Nutanix says software subscription is the business

Posted on August 30, 2019 by - News

Hyper-converged infrastructure outfit Nutanix said that its subscription business is proving to be a winner and wants to go deeper with key channel partners.

Nutanix has nearly completed its move from hardware and software sales to software and subscription billing, and as a result, is changing how it reports its financials.

Dheeraj Pandey, chairman, founder, and CEO of Nutanix said the move to a subscription had changed the way it operated its channel.

When asked by an analyst during the question and answer period of the call whether Nutanix’s move away from a hardware focus means the company will be increasing its presence among new channel partners or go deeper with existing channel partners, Pandey replied that he thinks less is more with any relationship.

Autodesk suffering from UK/ China trade war

Posted on August 30, 2019 by - News

Autodesk says the US-China trade war could hurt its financials in the second quarter, despite reporting revenue of US$797 million in the period to July 30, up 30 percent from the year before.

Autodesk said that so far the company has been disrupted by the trade dispute, which as yet shows no sign of a resolution, but it is taking a cautious approach, due to the current global economic uncertainty.

The company expects annualised recurring revenue for fiscal 2020 of $3.43 billion to $3.49 billion, down from its previous estimates of $3.5 billion to $3.55 billion.

Autodesk is shifting the delivery of its software to the cloud.

iland expands global channel sales programme

Posted on August 30, 2019 by - News

iland is expanding its global channel sales programme to address substantial partner growth and customer demand for its secure cloud backup, infrastructure and disaster recovery solutions in North America, South America, Asia, Europe, Australia and Africa.

Using VMware technology, iland’s solutions are apparently popular among small- and medium-sized organisations that lack the resources and expertise to deploy, test and manage their own cloud-based disaster recovery, backup and infrastructure solutions. iland claims it is now reaching a broader audience of enterprise customers through an expanding partner network of resellers and managed service providers that understand the value of migrating solutions to the cloud.

Juniper partners with Aston Martin

Posted on August 29, 2019 by - News

Juniper has become Aston Martin’s official networking partner.

Aston Martin will work with Juniper Networks to deploy a network able to support its business through projected growth and expansion of its vehicle ranges.

Aston Martin is already a well-established Juniper customer, with deployments across its multiple manufacturing, administration and customer-facing sites. Going forward, the company’s secure networking infrastructure will be underpinned end-to-end by Juniper’s solutions. Aston Martin Racing, the company’s motorsport arm, will also use Juniper’s technology trackside to enable its competitive and R&D communications for events globally.

Ingram Micro might be sold off

Posted on August 29, 2019 by - News

The dark satanic rumour mill has manufactured a hell on earth yarn claiming that Ingram Micro’s owner is in “advanced talks” to sell a majority stake in the distributor.

A group of investors, led by Asian private equity firm RRJ Capital, is finalising a deal to acquire a majority stake in Ingram Micro for $4 billion investment.

The deal will be firmed up within a few days and will involve the investor injecting funds via an HNA convertible bond that will give it control of Ingram Micro.

Seraphine warns of the cost of a ‘No Deal’ Brexit

Posted on August 28, 2019 by - News

Seraphine is warning of the unacceptable risks of a rapidly emerging ‘No Deal’ scenario that threatens years of hard work building global markets.

The warning follows leaked predictions of disruption to UK ports lasting four months, with potentially massive effects on exports and the import of materials. 70 percent of Seraphine’s lines are exported internationally to 40 countries, with 40 percent of all exports going to mainland Europe.

Another imminent danger comes from the Home Secretary’s call for immediate restrictions on freedom of movement for EU citizens working and living in England on 31 October, with no transition period. Seraphine’s UK workforce is evenly split between UK and continental nationals from several countries. Its multilingual and multicultural staff are a business benefit in expanding international markets and their departure would only benefit competitive EU brands.

