SoftwareOne has snubbed Bain Capital’s second acquisition offer and is now apparently considering what it will do with its life.
The private equity firm offer of £2.8 billion after its initial bid of £2.5 billion was rejected for materially undervaluing SoftwareOne.
“The board unanimously agreed that the second indicative offer does not adequately value the company and is not in the best interest of SoftwareOne and the majority of its shareholders,” the group said in a statement.
Intel has announced the culmination of a years-long collaboration with Accenture to bring 34 AI reference kits to the community.
The kits are said to aid developers and data scientists in deploying AI faster and more easily, accelerating AI development across a wide range of industries, including consumer products, energy and utilities, financial services, and health.
Security outfit BlueFort has signed a new partnership agreement with Noetic Cyber, a cloud-based continuous cyber asset intelligence and controls platform.
The partnership with Noetic Cyber will further expand BlueFort’s cybersecurity security practice which delivers complete solutions that ensure continuous discovery, validation and control for organisations.
Bain Capital has increased its offer for SoftwareOne Holding AG to 3.72 billion.
SoftwareOne and Bain Capital declined to comment on the report.
The reported new offer is at a premium of 43.6 per cent from SoftwareOne’s last close on May 31, when Bain first presented an offer to the Swiss firm valuing it at $3.2 billion.
SoftwareOne’s board last month turned down Bain’s earlier offer although it received support from founding shareholders, Daniel von Stockar, B Curti Holding and Rene Gilli, who together hold 29.1 per cent of the company.
SoftwareOne helps companies manage software purchases from vendors such as Microsoft, Adobe and IBM. It floated on the Swiss exchange in 2019.
Digital transformation might have made healthcare more efficient but it has exposed the industry to more cyberattacks, according to a new report.
According to GlobalData’s Q2 2023 tech sentiment poll, 70 per cent of survey participants expect cybersecurity to disrupt the healthcare industry, with over 41 per cent expecting a significant disruption.
GlobalData Medical Analyst Ashley Clarke said that hackers can exploit various entry points, ranging from physical medical devices in and outside of medical facilities to gaining unauthorised access to networks from nearly any connected device, medical or not.
“The implications of such attacks can be far-reaching, affecting patient privacy, interrupting healthcare services, and jeopardizing the safety and effectiveness of medical devices,” he said.
According to reports from the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Civil Rights, breaches of unsecured protected health information have affected over 42.7 million US citizens thus far in 2023. This is a 50 per cent increase from the 28.4 million individuals affected in the same period in 2022 and surpasses the 39.9 million affected individuals in the entire year of 2021.
Although the number of reported cybersecurity breach events this year has seen a slight decline (338 compared to 390 in the same period last year), the staggering increase in affected individuals suggests that hackers are targeting larger networks, necessitating heightened vigilance and security measures.
To address mounting cybersecurity risks, the US FDA introduced new guidelines for medical device manufacturers in March 2023. These guidelines require manufacturers to submit a plan to monitor, identify, and address post-market cybersecurity vulnerabilities when applying for new pre-market authorisations.
Clarke said: “This approach is a start to enforcing a minimum level of security and encouraging routine cybersecurity testing to identify and address vulnerabilities before they can be exploited. However, older devices and non-medical devices connecting to remote patient monitoring and telehealth services could still pose a significant risk.”
Recent cybersecurity vulnerabilities in prominent companies like Medtronic and Becton Dickinson serve as critical reminders of the continuous need for improvement in cybersecurity practices.
Clarke added: “As we progress towards a more interconnected healthcare landscape, collaboration with cybersecurity experts, the adoption of advanced technologies like blockchain and zero-trust architecture, and prioritizing data security will be vital to safeguard patient information and ensure continuous, secure care.”
Security outfit Splunk has entered the hardware market using a select number of authorised partners to deliver its technology with high levels of customer support.
The cyber security and observability player has launched of its Splunk Edge Hub, which will enable users to stream more information to the vendor’s platform.
The introduction of the hardware will allow more monitoring, investigation of a customer’s network and response as users look for greater levels of protection.
Availability is limited to the US at this stage, but there are plans to roll out the offering to EMEA and APAC soon.
More than 71 per cent of CMOs said they need more budget to fully execute their strategy in 2023, according to a Gartner survey.
The annual Gartner 2023 CMO Spend and Strategy Survey was conducted in March and April 2023.
Survey respondents were CMOs and marketing leaders in North America and Northern and Western Europe across different industries, company sizes and revenue, with the vast majority of respondents reporting annual revenue of over $1 billion.
The survey revealed that marketing budgets compose 9.1 per cent of total company revenue in 2023, remaining relatively flat but still dipping slightly from the 9.5 per cent reported in 2022.
Daisy Corporate Services today announced it has helped Royal Holloway University London (RHUL) reduce its data centre footprint by 75 per cent and achieve energy savings of over 72 per cent with the implementation of a new virtual infrastructure solution based on HPE dHCI technology.
The university’s legacy infrastructure sat at the heart of its IT environment, delivering critical data services to nearly 12,000 students and 2,000 staff split across two main campuses in central London and Egham, Surrey.
Some big names in the channel are continuing to lay off staff, citing cliches like economic headwinds.
Ingram Micro is believed to have fired 200-300 employees mostly in its management positions.
The company confirmed that it had made “some changes to the team” as a result of the “changing global and local market conditions.”
