Category: News

Orange Cyberdefense wants to hire 800 professionals

Posted on April 5, 2023 by - News

Orange Cyberdefense, the Orange subsidiary and European leader in cybersecurity services, announces the launch of its latest recruitment campaign, which will run until the end of 2023.

The outfit wants to recruit around 800 professionals in the nine European countries where it operates to meet the new cybersecurity challenges of companies of all sizes and who will join the 3,000 experts already in the organisation.

Positions are available across the entire organisation, from analyst roles in operational teams to architects, engineers, consultants, and ethical hackers.

Comms and RM Technology working on Connect the Classroom initiative.

Posted on April 5, 2023 by - News

Comms-care (an Ingram Micro company) is teaming up with RM Technology as partners for the Department for Education (DfE) funded Connect the Classroom (CTC) initiative.

The programme will enable schools to take advantage of future-proofed IT infrastructure and benefit from the speed and capability of full-fibre broadband at speeds of 1 Gigabit per second, which is 20 times faster than the average internet speed in the UK.

RM has supported schools on DfE’s CTC initiative since 2021, working on the DfE grant funded project to co-create and deliver brand new IT infrastructure that sets the foundation of future proofed network connectivity.

Drata teams up with Distology

Posted on April 5, 2023 by - News

Drata has teamed up with Distology to increase its global presence and network of IT resellers.

The new partnership adds Drata to Distology’s existing suite of cybersecurity solutions to support companies with varying compliance needs, within the EMEA market.

For those who came in late, Drata is a security and compliance automation platform and Distology is a value-added distributor (VAD) specialising in cybersecurity. The partnership marks the continued growth of Drata’s channel programme and global expansion efforts by extending its integrated risk and compliance offerings to Distology’s community of IT resellers in the EMEA regions.

According to the companies compliance has increasingly become an essential part of any organisation looking to earn and maintain trust among their customers as global regulations in data protection become increasingly enforced.

Daisy blossoms as it snaps up ECSC

Posted on April 4, 2023 by - News

Daisy has acquired cybersecurity vendor ECSC as part of a cunning plan to build out its cybersecurity services.

The acquisition is the latest in more than 50 acquisitions made by the firm including, more recently,  Phoenix IT, Alternative Networks and Damovo UK.

ECSC was established in 2000 and specialises in security breach prevention, detection, and response support.

Daisy CEO Neil Thompson said that he was really excited about adding ECSC’s longstanding and highly complementary cyber security expertise to Daisy ‘s existing Cyber and Operational Resilience division, and wider managed service business,” said .

“Our people are looking forward to working together, and the skillsets the ECSC team bring will further enhance the market leading IT services we provide to our customers.”

ECSC CEO Matthew Briggs said: “Under Daisy ownership, the ECSC directors believe there is a very real prospect that ECSC can become the UK’s leading cyber security organisation, providing excellent career opportunities and delivering best in class cyber solutions for new and existing clients.”

Nothing weird about vendor firings

Posted on April 4, 2023 by - News

Aviatrix CEO tech leader Steve Mullaney has been telling the world+dog that there is nothing unusual about the large number of layoffs that are occurring in the IT industry.

He said that a large number of sackage is due to the “overhiring” technology companies did over the past few years during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Mullaney said: “Everyone just kept hiring, hiring and hiring, whether it made any sense or not. There was no downside to it. And all anyone cared about was growth at any cost. Then last summer hits. All of a sudden everybody then says, ‘We’ll now, hang on. That’s not the way the world works anymore. You actually have to be profitable.’ It’s going back to what’s normal.”

He said that AWS probably hired hired tens-of-thousands of people over the last year so there is nothing wrong with AWS.

 

 

Trustmarque earns all Microsoft’s badges

Posted on April 4, 2023 by - News

Trustmarque has earned all six Microsoft solution badges and is busy sewing them on its blanket.

The outfit said that they are the first UK-based partners to win all designations. It also puts the York-HQ MSP in the highest tier of Microsoft’s partner programme.

The company said that it has been keen to evolve from its past as a reseller to a more sophisticated services provider.

Originally Trustmarque just flogged licenses particularly in the public sector. But that has changed and the new solution designations are a recognition by Vole of the company’s ability to deliver services.

In October, Microsoft revamped its cloud partner programme, scrapping Silver and Gold-level certification badges as well as shaking up how partners are categorised and measured.

 

Russian hackers target Zimbra

Posted on April 3, 2023 by - News

A Russian-based threat group Winter Vivern or TA473 has been targeting a flaw in the Zimbra webmail client to exfiltrate emails from officials in European countries.

Security outfit Proofpoint said the attackers exploit a vulnerability tracked as CVE-2022-27926 on unpatched internet-facing Zimbra Collaboration servers, which it discovered using a vulnerability scanner.

