Category: News

Ericsson and Cisco create global tech partnership

Posted on November 10, 2015 by - News

webhomes-our-work-ciscoEricsson and Cisco have announced a global business and technology partnership which will offer routing, data centre, networking, cloud, mobility, management and control, and global services capabilities.

It is a pretty powerful combination. They already are partners, with a combined 56,000+ patents, $11 billion of research and development investment, and more than 76,000 services professionals serving customers across more than 180 countries.

Apparently this new announcement will be supported by multiple agreements that include commitments to network transformation through reference architectures and joint development, systems-based management and control, a broad reseller agreement, and collaboration in key emerging market segments.

The parties have also agreed to discuss FRAND policies and enter a licensing agreement for their respective patent portfolios, enabling unfettered joint innovation and providing certainty for customers of both organisations. Under the deal Ericsson will receive license fees from Cisco.

Teams from both organizations will also begin working on a joint initiative focused on SDN/NFV and network management and control.

Hans Vestberg, President and Chief Executive Officer, Ericsson said in a statement that the partnership will focus on service providers, then on opportunities for the enterprise segment and accelerating the scale and adoption of IoT services across industries.

“For Ericsson, this partnership also fortifies the IP strategy we have developed over the past several years, and it is a key move forward in our own transformation,” he said

Symantec pledges itself to the Channel

Posted on November 9, 2015 by - News

symantecSymantec talked up its channel plans even if its global sales boss, dubbed a “channel champion” has exited the company.

In a second-quarter conference call Morgan Stanley analyst Keith Weiss said he was concerned about the exit of Adrian Jones as Symantec’s head of global sales. Weiss called Jones a “channel champion”.

Symantec chief executive Mike Brown said Jones’ leaving will not put the brakes on Symantec’s channel momentum.

“The good news is, we have a pretty deep bench of folks with experience with the channel,” he said. “Symantec always have been a channel company. We’ve been a channel company for 30 years.

“So I think those partners who work with us for a long time know that our commitment is unwavering there. And it’s great that we’ve now introduced Secure One, our new channel programme, which now for the first time can be focused on security partners.”

He said that previously Symantec’s channel was previously more geared towards our Veritas business.

Symantec is spinning off its information management arm Veritas on 1 January but the duo split operationally on 3 October.

Veritas unveiled its new partner programme this week and apologised for some technical issues thrown up by the split last month.

Brown insisted when questioned that Jones’ leaving will not put the brakes on Symantec’s channel

“At our October partner event, the feedback was overwhelmingly positive as we laid out our strategy with the launch of Secure One, an enhanced channel partner programme tailored specifically for security-focused channel partners. The new programme consists of training, deal registration, technology support and incentives to drive the results for successful long-term relationships.”

AMD makes Grasby EMEA president

Posted on November 6, 2015 by - Moving People, News

f5697b3fd254b65ad587865f7373dff7AMD has announced that its Corporate Vice President Worldwide Component Channel Darren Grasby, 45, has been appointed to the newly-created position of president of AMD EMEA .

Lisa Su, president and chief executive officer at AMD said that EMEA was a “key region” with a broad set of important customers, partners and markets for AMD.

She said that Grasby was a proven leader who is ideally suited to drive deeper customer, partner, and stakeholder relationships across EMEA as a part of helping AMD accomplish our long-term business goals

“Over the past eight years Darren has proven to be an effective and results-driven leader. This new role will allow him to broaden his influence and reach in supporting AMD’s customers, partners and employees while also promoting and enhancing our regional reputation and prominence as an innovative technology pioneer.”

Grasby said: “I am honored to take on this role, particularly as it allows me to promote AMD’s technology leadership and highlight the innovation that is central to AMD’s business philosophy across a broad geographic region. At its core, AMD is focused on building great products to the benefit of our partners and customers. EMEA is widely renowned as a stronghold of opportunity and I’m excited to expand our pipeline for success across the region.”

Microsoft teams up with Red Hat

Posted on November 5, 2015 by - News

redmondMicrosoft and Red Hat have announced a partnership that will help customers embrace hybrid cloud computing by providing greater choice and flexibility deploying Red Hat solutions on Microsoft Azure.

Vole is offering Red Hat Enterprise Linux as the preferred choice for enterprise Linux workloads on Microsoft Azure.

Redmond and Red Hat are also working together on common enterprise, ISV and developer needs for building, deploying and managing applications on Red Hat software across private and public clouds.

