Category: News

Midwich’s Nimans and DVS buy caused huge revenue growth

Posted on July 21, 2022 by - News

After its acquisition of Nimans and DVS this year, distie Midwich saw its revenues in the UK and Ireland grew by 85 percent year on year during the six months until 30 June.

Midwich snapped up Nimans for £27.5 million in February this year. The distributor turned over £114.3 million in revenues and pre-tax profits of £5.8 million for calendar 2020.

The group’s organic revenue grew 27 percent year on year, which the company attributes to acquiring Nimans and DVS.

The overall gross margin was stated to be approximately 15 percent, which Midwich says is largely equivalent to H1 2021. The group’s board expects stronger gross margins to be in sight for H2 as more live and face-to-face events return in a number of the markets Midwich services.  

US Senate throws cash at chip industry

Posted on July 21, 2022 by - News

The US Senate has voted to move ahead with proposed legislation that will see billions of dollars in subsidies and tax credits chucked at the chip industry.

The Senate has begun debating on the bill which will attempt to ease the supply chain problems which started with the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The big idea is to decrease the reliance on Asia for semiconductor supply, with chip shortages hurting the world’s biggest vendors and their resellers over the past couple of years.

Alation named as one of best places for women to work

Posted on July 21, 2022 by - News

Enterprise data intelligence outfit Alation  has been named as one of the best places for women to work.

2022 UK’s Best Workplaces for Women by Great Place to WorkUK is based on anonymous feedback from women employees who reported on their workplace experience and their representation in the workforce and management.

The award, now in its fifth year, showcases the best workplaces for women based on a number of criteria including culture and support for career progression.

It recognises organisations with a culture where people trust each other, and employees are able to reach their full potential no matter their role or function. The award further recognises organisations which support the different identities women hold and ensures their daily experiences are positive.

Apple slows hiring and research as star sets

Posted on July 20, 2022 by - News

Fruity cargo cult Apple is slowing down hiring and spending next year and is blaming the economic downturn for punters no longer wanting its shiny over priced goods.

Apple said the move will not impact all teams and is not a company-wide policy and Jobs’ Mob is still planning an “aggressive” product launch schedule in 2023. It just wants to do it on the cheap with as few staff as possible to maximise profits.

The company, which invented the rounded rectangle, is cutting back on research and development, we guess it is because it has invented everything already.

IBM does better than expected

Posted on July 20, 2022 by - News

A not so mobile X86 PCBiggish Blue saw revenues climb nine percent to $15.5 billion in its second quarter, thanks mostly to its infrastructure businesss.

Sales jumped 16 percent on a constant currency basis, including around five points from sales to spin-off company Kyndryl, while pre-tax income stood at $1.7 billion.

On a non-GAAP basis, pre-tax income was $2.5 billion, up 48 percent year-on-year.

CEO Arvind Krishna said on the company’s earnings call.

” “In the second quarter, we drove solid results reflecting the investments and changes we have been making to execute our strategy,” With this performance, we continue to deliver on our model of mid-single-digit revenue growth. Technology plays an important role in today’s business environment. With this demand backdrop, we are executing our hybrid cloud and AI strategy. We have made changes to our portfolio and focused investments in our offerings, technical talent, our ecosystem, and go-to-market model.”

Babble doubles with extra Yorkshires and Biscuit

Posted on July 20, 2022 by - News

Comms provider Babble has strengthened its presence in Yorkshire and Essex  by completing another double acquisition.

The London-based outfit has acquired Yorkshire Telecom and Biscuit IT, and Basildon-based mobile services provider ADSI.

Biscuit IT has been part of Yorkshire Telecom since 2016 and the joint business serves 390 customers across the north of England in a range of sectors, Babble said.

O2 partner ADSI, meanwhile, serves 4,650 customers across the south-east of England and London with 30,000 O2 mobile connections – making Babble’s mobile division the UK’s second largest O2 dealer, the company claims.

Babble CEO Matt Parker said: “Acquiring Yorkshire Telecom and ADSI is a real win for us. Their customers are exciting, growing businesses with big ambitions and, aside from our own, are some of the most satisfied I’ve ever seen which is a huge credit to them Yorkshire Telecom’s and Biscuit IT’s specialism of comms and cyber and ADSI’s excellent mobile platform are areas where we feel we can add exceptional value for the businesses they serve.”

BT workers strike over pay

Posted on July 19, 2022 by - News

More than 40,000 workers at BT are to take part in a two-day strike over pay.

The Communication Workers Union (CWU), which represents the telecom giant’s employees, has served the company with notice that its members will strike on Friday 29 July and Monday 1 August.

BT has offered its employees a £1,500 pay increase but the CWU is arguing that it is effectively a pay cut when taking inflation into account.

CWU general secretary Dave Ward said that it was not a case of an employer refusing to meet a union’s demands – this is about an employer refusing to meet iy.

Tags:

Never mind the heatwave, Europe is all cloudy

Posted on July 19, 2022 by - News

Number crunchers at IDC claim that public cloud services spend in Europe is set to reach $113 billion in 2022 and will double by 2026.

