Category: News

Public cloud has silver lining

Posted on April 24, 2023 by - News

Public cloud service spending will grow 21.7 per cent to $597.3 billion in 2023, according to beancounters and number crunchers at analyst outfit Gartner.

Cloud computing going to drive the next phase of digital business, as organisations pursue disruption through emerging technologies like generative artificial intelligence (AI), Web3 and the metaverse, Big G said.

Gartner VP Sid Nag said hyperscale cloud providers were driving the cloud agenda as organisations today view it as a strategic platform for digital transformation. This requires cloud providers to offer more sophisticated capabilities as the competition for digital services improves.

IBM does better than expected

Posted on April 21, 2023 by - News

A not so mobile X86 PCBiggish Blue has posted better first-quarter results than Wall Street expected thanks mostly to customer demand for its open hybrid cloud platform and enterprise-focused AI.

First quarter revenues remained relatively flat at $14.3 billion — a rise of 0.4 per cent.

IBM chairman and chief executive officer Arvind Krishna said that IBM’s first quarter results demonstrate that clients continue turning to IBM for its combination of an open hybrid cloud platform, enterprise-focused AI, and business expertise to unlock productivity and drive efficiency in their operations.

“This gives us confidence in our current growth expectations for revenue and free cash flow for the year.”

More than half of SMEs killed off by cyberattack

Posted on April 21, 2023 by - News

The US National Cyber Security Alliance discovered that 60 per cent of small businesses cannot survive more than six months following a cyberattack.

The average cost for small enterprises to recover from a cyberattack is $690,000, while it exceeds $1 million for mid-sized companies. IBM reports that 62 per cent of all cyberattacks target small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs).

The e-commerce explosion has led to increased concern about security and privacy. A survey reports that 34 per cent of e-commerce retailers believe cybersecurity and privacy breaches are the biggest threats.

Noname teams up with Wiz

Posted on April 21, 2023 by - News

Noname Security has partnered with Wiz to help customers improve security by enabling complete visibility, context, and control of infrastructure hosting mission-critical and highly sensitive APIs to minimise and remediate risk.

According to Battery Venture’s March 2023 State of Cloud Software Spending, cloud infrastructure, data warehouse, and enterprise security investments are top spending priorities for CXOs in 2023, followed closely by automation, which has significantly increased in priority from the third quarter 2022 to first quarter 2023. With the rise in enterprise security and automation investments comes a reliance on APIs, that power modern applications and provide the connective tissue to tie the digitised world together. 

Konica Minolta aims for 90 per cent circulated resources

Posted on April 20, 2023 by - News

Konica Minolta aims to use more than 90 per cent circulated resources for its products by 2050.

The outfit admitted that its previous sustainability targets were “no longer appropriate” and a wider overhaul of its sustainability goals was needed. The managed print giant wants to be net zero in scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions by 2050.

Konica Minolta Business Solutions Europe General Manager Environmental Social Governance, Olaf Jonas said that when Konica Minolta published its EcoVision 2050 in 2009, the targets were in line with what were strict standards for that time.

“However, as the climate crisis exacerbates, these are no longer appropriate,” he said.

Econocom sees a double digit uptick in revenues

Posted on April 20, 2023 by - News

Digital services provider Econocom has managed a double-digit uptick in first quarter 2023 revenues.

The VAR said its development was driven by organic growth in technology management and financing and external growth in products & solutions.

Its products and solutions division was up 11.1 per cent to earn revenues of €312 million, driven by the acquisitions.

Organically, the segment posted a slight increase of 1.5 per cent compared with the first quarter of 2022, which Econocom said was a period of sharp growth.

Thatcher CloudCoCo’s new innovation head

Posted on April 20, 2023 by - News

CloudCoCo has appointed Lee Thatcher as its new head of cloud and innovation.

Thatcher has 20 years of tech experience, most recently at Tieva.

With 140 employees and over 1,000 customers nationwide, CloudCoCo is a £25 million revenue IT services and communication reseller, specialising in network connectivity, cloud, collaboration tech and cyber.

Lee is expected to help CloudCoCo evolve into a multi-cloud player and become a cloud agnostic company.

CloudCoCo has already agreed with digital innovation specialist Abstract Tech, based in Leeds and a strategic agreement with distributor Ingram Micro UK.

CloudCoCo’s cloud business will now also be available on Ingram Micro Cloud Marketplace, including Microsoft Azure, AWS and Google GCP services.

Westcon-Comstor launches multivendor marketplace

Posted on April 19, 2023 by - News

Oxford Covered Market, courtesy of http://www.oxford-coveredmarket.co.uk/content/anna-james-photosWestcon-Comstor has launched a multivendor marketplace where its partners can configure, quote, and order complex hybrid solutions.

The company claims its PartnerCentral portal gives partners the business and customer insights they need to capitalise on new opportunities and market trends.

PartnerCentral is designed to accelerate and simplify the move to cloud and “as-a-service” business models. These can be complex to manage as partners make this transition.