In the coming weeks, Microsoft Azure will become a Red Hat Certified Cloud and Service Provider. This will enable customers to run their Red Hat Enterprise Linux applications and workloads on Microsoft Azure.

Red Hat Cloud Access subscribers will be able to bring their own virtual machine images to run in Microsoft Azure.

Microsoft Azure customers can also take advantage of the full value of Red Hat’s application platform, including Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform, Red Hat JBoss Web Server, Red Hat Gluster Storage and OpenShift, Red Hat’s platform-as-a-service offering. In the coming months, Microsoft and Red Hat plan to provide Red Hat On-Demand — “pay-as-you-go” Red Hat Enterprise Linux images available in the Azure Marketplace, supported by Red Hat.

Customers will be offered cross-platform, cross-company support spanning the Microsoft and Red Hat offerings in an integrated way, unlike any previous partnership in the public cloud. By co-locating support teams on the same premises, the experience will be simple and seamless, at cloud speed.

Red Hat CloudForms will work with Microsoft Azure and Microsoft System Centre Virtual Machine Manager, offering Red Hat CloudForms customers the ability to manage Red Hat Enterprise Linux on both Hyper-V and Microsoft Azure. Support for managing Azure workloads from Red Hat CloudForms is expected to be added in the next few months, extending the existing System Center capabilities for managing Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

Developers will have access to .NET technologies across Red Hat offerings, including Red Hat OpenShift and Red Hat Enterprise Linux, jointly backed by Microsoft and Red Hat. Red Hat Enterprise Linux will be the primary development and reference operating system for .NET Core on Linux.

Scott Guthrie, executive vice president for Microsoft’s Cloud and Enterprise division said the move will be a powerful win for enterprises, ISVs and developers.

“With this partnership, we are expanding our commitment to offering unmatched choice and flexibility in the cloud today, meeting customers where they are so they can do more with their hybrid cloud deployments — all while fulfilling the rigorous security and scalability requirements that enterprises demand.”

 

 

 

Ideum and 2point0 team up on mult-touch hardware

Posted on November 4, 2015 by - News

ideum1Maker of multitouch tables and touch walls Ideum has signed a distribution deal with 2point0 Concepts.

It means that Ideum’s industrial multitouch tables and touch walls are, for the first time, available in the UK with local service and support exclusively from 2point0 Concepts.

This new partnership expands 2point0 Concepts’ exclusive distribution, which also covers most of the Middle East to now include the United Kingdom. Ideum has been developing touch tables since 2008.

Ideum’s newest line of 55” multitouch tables feature 4K UHD displays with integrated 3M touch technology. These turn-key tables are found in museums and galleries.

2point0 Concepts, established in 2011, offers AV consultation services and is part of the end-to-end digital signage industry.

Based in the technological hub that is London, 2point0 Concepts will offer a dedicated team of specialists to provide sales, local service and support for Ideum products and their HCI (Human Computer Interaction) services from consultation to design to development.

Jim Spadaccini, CEO and Creative Director of Ideum said the partnership allowed design agencies, museums, and others to get full-service and direct support on the ground. “2point0 Concepts has been great to work with in the Middle East and we are excited about working with them in the UK.”

Gateway computer co-founder dead

Posted on November 3, 2015 by - Moving People, News

Hammond-Gateway-Blue-BG-jpgOne of the founders of 1990’s giants Gateway Computer has died.

In 1985, Mike Hammond, 53, met fellow co-founder Ted Waitt when they worked for a Des Moines computer and software seller.

The pair created a computer company. They set up in a vacant space on the Waitt family cattle farm thanks to $10,000 in collateral put up by Waitt’s grandmother.

Waitt once told Business Week magazine that because of a non-compete clause with their previous employer he and Hammond operated under the fake names “Max Wheeler” and “Ed Zimmerman” when setting up “Gateway 2-Thousand.”

Originally called Gateway 2000, it was one of the first widely successful direct-sales PC companies, which it copied from Dell. It emphasised its Iowa roots with low-tech advertisements proclaiming “Computers from Iowa?” The computers were built from Texas instrument parts. Gateway built brand recognition in part by shipping computers in spotted boxes patterned after Holstein cow markings.

In 1989, Gateway moved its corporate offices and production facilities to North Sioux City, South Dakota. In line with the Holstein cow mascot, Gateway opened a chain of farm-styled retail stores called Gateway Country Stores, mostly in suburban areas across the United States. It dropped the “2000” from its name on October 31, 1998

Hammond served in various capacities for the company that eventually grew to more than 24,000 employees across the globe. However more people entered the market and profit margins shrank. The company tried to expand into consumer electronics and opened retail stores, but didn’t succeed.