CVE-2022-27926 is described as a “Reflected cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability of Zimbra Collaboration 9.0” that “allows unauthenticated attackers to execute arbitrary web script or HTML via request parameters.” It was patched by Zimbra in April 2022.

Computacenter has a great year

Posted on April 3, 2023 by - News

Computacenter had another year in the black, with revenue up year on year by 28.5 per cent to £6.5 billion.

The 2022 full-year results also highlighted a growth of 30.7 per cent in gross invoiced income to reach £9 billion, and a nine per cent growth in gross profit from £867.8 million to £947.1 million.

Technology sourcing was the LSE-listed reseller’s biggest growth area, with revenue up 36.7 per cent to £7.4 billion. Services grew by 8.3 per cent to hit £1.5 billion.

Airbus surrenders on French Atos deal

Posted on March 31, 2023 by - News

Airbus has given up on its plans to acquire a 29.9 per cent minority stake in French services giant Atos’ security business.

The company claimed the move does not meet objectives “in the current context and under the current structure”.

According to the Financial Times, Airbus surrendered to pressure from billionaire hedge fund manager, Chris Hohn to pull its bid on Evidian.

Babble gets more cloudy

Posted on March 31, 2023 by - News

Babble has snapped up comms solutions provider Midland Comms and Cloudstream Technology Limited in a move to strengthen its position as a cloud service provider (CSP) in the UK.

The two new acquisitions collectively add £4.5 million in revenues, 90 per cent+ of which is recurring, according to Babble, taking its overall revenue run rate past £100 million annually.

The two acquisitions will see more than 30 new employees join Babble.

Midland Comms has been serving SMEs across the Midlands for nearly 50 years, providing communications solutions to over 500 customers.

Cisco has training partnership with Multiverse in Manchester

Posted on March 31, 2023 by - News

Cisco announced its training partnership with Multiverse to fund and tailor professional apprenticeships for employees in its partner ecosystem in the Greater Manchester area.

The Tech Talent Accelerator programme will focus on business-critical skills in digital transformation and data analytics, helping accelerate the region’s digital careers.

More than 80 employees will join the new team so that partner organisations will benefit from training and development up to degree level, through independent learning, group workshops, and one-to-one expert coaching.

BT Wholesale launches channel based SIM package

Posted on March 30, 2023 by - News

BT Wholesale has launched a mobile SIM package for the channel after concluding a successful trial with several of its  partners.

Dubbed Complete Mobile offering it uses EE Mobile SIMs which BT will make available to partners that want to sell 4G and 5G connectivity and international roaming packages to their customers.

The decision to offer general availability to those that are part of the Partner Plus community came after the vendor ran a trial with a number of channel players, including Lister Communications, Comms Connect and Calteq.

ANS Group hires Bain as COO

Posted on March 30, 2023 by - News

ANS Group has appointed Colin Bain as its new chief operating officer.

The announcement follows the appointment of a new CFO, Alex Hodgson, as ANS strengthens its group board in preparation for its next growth phase.

Bain joins ANS from QuantiQ where he was a COO and managing director. He took a role in growing the company to become the largest independent Microsoft Dynamics 365 partner in the UK, before the firm’s sale to global Microsoft solutions powerhouse Avanade in 2021.

A CIMA chartered accountant, Bain has experience in the delivery of software and tech services and has worked with Microsoft Dynamics since its inception.

He takes responsibility for the largest division within ANS, with a brief covering professional services, managed services and transformation.

C2 launches UK channel

Posted on March 30, 2023 by - News

Third-party risk management (TPRM) outfit C2 has debuted in the UK channel with its first partner programme.

The outfit has partners in the Netherlands, UAE and Switzerland. Still, a move to the UK is part of a greater expansion, which will eventually see the company with a North American presence.

Channel business is only five per cent of total revenues, but this should grow as the company wants to see 75 per cent of revenues to be via the channel by the end of 2023.

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Softcat begins to purr

Posted on March 29, 2023 by - News

Softcat’s share price rose by over five per cent this morning as it unveiled its interim results, despite reporting slower growth.

Having stood at close to 30 per cent in its fiscal 2022, Softcat’s gross invoiced income (GII) growth slowed to 4.9 per cent in the six months to 31 January 2023. Operating profit also dipped by two per cent to £63.1 million, ending a run of 68 quarters of consecutive growth.

However, the slower GII growth was due almost entirely to the artificial impact of the high-value, low-margin business it secured with a “major” customer the prior year. Softcat had already prepared the market for a possible profit dip as its travel and entertainment costs rebounded post-Covid.

Operating profits were better than expected while Softcat’s key profit measure of gross profit hiked by 17.9 per cent to £177.1 million.

While many big tech firms are laying off staff, Softcat is giving them more money and this policy had a  “profoundly positive impact” on attrition rates and its ability to attract new talent.