XBM opens Birmingham office

Posted on May 2, 2018 by - News

Epson reseller partner XBMhas opened an office in Birmingham, its first in the Midlands.

The print management company, founded and headquartered in Leeds, used £235,000 of funding from NatWest to expand its presence outside the North of England.

XBM’s Birmingham office, located in Aston, will create 10 new jobs for the area, adding to its 35 strong headcount across its Leeds, Newcastle and Manchester offices. The total investment in Birmingham will reach £750,000 by the end of the year.

XBM has partnered with Epson since 2017.  Its focus is to sell Epson’s WorkForce Enterprise superfast eco-efficient business inkjet printer into educational establishments.

Chris Smith, sales manager for business products at Epson UK said: “We are delighted to work with XBM as they continue to grow their business.  They are well established in the print management industry and combine an ideal blend of product knowledge, market experience and sales support to ensure that our customers receive the best levels of service possible.  We look forward to supporting them as they continue to deliver Epson’s print solutions to customers in Birmingham and beyond.”

Justin English, managing director at XBM said: “Birmingham has a high concentration of businesses that could benefit from our innovative services, which makes it the perfect location for our next phase of expansion.  We are looking forward to talking to new and existing customers about Epson’s range of business inkjet printers and demonstrating their environmental advantages by providing a low power solution, with fewer supplies, while delivering remarkably fast print speeds at high quality.”

Founded in 2008, XBM is one of the fastest growing and most competitive providers of specialist office and production print equipment in the UK. The business has been growing at 20 percent a year and has a reported annual turnover of £2.5m.

 

 

 

AI set to grow

Posted on May 1, 2018 by - News

Robbie_Forbidden_PlanetAnalyst outfit Gartner group has been consulting its Tarot cards and concluded that artificial intelligence would be worth $1.2 trillion to enterprises in 2018.

Gartner research director John-David Lovelock said that the value provided by AI to businesses this year would increase 70 percent on last year’s figure and will continue to grow over the next four years.

He said that AI promises to be the most disruptive class of technologies during the decade, adding that end users will be looking to spend money on AI to address specific issues.

“One of the biggest aggregate sources for AI-enhanced products and services acquired by enterprises between 2017 and 2022 will be niche solutions that address one need very well”, he added.

“Business executives will drive investment in these products, sourced from thousands of narrowly focused, specialist suppliers with specific AI-enhanced applications.”

Gartner said that three main factors will drive an increase in business growth derived from AI.

Organisations will see an increase in revenue from existing products and services as a result of utilising AI, Gartner said, and will also uncover new opportunities after implementing an AI strategy. The costs of delivering solutions will also decrease as a result of using AI, the analyst said.

Gartner predicts that the most significant driver of business value, however, will come from an improvement in customers’ experiences – with businesses utilising AI capabilities to improve client interaction and retention.

It picked out “virtual agents” – which can handle basic customer queries for an organisation – as an example of these improvements. In 2018 it expects virtual agents to account for 46 percent of the overall business value provided by AI.

Smart products contain the most common type of AI in the market, usually in the form of cloud systems that integrate data about the user’s preferences from multiple interactions. This allows for a customised experience for the user. Smart products account for 18 percent of global AI-derived business value in 2018, but it is predicted that this will fall to 14 percent by 2022.

It is not all great though.  AI value growth will, however, slow after 2018, the analyst said, with the AI value seen by businesses expected to be $1.9tn in 2019 and $2.6tn in 2020.

 

Schneider Electric announces cloudy Smart-UPS

Posted on May 1, 2018 by - News

two-clouds-1385018843_27_contentfullwidthSchneider Electric has released APC Smart-UPS with SmartConnect intelligent cloud management for its UK & Ireland channel.

The outfit claims it is the first cloud-enabled uninterruptible power supply (UPS) for distributed IT environments and enables businesses, unusually small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) that have limited IT staff and resources, to manage the health of their UPS systems.

SmartConnect uses the Schneider Electric cloud-enabled EcoStruxure IT architecture to gather and send data about the health and status of a customer’s UPS devices including battery replacement, warranty renewal and UPS performance notifications.

It also provides a secure, cloud-based web portal where customers can view the status of their UPS, accessible from any internet-connected device, send customisable automatic notifications, firmware notification updates and advanced troubleshooting support through an easy-to-use remote monitoring interface.