In October 2007, the company was flogged off to Acer for US$710 million. J. T. Wang, the company’s chairman, said in a statement that the acquisition “completes Acer’s global footprint, by strengthening our US presence.”

Hammond when on to set up Dakota Muscle to restore and repair classic cars.

Apple admits poisoning its channel

Posted on November 2, 2015 by - News

apple-disney-dreams-snow-white-Favim.com-142405Fruity cargo cult Apple has admitted that it is burning its resellers and might lose a few more after it beefs up its direct sales unit.

In a 10-K Annual Report Job’s Mob mentioned that it losing resellers was number four on its list of risks which could negatively impact the business.

Apple runs a network of distributors and resellers which are having to operate some incredibly “narrow operating margins”.

The company said that its channel partners have raised some concerns about its go-to-market strategy which they think will conflict with their business interests as distributors and resellers of the company’s products.

“Such a perception could discourage resellers from investing resources in the distribution and sale of the company’s products or lead them to limit or cease distribution of those products.”

Apple said it did not want to kill off its channel and will continue to invest in programmes to boost resellers’ sales.

“These programmes could require a substantial investment while providing no assurance of return or incremental revenue. The financial condition of these resellers could weaken, these resellers could stop distributing the company’s products, or uncertainty regarding demand for some or all of the company’s products could cause resellers to reduce their ordering and marketing of the company’s products.”

Cloud channel will not have long to wait for US data pact

Posted on October 30, 2015 by - News

grandpa_simpson_yelling_at_cloudThose resellers who sell cloud services for US companies in the EU will be relieved to discover that the US is close to coming up with a new “Safe Harbour” deal.

Safe Harbour was a fast-track process that US companies could use to comply with European data protection law, which prevents EU citizens’ personal data being transferred to non-EU countries deemed to have insufficient privacy safeguards.

The EU Courts have struck down the current “Safe Harbour” laws because the US clearly was taking European data.

US. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker said that the “Safe Harbour 2.0” agreement currently being negotiated would meet European concerns about the transfer of data to the United States.

“A solution is within hand. We had an agreement prior to the court case. I think with modest refinements that are being negotiated we could have an agreement shortly. The solution … is Safe Harbour 2.0, which is totally doable.”

EU Justice Commissioner Vera Jourova told a parliamentary committee this week that she hoped to have made progress on “intensive technical discussions” with her U.S. counterparts before a visit to Washington DC in mid-November.

Pritzker admitted that it was costing small and medium-sized US businesses that depend on Safe Harbour a lot of dosh. But that is the price you pay when your government believes that it can spy on whoever it likes.

Financial services offer rubbish security

Posted on October 29, 2015 by - News

BouncerFoxFeatureKaspersky Lab and B2B International have worked out that a third of financial services don’t offer customers a secure channel for all their online payments.

This is despite the fact that 62 percent of these organisations have noticed a significant rise in their customers making financial transactions online, and 50 per cent believe online financial fraud is increasing.

The survey found that many banks and payment companies are struggling to fully protect themselves and their customers from financial fraud at a time when customers are using an ever-wider range of devices to conduct a growing number of financial transactions online.

Two-thirds say that customers are increasingly using different devices to make online payments, yet just half have implemented two-factor authentication and only a half  have introduced a specialised, real-time anti-fraud solution.  This is despite the fact that 22 percent believe this is the most effective form of protection available.About 42 percent extend such a solution to customer devices and only 67 per cent implement a secure connection for all online payments.

About half admit that they are only mitigating risk rather than removing it altogether and 29 percent say it is cheaper to deal with online financial fraud incidents as they arise rather than to try to prevent them from happening.

Kirill Slavin, general manager UK and Ireland, Kaspersky Lab said that the study shows that banks and payment organisations are finding it difficult to manage online financial fraud in today’s connected, omni-channel consumer landscape.

“About 38 percent of the organisations we spoke to admit that it is increasingly difficult to tell whether a transaction is fraudulent or genuine, with a worrying one in three opting for a ‘we’ll deal with it as it happens’ approach to fraud protection,” he said.

“If you consider that our own research uncovered 22.9 million financial malware attacks in 2014, targeting 2.7 million customers worldwide, it is clear that dealing with each incident individually is not a viable, long-term option. Customers deserve better and so do the financial services,” Slavin said.

