Avaya opens joint venture talks with Ringcentral

Posted on September 17, 2019 by - News

The dark satanic rumour mill has manufactured a hell on earth yarn claiming that Avaya is in talks to form a joint venture with RingCentral.

The source of the rumour is Bloomberg. Last month, Bloomberg reported that Mitel had made a bid to takeover the Avaya, proposing a reverse merger that would result in a telecommunications vendor worth over $5 billion.

If Avaya is now in talks to partner with RingCentral, it could mean abandoning any plans to sell the company. The sources added that there is still a possibility that those talks could collapse and the outcome of the strategic review remains uncertain.

In its Q3 earnings report in August, Avaya CEO Jim Chirico told investors that the company was in talks with a number of parties “on a range of strategic transactions to maximise shareholder value”.

He said at the time that he expected the strategic review would conclude within 30 days, but that timeline has now expired.

Mainframe finds new life in AI and Blockchain

Posted on September 17, 2019 by - News

 New Forrester Consulting research released by Ensono and Wipro suggests that companies are keeping mainframe systems and are looking to integrate them into AI and Blockchain operations.

The research was conducted by Forrester Consulting to understand the future of mainframe in enterprises. The study involving 153 IT decision-makers at director level or above across the USA and Europe, found that half of the organisations will continue with mainframe and increase its use in the next two years versus just five per cent planning to decrease or remove mainframe activity.

The research found that while mainframes continue to be considered a critical piece of infrastructure for the modern business, it was surprisingly found to be an essential element of advanced technologies like AI and Blockchain. Enterprises are now taking a hybrid approach to their infrastructure, migrating some applications to the cloud while maintaining specific business-critical applications on-premises and on mainframes.

While traditional applications and workloads (ERP (48 per cent), finance and accounting (45 per cent), HR management (44 per cent) and ECM (43 per cent)) remain the mainstay of the mainframe, 25 per cent of those surveyed stated that mobile sites and applications were being put into the mainframe; 27 per cent were running new blockchain initiatives and containerized applications.

Ivanti improves its EMEA partner community

Posted on September 16, 2019 by - News

IT provider Ivanti has splashed out cash on sprucing up its EMEA partner community.

The programme now includes three new EMEA channel initiatives for businesses: a new Platinum Elite partner status, a deal registration promotional period, as well as an enhanced partner portal.

The new Platinum Elite level of Ivanti’s Partner Program has been designed to recognise those partners driving Unified IT to their customers and reward those with whom it has developed strategic and collaborative working relationships.

Softcat, COMPAREX, SCC and Invent AG have already been given top status, but Ivanti says it aims to expand the collective to include additional partners.

Due to be implemented in a “multi-stage process”, the new hub will include full integration with Ivanti’s internal Customer Relationship Management system from Autumn of this year.

The addition will allow SLAs to be added to all deal registrations to track and guarantee response times, as well as speed up the time it takes to deliver solutions to customers.

From January 2020, phase two of the portal upgrade will also see distribution partners able to quote new business directly from the portal, Ivanti added, to enable order to license fulfilment within 15 minutes.

 

Veritas has new channel boss

Posted on September 16, 2019 by - Moving People

Veritas has appointed a new channel boss, with Mike Walkey now heading up its global partner ecosystem and alliances with cloud providers.

Veritas executive vice president, Scott Genereuxof said: “I am thrilled to have Mike join Veritas to strengthen the incredible relationships we have with our channel and alliance partners and drive growth across our new Enterprise Data Services Platform,”

“Mike knows the channel and has a proven track record of building innovative programs that help partners succeed and differentiate themselves in the market.”

Walkey was senior vice president of strategic partners and alliances at Hitachi Vantara, having previously worked at Flextronics International, Buy.com and Ingram Micro.

Apple still the king of tablets

Posted on September 16, 2019 by - News

While it is having a miserable time at the moment, the fruity cargo-cult Apple retained its leadership in the EMEA tablet market, according to beancounters at IDC

The fruity cargo cult took a quarter of the total market share in second-quarter thanks to its detachables and the rebirth of the iPad mini.

Rival Samsung took second place, but saw a 13.4 per cent year-on-year decline, with third-place Huawei declining nearly 20 per cent, which the analyst attributed to falling consumer confidence due to its ban in the US.

The EMEA tablet market is predicted to decline by nearly 10 per cent overall in 2019, with the detachables and commercial segment expected to offset the decline in consumer tablets partially.

“The second half of 2019 will remain inhibited as slates continue to decline across regions,” said Nikolin Jurisic, product manager at IDC CEMA.

