourage more partners to get involved with the hosted services market.

The improvements to the services follow changes to Ingram Micro’s Odin platform, which is now offering automated processes to reduce the complexity of providing hosted services. Odin was the Norse god of wisdom, who unfortunately was also one eyed and prone to hanging to get the sort of information he needed.

Ingram Micro is offering two options with its Automation Premium and Essentials packages. The first level combining automated processes with data analytics to help resellers keep an eye on what’s happening with their customers.

The essentials option gives the partner the chance to automate the purchasing, provisioning and reselling of cloud technology.

The distributor has launched a cloud referral programme and is generating pre-negotiation distribution agreements with pricing to speed things up for the channel.

Apay Obang-Oyway, director cloud & software, UK&I at Ingram Micro, said that all the expectations were for more spending around cloud and resellers needed to be supported in their efforts to capture some of that revenue.

With enterprises now saying that their cloud and hosting budgets are likely to grow more than their general IT spend in 2017, this is an opportune moment for partner organisations to grow a cloud business that can address their needs, he said.

Goldman Sachs invests in Information Builders

Posted on May 18, 2017 by - News

12845_Goldman-Sachs-logoBusiness intelligence, analytics, data integrity, and integration solutions provider, Information Builders has just cashed a growth equity cheque from Goldman Sachs’ Private Capital Investing group.

The money will be spent extending Information Builders’ position in the large and growing market for BI solutions.

Gerald Cohen, president and CEO of Information Builders said: “We are extremely pleased to have Goldman Sachs as an investor. Their investment in Information Builders affirms the value of our world-class technology and services, and reinforces our efforts for growth moving forward.”

The Private Capital Investing group is Goldman Sachs’ investment platform dedicated to providing junior capital to growth and middle market companies throughout North America.

The group is co-headed by Michael McGinn, managing director at Goldman Sachs, who will be joining the board as part of the investment. Also participating in the financing is Bregal Sagemount, a firm with an established track record of software investing.

Stephen Kerns, vice president in Goldman Sachs’ Private Capital Investing group said that Goldman Sachs is pleased to contribute to Information Builders’ continued growth and innovation in the business intelligence industry.

“Information Builders has a long history of market leadership and customer-focused solutions, as demonstrated by its very strong reputation and impressive customer base. We look forward to working with Information Builders to further position the company for long-term growth.”

Scottish ZoneFox partners with Distology

Posted on May 17, 2017 by - News

 

maxresdefaultEdinburgh-based cybersecurity outfit ZoneFox has teamed up  with distributor Distology in a bid to grow its UK channel.

ZoneFox makes user behavioural analytics gear which monitors the movements of an organisation’s users by mapping out their day-to-day behaviour. This means it can recognise when a user is carrying activity that they usually would not and may or may not have been replaced by a hacker or an alien.

CEO and founder James Graves has gone on record saying that it wanted to launch the vendor into the UK channel using a two-tier model. Now it seems stage one of the cunning plan involves Stockport-based Distology.

It wanted to appoint 15 partners by the end of the year and channel manager Howard Freeman revealed the figure is now at eight.

He said the channel was interested in the product and there were a few that wanted to team up.

Distology is not signing a reseller contract, it will just be transacting business and working with ZoneFox.

The eight partners are boutique security specialists, ranging from between 15 and 100 employees.

Distology gives ZoneFox a distributor that can package its solution alongside its other vendors. It distributes Osirium, Portnox and Okta.

Security vendors are happy about WannaCry

Posted on May 17, 2017 by - News

drama-masksSecurity companies have seen their share prices rise sharply amid expected increase in spending on IT security after the WannaCry hack

The ransomware attack that disrupted the NHS and businesses around the world has led to a boom in share prices of cybersecurity companies – even the firm used by the health service to protect it against hackers.

Governments and companies expected to increase spending on IT security after being caught out by the attack, cybersecurity firms have seen their stock market values climb sharply over the past two days.

Sophos, a cloud network security specialist which counts the NHS among its clients, have jumped by about eight percent. Of course, it had to make a few changes. The claim on the company’s website that “the NHS is totally protected with Sophos” was changed to “Sophos understands the security needs of the NHS”.