The study found that general Internet-security software solutions are not widely regarded as an effective method for preventing the increasingly well-disguised phishing and malware attacks that can lead to financial fraud. Less than ten percent of respondents favoured this option.

The IT Security Risks Survey 2015, conducted by Kaspersky Lab and B2B International, involved more than 5,000 company representatives, including 131 banks’ and payment services’ representatives, from 26 countries.

[That’s enough percents, Nick. Ed.]

EMC staff “making stuff up” about Dell sale

Posted on October 28, 2015 by - News

pinocchioA furious EMC president of global sales Bill Scannell told his sales teams to stop making stuff up about the company’s coming merger with Dell.

According to Channelnomics  Scannell told his staff not to “veer from the script” after the $67 billion acquisition by Dell was announced earlier this month. He slammed some of his staff for saying the wrong thing to customers.

He said that he had seen a couple of things happening in the field where people are veering from the script and kind of making things up.

“That’s not healthy, that’s not going to allow us to make this a painless and very successful merger… Understand what you can and can’t say now prior to the closing, realising this could be another six to nine months before we get the regulatory approvals and the shareholders’ sign-off to do this merger.”

Scannell told his staff to focus on quarterly business and exceeding customers’ expectations. They needed to sure they understand what we’ve said publicly about this acquisition and that it is all is going to be great.

If the deal goes ahead, EMC will go private but VMware – in which it owns an 80 per cent stake – will remain a publicly listed company.  This means that EMC will not have to worry about shipping products at the end of the quarter to make the quarterly revenue numbers.

This is going to have huge impact on savings from inventory with EMC, Scannell said.

Resellers minimum wage shame

Posted on October 27, 2015 by - News

shut-up-and-take-my-moneyTwo PC retailers who were named and shamed by the Government for not paying the minimum wage have been fighting back.

We Love Laptops, and Printer Cartridge Supplies made a list of 115 UK companies which failed to pay their staff the minimum wage.

Business minister Nick Boles said: “Employers that fail to pay the minimum wage hurt the living standards of the lowest paid and their families.”

We Love Laptops provides laptop repair services to businesses, schools and individuals and its website claims to work closely with the maker of expensive printer ink HP. Apparently it did not pay £1,079.07 to three workers.

We Love Laptops’ made a statement that the problem was they took someone from the Job Centre who was supposed to be training. The worker then said he was an employee and reported the company to HMRC for not paying him.

The statement did not mention the other two employees

Printer Cartridge Solutions is an online printer and consumables retailer and the government claims it failed to pay £1,096.19 to one worker.

The company said that it was an admin error with a local college concerning an apprentice they had taken on.

 

The “master shopper” has evolved says John Lewis

Posted on October 26, 2015 by - News

evolutionThe third annual John Lewis Retail Report has discovered that a new ‘master shopper’ has emerged to take advantage of multichannel retail.

According to the report, this ‘master shopper’ has learned to combine channels and devices in order to create their own optimal shopping experience.

As the report said that using all these options creating a more flexible journey. Shopping today is less about “I need it now” and more about “I need it how, when and where I want.

The report suggests that stores are still important, but fulfil a function which, according to the report, is increasingly linked to leisure time.

John Lewis has noticed that services such as Beauty and spa treatments in its stores are getting a lot of attention.

But the growing use of mobile and multichannel services like click and collect have created a new landscape for retail in which customers switch between devices and channels – online and offline – with ease, the report said.

The proportion of traffic to the John Lewis website from mobiles increased to 60 per cent in the last twelve months and mobile revenue grew by 68 per cent.

The retailer predicts that we’re yet to reach peak usage.

Two thirds of John Lewis customers use both physical shops and online channels and the number who bought from both channels increased by 9 per cent over the past 12 months.

Almost 20 per cent of customers buying a computer have more than ten interactions during a buying journey.

An average of three of those interactions involve online research on John Lewis or on other websites.

Facebook is the most popular social channel for John Lewis, though it uses different channels for different reasons.

What all this means is that multichannel retailers like John Lewis need to realise the number of channels and influences that affect the customer’s purchase and make this process as easy as possible.

With the number of channels used by these ‘master shoppers, it becomes more important for retailers to have a presence on as many as possible.

HP gets off of its public cloud

Posted on October 23, 2015 by - News

grandpa_simpson_yelling_at_cloudThe maker of expensive printer ink, HP is calling it quits on its public cloud offering.

The Helion Public Cloud will be abandoned next year as the vendor is more interested in private cloud products and rather scared of its chums Microsoft and Amazon.