US firms are at the centre of cybersecurity buy out blitz

Posted on September 12, 2019 by - News

Beancounters at GlobalData have added up some numbers and concluded that American companies remained the most active investors in the cybersecurity technology space.

Of the top five acquirers in terms of the number of acquisitions, the top three were headquartered in the US, with the UK-based Sophos and Canadian firm Blackberry also featuring among the top five.

The three American companies, Symantec, Palo Alto Networks and Proofpoint, undertook seven acquisitions each in the cybersecurity space during 2014–2018, while Sophos acquired six companies and Blackberry acquired five companies during the period.

ECSC grows on managed services

Posted on September 12, 2019 by - News

Cybersecurity outfit ECSC has indicated that its focus on managed services is delivering as it saw significant growth.

ECSC  CEO of Ian Mann said that there was a drop off in its consulting business by 23 per cent to £1.19 million, which offset the 63 percent climb in managed services, producing flat year on year revenues of £2.63 million in the firm’s interim first-half numbers. The firm trimmed its losses to £0.19 million, down from £0.49 million at the same point last year, and indicated that the consulting business was better in the second half. The firm enjoyed a record July, with revenues up by 42 million to £0.62 million on last year.

“We are pleased that from the start of H2 the previously reported reduced level of consulting services demand has now been reversed, with consulting growth recovering strongly to match the continued growth in managed services recurring revenue and cyber incident response service”, Mann said.

Symantec has so many wooers

Posted on September 12, 2019 by - News

Security outfit Symantec might be bought out by a pair of private equity (PE) firms seeking to acquire its consumer business for $16.4 billion

London-based Permira Holdings has teamed up with US-based Advent International to offer a deal that would value the company at between $26 and $27 a share – valuing the organisation at $16.4 billion.

The deal would include its Norton antivirus software and VPN service along with its LifeLock identity theft protection services.

Cyxtera wants more channel partners

Posted on September 11, 2019 by - News

Data centre and security outfit Cyxtera wants to sign more channel partners as it develops its indirect model.

The company started selling direct but it is increasingly moving indirect and has taken steps to ensure that the channel is bought into its direct sales.

Midwich does well on the back of Euro acquistions

Posted on September 11, 2019 by - News

The print and AV disti Midwich has posted a strong first half of the year thanks to the European acquisitions it made earlier in the year.

Overall revenue climbed 19 percent year on year to £314.8 million for its six months ending 30 June 2019.

Earlier in the year the outfit snapped up Italian Prase and Swiss MobilePro in January, followed by Oslo-based AV Partner in May. It was all part of a cunning plan to enter new markets.

Immotion outlines partner model and plans

Posted on September 11, 2019 by - News

UK-based immersive ‘Out of Home’ entertainment group Immotion Group has rolled out a new partnership model and VR campaign.

The company is now focused on the roll-out of its partnership model into high footfall locations.  Trading in the current partner sites has been encouraging over the summer months, with aquariums continuing to perform particularly strongly and overall there remains keen interest from potential new partners as well as further developments with current partners in this sector.

Rate of change challenges security

Posted on September 10, 2019 by - News

Security experts have identified the rate of change as one of the biggest current threats to cyber security in the UK.

The sort of change they are talking about is not just the ability of hackers to come up with new viruses, but also changes to the legal landscape.

The challenges were identified by leading industry experts discussing the current status of UK cyber security in the run up to Cyber Security Connect UK, (CSCUK), the leading conference and industry forum for CISOs.

Appian scores Anglian Water contract

Posted on September 10, 2019 by - News

Anglian Water has selected Appian’s low-code platform to accelerate the development of new digital business applications.

Geographically, Anglian is the largest water and water recycling company in England and Wales, supplying 1.2 billion litres of water to 4.3 million customers, and collecting used water from over six million people every day.

UK firms need to invest more in software shock

Posted on September 10, 2019 by - News

Software outfit Progrex is warning that businesses aren’t investing enough in systems, which is an issue that is contributing to the UK productivity crisis.

The average British worker produces more than 16 percent less than most of the G7, the group of seven leading economies and experts believe some of this weak productivity can be put down to poor workflow and inefficient systems.

Crowdstrike’s channel boosts subscription sales

Posted on September 9, 2019 by - News

Crowdstrike has seen its subscription sales improve in its second fiscal quarter thanks mostly to the Channel

Crowdstrike focused on developing a single-tier approach with its Elevate Partner Programme, which was revamped at the start of this year.

CEO George Kurtz said that subscription rates for the outfit’s Falcon platform grew with half of its customers now taking four or more cloud modules from the vendor, with 730 new customers in the quarter, ended 31 July.