Last week, the company tweeted its “top five tips for securing NHS organisations”. But its shares have been performing well over recent months because of the increased need for cyber defences.

NCC group added five percent to its share valuation and cyber consultancy group ECSC surged 42 percent. ISE, a fund invested in cybersecurity businesses, added nearly four percent.

All this is because corporates have suddenly woken up to the fact that they need to spend some cash on IT security and it is probably a daft idea to keep all those Windows XP machines running for the great unwashed while top execs get Microsoft Surfaces.

Sophos already gives services to the healthcare industry and is looking to increase selling to the sector in the aftermath of the attack.

FireEye’s prices have risen seven percent, Symantec up more than three per cent and Palo Alto Networks 2.7 percent.

The success of the WannaCry hack could make other attacks more likely in the future amid doubts over governments’ ability to secure “cyberweapons” from theft.

Amazon, Microsoft and Google need channel help

Posted on May 17, 2017 by - News

R-9020249-1473392859-8701.jpegBeancounters at Canalys say that AWS, Microsoft and Google need the channel as they look to capitalise on the “next phase” of cloud adoption.

The analyst outfit said that AWS, Microsoft and Google grew their cloud infrastructure revenues by 43 percent, 93 percent and 74 percent respectively in Q1, as the overall market rose by 42 percent to $11.4 billion.

Canalys principal analyst Matthew Ball said that the three have worked out that building an indirect business will be the only way to maintain that order of growth.

“We’re seeing the next phase of cloud adoption beyond the big marquee projects like Netflix and Snapchat. The cloud providers are now looking at corporate and mid-market accounts, and for that they need greater reach and scale, and that’s where the role of the channel comes in.

“So we are seeing a lot of the big cloud providers, AWS and Google in particular – those that haven’t come from an enterprise IT background – starting to mature their partner programmes and channel engagements. They are looking to focus on that more because they recognise that the channel has those relationships with customers. So we believe that the channel will be a part of their go-to-market strategies going forward, especially if they want to maintain their high levels of growth each quarter and year.”

Canalys said that AWS’ Q1 cloud infrastructure sales were more than $3.5bn, but the market leader’s success need not be at the cost of the channel as the rise of cloud has in some cases expanded the role played by resellers.

“The channel has made good business selling datacentre infrastructure in the past, and we believe they still will do going forward. Cloud is another choice for customers in terms of how they operate their IT environments and, for sure, it’s a concern for channel partners. But we’ve seen some partners being affected by cloud and others changing their business model to develop consultancy or professional services to help their customers define a cloud environment.”

Channel needs to focus on business lines

Posted on May 17, 2017 by - News

Creative-colorful-lines-business-template-vector-01As power moves away from the traditional IT department, the channel needs to focus on business lines.

In a report, CompTIA said that not only are lines of business buying technology but ideas about investments are coming from a wider source of participants.

The industry lobby group found that 45 percent said that ideas were coming from outside the IT department and more than half used business unit budget to pay for technology purchases last year.

More than a quarter (27 percent) of final decisions about which projects and investments get sign off are made by somebody other than the IT department.

The power is shifting to those working in finance, marketing, sales and logistics forcing resellers to have multiple contacts at any single customer.

Carolyn April, senior director, industry analysis, CompTIA said that CIOs and information technology (IT) teams remain involved in the process, as their expertise and experience is valued. But business lines are flexing their muscles. It’s another strong signal that technology has shifted from a supporting function for business to a strategic asset.

Lines of business money is going towards cloud based investments that are quick to spin up and can often be paid for in small instalments on a company credit card.

The advice from CompTIA is to recognise the changes and approach the sales pitch from a slightly different direction.

“Partners need to speak the language of business because this new generation of buyers doesn’t want to hear about the technical implications of their purchases. Channel partners need to position themselves as consultants and service providers who can help customers make informed decisions about what they buy,” April said.

“The amount of green-field, untapped space for business is huge. But lines of business have little knowledge or interaction with the channel. It’s incumbent on the channel to get their faces in front of line of business leaders,” she added.