It can be deployed right out of the box without any configuration required – making it easy for even non-technical users to install.

SmartConnect cloud-powered technology also enables managed service providers (MSPs) to expand their offerings to deliver remote UPS monitoring for SMB clients. This provides MSPs with a more significant opportunity to serve their customers through value-added power infrastructure services better while generating new revenue streams – all with minimal effort and no additional cost.

Connected APC Smart-UPS with SmartConnect is one of the latest products available as part of Schneider Electric’s EcoStruxure IT Data Center Management as a Service architecture. The foundation of EcoStruxure IT is built on intelligent, connected solutions that leverage data-driven insights to simplify the maintenance and operation of IT physical infrastructure by improving performance operation, enabling remote visibility and monitoring, and providing expert services capabilities.

Bytes scores huge NHS deal

Posted on May 1, 2018 by - News

CONurse.OriginalUKquadposterBytes has won a huge £150 million deal that will see it roll out Windows 10 to all NHS England PCs.

For those who came in late, last year the NHS was hit by WannaCry which targeted old Windows versions. Now NHS is upgrading to Microsoft’s latest operating system, which the vendor says houses “cutting-edge security features”.

The move is part of the government’s cybersecurity spending initiative which will also see it invest £21 million to upgrade the NHS’ firewall and network infrastructure, and build a security operations centre.

Bytes was already partners with the NHS but will expand its team to handle the new work of rolling out Windows 10 Licences to the whole of NHS England.

Bytes is providing the licences while the technical deployment will be carried out in conjunction with a range of Microsoft certified partners.

The subscription-based contract, worth £30 million a year, will see Bytes more than double the business it transacts with the NHS, which currently sits at £20 million a year.

More than ten other suppliers applied for the contract when it was tendered via Crown Commercial Service.

Last year the company grew by 25 percent, and the new contract will help expand it further.

In a news release announcing the deal, Microsoft talked up the security capabilities of Windows 10, stressing the urgency required to protect the NHS after the “significant” impact of WannaCry.

Microsoft’s UK CEO Cindy Rose said: “The importance of helping to protect the NHS from the growing threat of cyberattacks cannot be overstated.

“The introduction of a centralised Windows 10 agreement will ensure a consistent approach to security that also enables the NHS to modernise its IT infrastructure rapidly.”

Nuvias and FireEye Sign Pan-European distributor agreement

Posted on April 30, 2018 by - News

Sauron_eye_barad_durValue added distributor Nuvias has signed a pan-European distribution agreement with the security outfit FireEye.

The plan is that Nuvias will play a key role in driving further adoption of the FireEye product portfolio including the FireEye Helix Security Operations Platform, Endpoint Security and other solutions.

The agreement is initially focused on markets in the UK and Ireland, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, France and the Netherlands. However, it will eventually cover the whole of Europe.

FireEye is a significant addition to the growing Nuvias Security Practice; the outfit works with Juniper Networks, Arbor Networks, Barracuda, Check Point, Fortinet, HID Global, Kaspersky Lab, Malwarebytes VASCO and WatchGuard Technologies, to deliver end-to-end security solutions.

As part of the agreement, Nuvias will be introducing NU: RAP for FireEye – a Rapid Acceleration Programme for new and existing partners to achieve growth and high-value returns.Nuvias aims to help partners generate revenue by building end-to-end, repeatable solutions based on the FireEye product suite with local knowledge and support available.

Nuvias Group’s EVP Cyber Security, Ian Kilpatrick said: “As the threat landscape has evolved, it’s become crucial to have the strong combination of technology, expertise and intelligence. With FireEye, we can now cover each of these areas comprehensively. One of Nuvias’ main goals for security is to help customers identify unseen threats with frontline intelligence and technology to help organisations maximise security investments. By offering products like FireEye Helix we’re in a high position to deliver this.”

Jason Ellis, Vice President, EMEA Channels at FireEye said: “Nuvias has a strong reputation and in-depth understanding of the EMEA Security IT market, so we’re looking forward to working with them. The partnership strengthens our focus on the channel and offers us a huge opportunity for incremental growth. Nuvias partners now have access to the full range of FireEye solutions which come with access to FireEye experts who have a great deal of valuable frontline cyber experience.”