AI outfit ThoughtSpot has completed its acquisition of Mode Analytics, the modern Business Intelligence (BI) platform that brings data teams and business teams together.
The deal was sorted out with a $200 million cash and equity transaction and strengthens ThoughtSpot’s position as a key player in the next generation of collaborative, AI-first business intelligence (BI).
ThoughtSpot and Mode Analytics deliver a complete platform spanning the spectrum of modern BI needs, from ad hoc novel analysis with a code-first approach, to natural language, self-service exploration and AI-driven monitoring.
As a result of this acquisition, ThoughtSpot’s ARR will grow to over $150 million, and with minimal customer overlap, new growth opportunities remain ahead for the combined company, including the potential to further scale its broad channel partner alliances and geographic footprint.
ThoughtSpot is also committing to investing resources to expand Mode’s current offerings, giving data professionals even more capabilities to utilize code-first approaches across their workflows, including SQL, R, and Python.
Thoughtspot CEO Sudheesh Nair said the demand for putting the power of AI to work is accelerating, and the joined forces of ThoughtSpot and Mode means data teams can confidently bring generative AI capabilities to business users – enter the new era of business intelligence.
“Bridging the gap between data teams and business users in a unified, dependable, governed way, this is something the market has needed for a long time,” he said.
“The beauty of this acquisition is we’ve tackled the same core problem in BI – making it useful to every employee, technical and nontechnical – from opposite ends. We are committed to continuing to push the boundaries on both ends of the spectrum. With the incredible talent and knowledge Mode’s team brings, especially for data teams, we’re going to leverage our combined R&D muscle to make Mode’s offerings even stronger for data teams.”
Mode CEO Gaurav Rewari said that in his two decades working in the BI space, it was the first time self-service analytics is possible for any user.
“We’ve reached an inflection point with the rise of data teams at companies of all sizes, from digital natives to the global 2000; innovations in search pioneered by ThoughtSpot that have served as the great unlock for business users; and the proliferation of generative AI, which we’re collectively committed to infusing everywhere in our combined platform,” he said.
Tata Group will build a gigafactory in Britain to manufacture batteries, as nations accelerate away from fossil fuel vehicles.
The £4-billion plant in Somerset will be Tata’s first gigafactory outside India.
The UK reportedly beat competition from Spain for the project, set to create thousands of jobs.
The worldwide infrastructure as a service (IaaS) market grew 29.7 per cent in 2022, to $120.3 billion, up from $92.8 billion in 2021, according to Gartner.
Amazon retained the top position in the IaaS market in 2022, followed by Microsoft, Alibaba, Google and Huawei.
Gartner VP analyst Sid Nag said that Cloud had been elevated from a technology disruptor to a business disruptor.
“IaaS is driving software-as-a-service (SaaS) and platform-as-a-service (PaaS) growth as buyers to continue to add more applications to the cloud and modernise existing ones.”
“IaaS growth in 2022 was stronger than expected, despite a slight softening in the fourth quarter as customers focused on using their previously committed capacity to its fullest potential,” added Nag.
“This is expected to continue until mid-2023 and is a natural outcome of the market’s maturity. We expect an acceleration in 2024, as there is still room for additional growth.”
In 2022, the top five IaaS providers accounted for over 80 per cent of the market. Amazon continued to lead the worldwide IaaS market with revenue of $48.1 billion and a 40 per cent market share.
Cloudy Rackspace Technology today announced the launch of FAIR Learn as part of the overall Foundry for Generative AI by Rackspace.
The innovative AI literacy programme is designed to heighten Rackspace employees’ comprehension of the basic principles of AI, potential use cases, and limitations to harness the power creatively, responsibly, and sustainably. Rackspace Technology believes the programme will drive meaningful outcomes for customers and effectively integrate AI into the company’s operations.
The FAIR Learn programme has four levels: AI-Ready, AI-Business, AI-Specialist, and AI-Expert. Each level has recommended courses from LinkedIn Learning and Cloud Service Providers. When the learner completes these courses, they will receive Digital Credentials from FAIR that can be shared on LinkedIn, Threads, Twitter, and other social media.
According to the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) head, financial services are getting prone to AI frauds.
Chief Executive of FCA, Nikhil Rathi, warned of considerable problems in the financial services sector in the wake of AI frauds like the deep fake video of personal finance campaigner Martin Lewis endorsing an investment scheme.
Rathi said that now that the government has made the nation’s AI facilities open to firms looking to test the latest innovations, the responsibility of FCA in financial data protection and prevention of financial frauds had increased.
Jamf has acquired dataJAR — the UK-based MSP that focuses on providing Apple and Jamf services for businesses and educational organisations.
The vendor claimed the acquisition will help the company partner more closely with its MSP partners and expand the reach of its Apple-first management and security platform.
Jamf CEO Dean Hager, said: “We’re excited to welcome dataJAR to the Jamf family so we can empower our partners with this leading technology and help them better scale their own business with added Apple-focused workflows, expertise, and support.
“We believe dataJAR’s mission to make powerful technology simple is perfectly complementary to our purpose of simplifying the way works gets done. I’m excited to work together on bringing the power of Apple to even more partners, organisations, and workers.”
dataJAR manages over 120,000 Apple devices using its proprietary software and provides a single pane of glass for partners who manage technology and services for multiple organisations, streamlining workflows.
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