Adoption rates of solid-state disks (SSDs) in notebooks and desktops are on the rise across Europe, with 53 percent of notebooks sold through Western Europe’s largest distributors in Q2 2018 featuring SSDs compared to 41 percent in the same quarter a year ago.

Data published by IT market intelligence company CONTEXT states that for desktops the share of those with SSDs rose from 27 percent to 38 percent in Q2 2018.

Marie-Christine Pygott, senior analyst at CONTEXT, said that the increase in both categories was driven by a rise in volume sales of SSD-based systems coupled with a decline in products featuring traditional hard disks.

“SSD adoption rates were also up compared to Q1 2018 when 51 percent of notebooks and 35 percent of desktops were based on the newer storage technology.”

Adoption rates were lower in Central and Eastern Europe but there was still a steady rise. In the first two months of Q2 2018, 32 percent of notebooks sold in the region featured SSDs compared to 22 percent a year ago, while SSD desktops’ share rose from 21 percent to 28 percent.

Firms employing ten or fewer people are largely clueless when it comes to security, a new report has revealed.

A Fasthosts survey shows the vast majority of those firms that employ less than 10 people don’t think they could be a target of an attack. But why would they when only 14 percent have the means of detecting if they have been victims.

The survey not only found that many firms said they had never been affected by a security breach but 84 percent felt that they had some form of protection in place. That description covers a patchy deployment of some firewalls, system updates and limited intrusion detection.

Unlike those running larger businesses, only 20 percent of those quizzed by YouGov, on behalf of Fasthosts, described cybersecurity as a high priority.

Simon Yeoman, general manager at Fasthosts said: “This study shows that many micro-businesses remain in the dark over cybersecurity threats and the solutions available to defend themselves. While 84 percent of businesses claim to have ‘some form of cybersecurity protection in place,’ the fact that 33 percent of businesses do not have a firewall should be a cause for concern.”

“The research has also highlighted some misperceptions among businesses as to the best ways to protect their data. With only 15 percent of micro-businesses that store data claiming to be worried about where or how their data is stored, there seems to be widespread confusion over whether data even needs to be protected at all! This should serve as a wakeup call to all of us in the data hosting industry to help educate micro-businesses on the necessity of concrete data security practices, especially in a post-GDPR landscape where poor data practices will be very costly indeed”, he added.

Service assurance, security, and business analytics firm,Netscout Systems has signed a deal with Biggish Blue.

Under the agreement, IBM will useNetscout ‘s Smart Data Technologies which includes its Adaptive Service Intelligence (ASI) patented technology to drive data-centric workflows and decision making for Communication Service Providers (CSPs).

The collaboration centers on Netscout’s software-based InfiniStreamNG real-time information platform, which provides visibility into physical and virtual networks by instantaneously converting high-volume network traffic into granular yet highly contextual subscriber meta-data or Smart Data at the collection point. Mutual customers will benefit by feeding Netscout’s subscriber-centric Smart Data for voice, video, data and OTT services into IBM’s Telecom Analytics Solution.

Netscout’s Smart Data combined with IBM’s analytics capabilities provides the “always on” multi-dimensional subscriber meta-data, enabling CSPs to better understand the behaviors and motivations of their customers through a data-driven, customer-centric business model and drive network change. With this new integrated solution that utilises Netscout’s CORE to RAN network data view, CSPs gain better insight into customer needs, allowing them to innovate across core operational and service areas, including customer care, sales and marketing to ultimately reduce subscriber churn and strengthen and grow revenue. The solution will also enable CSPs to create new business models around customer behavior modelling as well as participation in broader ecosystems that will drive CSPs overall value.

This agreement allows IBM to offer selected models of Netscout’s ISNG probes, via a pure software model. This OEM arrangement provides Netscout’s and IBM’s customers another channel to purchase NETSCOUT software along with IBM’s Telecom Analytics Solution as a bundled offering.

“Demand for proactively predicting customer behaviour is on the rise, and along with it the need for flawless network performance in order to ensure the highest quality customer experience, which is critical to maintain loyalty and prevent churn,” said Anil Singhal, co-founder, president, and chief executive officer, at Netscout. “By adding the rich data from Netscout’s Adaptive Service Intelligence technology to IBM’s Telecom Analytics Solution, we are able to bring together network and subscriber data from multiple sources in a way that offers an unparalleled, end-to-end view of what the customer is actually experiencing. Communications service providers need smart, real-time performance data for smarter insights and smarter analytics. This partnership delivers it.”

IBM’s  Gary O’Driscoll said: “”Communications Service Providers need to leverage vast volumes of information, so they can make more intelligent decisions and assure both exceptional customer experiences and network performance in today’s dynamic environment. This collaboration is part of a long-standing relationship between our two companies that focuses on a wide range of products including lab test equipment, field installations tools, and monitoring and troubleshooting systems. By working together, we are committed to providing more value to our shared customers.”

Cloud service Blue Jeans Network which connects desktops, mobile devices and room systems into a single video meeting have introduced a new tiered plan and a significant expansion of its channel program to address increasing customer demand for BlueJeans Meetings, BlueJeans Rooms and BlueJeans Events solutions.

The new programme will invest in expanding business with partners who include BlueJeans in their unified communications solutions and help customers migrate from legacy conferencing solutions to BlueJeans’ modern cloud platform. The programme offers additional benefits and incentives to partners who invest in the skills and certifications required to deliver successful customer outcomes.

the key design point of BlueJeans’ expanded channel programme is to help punters create intelligent workplaces with BlueJeans Rooms, which make any room a smart, one-touch video, audio and web conferencing room that is easy to use and manage. Increasingly, partners are the delivery vehicle for BlueJeans Rooms, which experienced 280% revenue growth from Q1 to Q4 in BlueJeans’ recent fiscal year.  The new channel programme will equip partners to scale their BlueJeans Rooms deployments rapidly.

George Mogannam, Chief Revenue Officer, BlueJeans Network said: “We worked closely with our partners and listened to their feedback to build a programme that extends beyond referrals to give partners more control as well as the ability to generate additional revenue and margin. The goal is to establish a framework that leverages the best of BlueJeans and our partners so the customer receives a solution that is a perfect fit for their organisation. The market has responded enthusiastically to BlueJeans’ integration of Dolby Voice technology and our integrations with Workplace by Facebook and Microsoft Teams. It is clear that enterprises increasingly expect BlueJeans to work across all our partners to solve the challenges of the modern workplace.”

The BlueJeans channel programme will equip and incentivise partners to help customers transform workplace productivity using BlueJeans and the complementary solutions of its alliance partners, including Dolby, Facebook, Microsoft and others.