Computacenter gets a 23 per cent year-on-year leap

Posted on April 30, 2018 by - News

Computacenter: Touching the FutureA rather cushy £34 million software licensing deal helped Computacenter record a 23 percent year-on-year leap in first quarter revenues.

Computacenter announced that its Q1 performance beat expectations, particularly around its supply chain (product supply) business.

“This leads the Board to believe that 2018 is likely to be a year of further progress for

in profitability as well as earnings per share”, it said.

It was the UK which helped Computacenter do so well. This was partly due to a one-off, £34 million software licence sale with an unnamed customer.

Even without that, UK growth was up 21 percent, with its supply chain up 52 percent and services down by seven percent.

That beats the 19 per cent growth recorded by Computacenter’s larger German arm. The outfit’s French revenues were flatter than crepes.

From a group perspective, supply chain revenues rose by 27 percent, a business Computacenter said had benefited from its customers’ drive to digitalise their business.

Services sales, which grew just two percent in Q1, are coming under savage pricing pressure; however, Computacenter added.

“We are responding to our customers’ desire to take cost out of long-term support contracts by increasing the competitiveness of our services offerings through productivity improvements which protect our profitability. However, this market trend does put corresponding pressure on our services top line growth which is currently being more than compensated by the supply chain performance.”

Cofense re-launches reseller channel programme

Posted on April 30, 2018 by - News

cunning-planAs part of a cunning plan to move entirely to the channel, Cofense has re-launched its reseller channel programme

The company said it wanted to deepen its relationships with distributors, resellers, and value-added resellers around the globe and streamline the process for customers to obtain enhanced security products and services.

The updated partner programme offers enhanced incentives, alongside lead sharing and marketing programmes. It will support partners with the latest security intelligence through malware reports and threat alerts, to ensure they can advise end-users of the most significant risks to their business.

The company said that its key partnerships would massively expand Cofense’s reach into international markets to bring human-focused phishing defence capabilities to a broader global customer base.

Cofense has 300 partners distributing its products worldwide, forming the basis for the next step of its business growth. Offering a more attractive offering to partners should increase the partner numbers.

Shifting to a pure channel sales model not only strengthens those partner relationships but enhances our abilities to provide best-in-class phishing defence and incident response solutions to global customers.

Zen deals with Inclarity

Posted on April 27, 2018 by - News

zen_as_a_frogZen – that’s a company – not a practice based on Sahaja, has struck an agreement to extend its service provision to Channel partner Inclarity Communications, a London based provider of cloud-based hosted and VoIP telephony services.

As a result of the agreement, Inclarity – already a consumer of Zen broadband services – will see its broadband service expanded and its PSTN services migrated to Zen. Using Zen’s Partner Portal will result in better self-service and more streamlined and efficient service for Inclarity customers.

Inclarity’s Operations Director Andrew Sett said: “Zen’s portal gives us better control in that it enables end-to-end service control. It also allows us to carry out simultaneous provide orders with minimal disruption to a user’s business.”

Zen’s Channel MD Steve Warburton said: “It is pleasing to work with a partner that shares our ethos regarding the importance of customer relationships,” he says. “Our relationship with Inclarity not only offers improved delivery and servicing tools through the portal but also gives them full access to ultrafast FTTP and G.fast as it rolls out throughout the UK. These are exciting times for the Zen and Inclarity relationship.”

Only seven percent are ready for GDPR

Posted on April 27, 2018 by - News

ant-and-grasshopperOnly seven percent of global businesses are fully compliant with GDPR.

A new study from analytics firm SAS shows that 93 percent of firms have not met all of the demands posed by GDPR. This is despite the fact that it comes into force next month.

Less than half of respondents (49 percent) said they would be compliant before the May 25 deadline. European companies seem to be more prepared for the law, though.

Currently, 53 percent of EU and 54 percent of British organisations are expected to meet the deadline, compared to just 30 percent in the United States.

UK SAS’s GDPR technology head David Smith said that despite the long run-up to GDPR, the vast majority of UK organisations still don’t have processes in place to manage their data in compliance with the new rules

“At this point, senior leadership needs to take ownership of getting the whole company on board, from IT to operations, to make sure that all personal data is accurately located and appropriately handled.”