PartnerCentral simplifies the procurement and management of recurring subscription and as-a-service offers at scale, making it easier to provide these services to end customers.

FourNet buys Nowcomm

Posted on April 19, 2023 by - News

Avaya and Cisco UK partners, FourNet and Nowcomm, have joined forces.

Manchester-based Fournet claims to be Avaya’s largest UK partner and snapped up Derby-based Nowcomm which is one of only a small handful of Cisco partners to simultaneously hold Gold, Master Security and Master Collaboration status in the UK.

The move follows FourNet’s acquisition of C>Ways last May and forms part of a wider buy-and-build strategy under new private equity backer Palatine.

Zoom snaps up Workvivo

Posted on April 19, 2023 by - News

Zoom is acquiring Workvivo as part of a cunning plan to extend its platform.

For those not in the know, Workvivo is an employee communication and engagement platform founded in 2017 that provides an employee experience platform, combining advanced internal communication and engagement tools, a social intranet, and an employee app.

Workvivo’s offering has seen triple-digit growth in the last three years and is used by well-known brands, including Liberty Mutual, Lululemon, Ryanair, Madison Square Garden, and Wynn Resorts.

Customers using too many security products

Posted on April 18, 2023 by - News

Customers are continuing to buy too many security products and the channel is missing an opportunity to guide them through a consolidation process, according to Cisco senior vice-president of global partner sales Oliver Tuszik.

This trend is a surprise as it had been thought that given the “economic headwinds” everyone is complaining about firms would be cutting back on the number of security products that they clearly don’t need.

Tuszik said:“It is still a shocking surprise that most of our customers have a huge amount of different security tools – even small business which have 200 people [are] normally running up to six different tools to manage their security part. When you go into large corporate enterprise business, they normally have more than 50 and up to 100 different tools, and then often from at least 20 different vendors.”

He added that customers are facing difficulties in finding skilled staff to manage those numerous tools, with the security skills shortage continuing to be a headache globally.

White leaves HPE

Posted on April 18, 2023 by - News

The bloke behind HPE Greenlake as-a-service, Keith White, is stepping aside at the end of April to pursue other opportunities.

HPE CEO Antonio Neri told employees of White’s imminent departure in an email describing White as “an exceptional colleague, friend, customer advocate, and team champion.”

“Through the last several years, Keith was instrumental in accelerating the development of HPE GreenLake,” said Neri.

Richardson quits as AMD’s channel chief

Posted on April 18, 2023 by - Moving People, News

AMD North America Channel Chief Terry Richardson is leaving the company after more than 30 years of working in the channel and is believed to be retiring.

Richardson, a 30-year-plus channel veteran who has also held top channel jobs at Hewlett Packard Enterprise, HP and EMC, joined AMD two years ago and helped build it a robust network of partners.

Richardson’s departure on April 18 comes just three weeks after AMD Head of North America VAR Channels & Commercial Distribution Marty Bauerlein left AMD to take the newly created role of chief commercial officer at D&H Distributing.

Richardson was one of the most respected channel leaders in the business and he is widely attributed with giving AMD achieve a channel footprint it would not have been able to attain without him.

 

Intel wants to turn PCs into partner data gathers

Posted on April 17, 2023 by - News

Chipzilla wants to equip IT vendors and solution providers with advanced capabilities to fix network issues by giving them real-time access to PC connectivity data.

The move would give Intel partners access to Intel Connectivity Analytics, a commercial software service that creates “unique networking and system insights” using driver-level telemetry data captured from Intel Wi-Fi 6 chipsets in laptops and desktops.

Eric McLaughlin, general manager of Intel’s Wireless Solutions Group, said Intel Connectivity Analytics is meant to help partners develop advanced solutions for fixing network issues and improving the end-user experience for PCs in offices, homes and other environments.

“What this analytics capability is supposed to do is help IT managers and service providers understand what’s really happening from the client level all the way to the cloud,” he said.

The real-time insight generated by Intel Connectivity Analytics helps partners deliver solutions around network performance optimisation, dynamic bandwidth adjustment for critical usages, performance monitoring and technical support for client networking, security threat detection and issue resolution as well as asset tracking and facility resource management.

Infosys growing

Posted on April 17, 2023 by - News

IT outsourcing giant Infosys grew its revenues by 11.7 per cent to reach $18.2 billion in 2023 with operating margins dropping from 22 per cent in 2022 to 21 per cent this year.

The company said that its growth was broad-based across industry verticals and geographic regions. Digital comprised 62.2 per cent of overall revenues and grew at 13.1 per cent.

Manufacturing and life sciences reported the biggest year-on-year growth at 22.2 per cent and 14.9 per cent, respectively. Europe was the region that saw the biggest year-on-year growth at 13.9 per cent.

Fourth quarter year on year growth was 8.8 per cent and sequential decline was 3.2 per cent in constant currency terms. Operating margin for the quarter was also 21.0 per cent. Free cash flow conversion was 95.7 per cent for fourth quarter.