US firms dominate top 10 VC investors list in IoT

Posted on August 28, 2019 by - News

The US was home to majority of the global top 10 venture capital investors in the Internet of Things (IoT) tech space in 2018, according to GlobalData, a data and analytics company.

The top 10 VC investors (Baidu, Amazon Alexa Fund, Intel Capital, Robert Bosch, Northern Light Venture Capital, Khosla Ventures, Parkwalk Advisors, Andreessen Horowitz, General Catalyst Partners and GV Management) participated in 52 funding rounds equating to a total proportionate investment value of US$350.2 million in 2018.

Silver Peak expands channel team

Posted on August 28, 2019 by - Moving People, News

SD-WAN  outfit Silver Peak bolstered its EMEA channel team with the appointments of three regional channel account managers to deepen partner engagement and drive sales growth across the UK, France and Germany. The new appointments include Wayne Newman in the UK and Ireland, Philippe Dufour in France and Sara Ramezanpour in DACH. 

The move follows the launch and expansion of the Silver Peak Partner Edge programme within the last year – including the Global Partner Edge programme, the Cloud Partner Ecosystem expansion, and the Authorised Deployment Partner (ADP) programme – the new channel account managers underscore the company’s commitment to the EMEA region and channel.  The outfit believes that the SD-Wan market is headed for a growth spurt soon.

Gaia seeks buyer after earth cut out from underneath it

Posted on August 27, 2019 by - News

Gaia Technologies is seeking a buyer after entering administration.

Two partners at advisory firm FRP Advisory LLP were appointed joint administrators earlier this week and said that Gaia has suffered “severe” cashflow issues over recent months.

Gaia reported sales of £19.5 million  during its most recently reported financial year, ending 31 March 2018 which was a drop of two million on the previous year.

IT Lab swallows Mirus IT

Posted on August 27, 2019 by - News

IT Lab has acquired managed services player Mirus IT.

Mirus will take Group revenues for IT Lab past  £75 million and improve the outfit’s managed services operation, which will now have more than 890 clients and 700 staff.

ScanSource offloads its non-digital business

Posted on August 23, 2019 by - News

ScanSource has announced it plans to sell its non-digital business across the UK, the rest of Europe, Latin and South America totalling $623 million.

The US distributor posted poor Q4 financials where revenues decreased three percent to $960.8 million and operating income shrank four percent to $29.4 million.

The outfit said it will flog operations worth $623 million in revenues in Europe, including the UK, Mexico, Colombia, Chile, Peru and Miami in the US. The move will affect around 490 employees in its Barcode and Communications business.

EkkoSense hires Pete Le Noury for growth bid

Posted on August 23, 2019 by - Moving People, News

Data centre simulation specialist EkkoSense has appointed senior global operations specialist Pete Le Noury as the company’s Chief Operations and Chief Financial Officer.

Le Noury has been bought in to drive a planned growth phase. His appointment follows EkkoSense’s recent addition of Adrian Barker from Vertiv as Key Account Director, and also of data centre expert Mark Acton to the company’s board as a non-executive director.

Biometric security measures called into question

Posted on August 22, 2019 by - News

The significant breach and vulnerabilities recently discovered by vpnMentor researchers within Suprema’s BioStar 2 database are enough to scare any potential end-user away from biometric security measures, according to Frost & Sullivan security expert Danielle VanZandt.

VanZandt said that with more than a million fingerprint biometrics and user passwords exposed in the breach, BioStar 2 had become the first significant example of how biometric access still has its vulnerabilities that vendors, integrators, and end-users must be aware of before implementing any of these solutions within their organisation, she said

British customer service is getting worse

Posted on August 22, 2019 by - News

Helpshift has released new data revealing consumers’ opinions about the state of customer service and it is bad news for the British.

More than 59 percent of British consumers surveyed stated customer service is either not improving or getting worse, in contrast to only 46 percent of French, 45 percent of Americans, 38 percent of Germans and 34 percent of Dutch.