According to IDC’s Worldwide Public Cloud Services Spending Guide, the growth rate represents a 22 percent five year 2021-2026 CAGR.

Investments in software-as-a-service (SaaS) will continue to lead most of the spending, but pegs platform-as-a-services (PaaS) to be the fastest-growing segment.

Hess walks away from Telefónica Tech CEO role

Posted on July 19, 2022 by - Moving People, News

Telefónica Tech UK&I CEO Martin Hess has stepped down from the role and will be doing something different in the company.

Hess will be replaced by the firm’s vice president of sales and marketing Mark Gorton while he focuses on longer-term strategic growth, both in the UK&I and worldwide, Telefónica Tech said.

Gorton played an “instrumental role” in the growth of Cancom UK&I, which was sold to Telefónica Tech in July 2021, the Microsoft partner added, and also in the acquisition of Incremental Group in March this year.

“I am incredibly proud of the journey our business has been on and where we have got to in a relatively short space of time and I am confident that Mark and Dominic will continue this same upward curve”, Hess said.

RM wins £26 million to sort out Harris Federation’s IT infrastructure.

Posted on July 18, 2022 by - News

Education supplier RM has won a contract to refresh the Harris Federation’s IT infrastructure over the next five years.

For those not in the know,  Harris Federation is a multi-academy trust in and around London. The idea of the partnership is that every academy will have a full infrastructure refresh, including increasing wireless points and switches and cabling.

RM will also replace all devices with a standard design that will allow all teachers and pupils to improve the quality of teaching further.

RM MD Jason Tomlinson said: “RM is uniquely positioned to underpin Harris Federation’s digital transformation along every step of their journey. Our ability to not only augment their IT organisation but also provide them with access to best-in-class next generation platform-delivered managed services, automation and our enhanced buying power through our unique partnerships, will give them the leverage they need to achieve their strategy and deliver the positive impact they are looking for. ”

Nicole Dezen is Microsoft’s top partner officer

Posted on July 18, 2022 by - News

Software King of the World, Microsoft, has appointed Nicole Dezen as chief partner officer.

The move follows the exit from the building of Vole’s former channel chief Rodney Clark.

Alongside the newly created title, Dezen will hold the position of corporate vice president of global partner solutions, formerly held by Nick Parker who has been promoted to president of industry and partner sales.

Parker said Dezen brings a “unique perspective” to Microsoft’s efforts and a “complete left to right view” of opportunities and challenges facing partners.

He said: “Nicole’s elevation to CPO at Microsoft shows our new, deeper approach to channel and ecosystem leadership and advocacy. Nicole has built two key leadership roles that will report to her. 

Solace signs up for Amazon

Posted on July 18, 2022 by - News

Data enabler Solace has joined AWS’ Independent Software Vendor Accelerate Programme

Solace hopes its involvement in the programme will help AWS customers globally to better integrate real-time data capabilities.

Solace already works with the likes of NASA, the London Stock Exchange and Barclays to deliver and enable event-driven architecture for real-time enterprises: a comprehensive way to create, document, discover and stream events.

Solace  Chief Technology Solutions Officer Sumeet Puri said: “We value our multi-year relationship with AWS as an important element of how we help customers implement real-time event streaming across their critical business operations: “We’re excited to now offer our customers even more value by taking our work with AWS to the next level as part of the AWS ISV Accelerate Programme.”

 

PC shipments fall by 15 percent

Posted on July 15, 2022 by - News

Beancounters at Canalys have added up some numbers and found that global PC shipments fell by 15 percent in the second quarter mostly because of Chinese production issues.

The decrease took the market back to its lowest level since the pandemic began to take hold in the first quarter of 2020.

Laptops suffered an 18.6 percent drop, with consumers showing more caution with inflation and the cost of living causing some falls in demand. Desktops fared better, with a 0.6 per ent increase, driven by commercial spending on hardware.

BT wants to grow

Posted on July 15, 2022 by - News

BT is looking to hire 2,800 more workers to hubs around the UK and India.

The technology giant says it plans to “on-board” around 1,000 new UK workers around sites in Birmingham, Manchester, Bristol, Belfast, Ipswich and London.

In India, BT will recruit approximately 1,800 new people centred around hubs in Bengaluru and Gurugram.

The roles span product management, software engineering, cloud, design, data, AI and machine learning and “agile delivery”.

Tags:

Zoom appoints Todd Surdey Head of Global Channel & Business Development

Posted on July 15, 2022 by - Moving People, News

Zoom announced that Todd Surdey has joined Zoom as its Head of Global Channel & Business Development.

Surdey joins Zoom with an extensive enterprise and channel background having served in leadership roles at Google, Palo Alto Networks, SAP, Salesforce, and VMware, among others.

He brings with him an intimate knowledge of running enterprise businesses, as well as a long history with and passion for the channel, all of which will be critical as Zoom continues to scale the channel and partner business.