HP has been denying that it will close Helion for six months, but the signs were there. In April, HP executive Bill Hilf said that HP no longer saw public cloud as a priority and that it made “no sense” for HP to go head to head with the likes of Amazon, Google and Microsoft.

He backtracked on this statement and said that HP would continue running Helion which operates  one of the largest OpenStack-based public clouds. Writing in his bog, Hilf confirmed what he denied six months ago and that Helion Public Cloud is doomed.

Hilf said HP has made the decision to “double down on our private and managed cloud capabilities” and confirmed that HP will “sunset” Helion Public Cloud on 31 January 2016.

Public cloud remains relevant to HP as part of its hybrid cloud strategy, but the vendor will now work with multiple partners such as Amazon to satisfy its customers’ public cloud needs.

“In order to deliver on this demand with best-of-breed public cloud offerings, we will move to a strategic, multiple partner-based model for public cloud capabilities, as a component of how we deliver these hybrid cloud solutions to enterprise customers,” Hilf said.

“Therefore, we will sunset our HP Helion Public Cloud offering on 31 January 2016.”

HP has been getting closer to Amazon of late as part of its hybrid delivery with HP Helion Eucalyptus. It has also worked with Microsoft to support Office 365 and Azure, he added.

“We also support our PaaS customers wherever they want to run our Cloud Foundry platform – in their own private clouds, in our managed cloud, or in a large-scale public cloud such as AWS or Azure,” Hilf said.

HP invested more than $1bn in its cloud business over two years when it unveiled its Helion range of OpenStack-based cloud products and services last May so it looks half that money was lost.

Microsoft thinks it knows what businesses really really want

Posted on October 22, 2015 by - News

surface-rtSoftware king of the world Microsoft has been asking its enterprise customers how it can improve the adoption of Surface tablets and Windows 10.

Writing in its Bog, Vole said that it had been chatting to customers who made large global footprints and discovered that the service, management and support options were pinching.

“Many told us they wanted to buy Surface from one partner, in one transaction, and have devices deployed all over the world with a single support and warranty SLA,” the blog says.

This is apparently the reason why Vole announced that Dell and HP will now resell Surface tablets and bring their enterprise-grade support offerings to the devices.

Microsoft has added two new additions to the Surface Enterprise Initiative to speed the adoption of Surface tablets and Windows 10.

Starting at the beginning of 2016, Vole will bring in a new “Microsoft Complete for Enterprise” warranty. This has four elements that the firm says its larger enterprise customers have asked for including the ability to pool warranty claims by company versus individual devices.

Microsoft will allow warranty claims against non-bootable devices. It will bring in rapid replace processing and an on-boarding centre to ensure a premium within the first 30 days.

Vole will assist IT staff to get setup with warranty and support processes as well as provide online training for their employees to get productive as fast as possible.

In addition to this there is the Business Device Trade-In Program.

“Many customers have told us that they want to upgrade to Surface and Windows 10, but have invested in devices and need to maximise the value they receive from those assets,” the blog said.

“With the Business Device Trade-in Program we make it simple. This is different from other trade-in offers in that it is a permanent program for business customers, rather than a limited time promotion.”

With 24 hour quotes, prepaid shipping labels and secure data wipe, business customers can trade their used business laptops, tablets, and phones for credit towards the purchase of new Surface devices.

This offer will be available in the coming weeks to business customers in the US, Canada, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.

Soon it will be rolled out to Australia, France, Germany and the UK.

VIP offers smaller resellers kit to sell

Posted on October 21, 2015 by - News

2c72b03VIP Computers is offering indie PC retailers sale or return gaming packs in a bid to help out the smaller resellers.

The packs include a variety of goods from VIP’s key PC gaming vendors and marketing assets, will be sent out next week.

Each pack has a trade price value of £2,500 and are being sent out on a sale or return basis. To get one you have to be a member of the VIP Club which is the VIP’s programme for independent PC retailers.

In the kit are five £99 Razer Blackwidow Chroma gaming keyboards and Deathadder and Naga mice.

The deal gives the independants some free stock to have a crack at flogging in the run up to Christmas.  It helps solve the retailers high stock cost problems, which prevents them from buying high-ticket items or ones they don’t think will sell.

The Indies don’t need to pay the invoice until January 2016, at which point they can pay the invoice or return the goods – whatever they haven’t sold can sent back to VIP.

More than 100 resellers have already signed up to receive a pack.