While the study shows that most businesses are struggling to meet the deadline, 93 percent said they are working on plans to become compliant.

Most see GDPR as a good thing, with 84 percent of respondents saying they expect GDPR to improve their data protection abilities. And 68 percent believe that the law will enhance customer trust.

In other findings, 58 percent of respondents said they had developed a structured plan to become GDPR-compliant, but 15 percent of US respondents and 4 percent of EU respondents said they have no such plans at all.

Smith added: “There’s a great opportunity contained within the challenge of GDPR. Organisations that gain greater control and understanding of their data will be better able to provide their customers with the services they want, in the manner that they wish to them.

“Those companies that can innovate through GDPR will gain a significant advantage over competitors who get stuck in the long grass of compliance.”

McAfee picks Nick Viney as regional vice president

Posted on April 27, 2018 by - News

Nick-VineyMcAfee has named Nick Viney as regional vice president for the UK, Ireland and South Africa and given him the job of building better relationships with partners.

Viney was VP EMEA of the company’s consumer sales division and has been a part of growing the company’s market share in the consumer space.

Before joining McAfee, Viney held various roles in the tech sector, including enterprise and partner sales management at Microsoft in both it’s UK and EMEA divisions. He worked at Google as head of consumer and SMB sales in the company’s DACH region.

In a statement following his appointment Viney said: “With increasing convergence between consumer and corporate product portfolios, I am looking forward to using my prior experience at McAfee in this new role – working to develop deeper relationships with both enterprise customers and channel partners in these three key markets.”

LDD Group looks for a buyer and goes into administration

Posted on April 26, 2018 by - News

imagesLeeds reseller LDD Group has gone into administration after the company was disrupted after one of its directors fell sick.

Walsh Taylor was appointed as LDD’s administrator on 19 April, and said that the outfit was continuing to trade while it seeks a buyer to secure its future.

LDD Group specialises in IT, telephony and managed print services, with a turnover of £8 million. At its peak, it had revenues of £12 million and almost 50 staff, counting Nike among its clients.

Walsh Taylor director Mary Taylor said that after the ill health of one of its directors – and the unforeseen impact this has naturally caused – the directors felt they were not in a position to carry on themselves.

The priority is very much to sell the company as a viable going concern, safeguarding its future, and retaining as many jobs as possible, she said.

“LDD Group is a family business with a good name, a proven track record, and a national customer base spanning around 30 contracts – particularly in the education and health sectors”, Taylor  said.

TmaxSoft boss calls for finance companies to replace legacy systems

Posted on April 26, 2018 by - News

Carl Davies, TmaxSoft 2TmaxSoft UK CEO Carl Davies says that dependence on out-of-date legacy systems is hamstringing traditional finance companies.

Software provider TmaxSoft said that such companies need to adopt more agile, flexible IT services to respond to changing consumer habits in real time and offer more personalised customer service.

The financial services sector has seen a significant amount of innovation and disruption in the past decade. This has been driven in part by the rise of fintech companies who have put a considerable amount of pressure on the industry by introducing new convenient methods of consumer banking, he said.

Davies said that the traditional financial services industry is now competing with new, agile fintech companies, who have incorporated flexible IT. Some within the financial industry has embraced the new digital economy, with strengthened business strategies and opportunities. While several banks have introduced services such as mobile banking apps and live customer service chat services to adapt to the changing consumer demand, many still operate with traditional legacy IT systems, which lack the right tools and applications to serve their customers with the flexibility they have come to expect from service providers. This, in turn, slows down the pace of innovation. Speed and responsiveness are crucial in an age where real-time customer data and insights can make a significant impact on a business’s bottom line.

The mainframe has been the bedrock of most financial services institutions for decades, and while these systems have served their users well during this time, many major banks are finding that they are increasingly failing to provide the functionality banks require. Not only is it becoming more difficult and more costly to maintain the mainframe as the technology ages, but the pool of IT professionals with the specialist skills required is continually diminishing. Recent technology developments have allowed fintech startups to start their journeys with a clean slate which is not cluttered by old unencumbered investments in IT, which will enable them to offer a much more agile, personalised and responsive customer service.

With technologies such as Big Data and artificial intelligence set to disrupt entire markets within the next few years, businesses must move away from legacy mainframes to take full advantage of new commercial opportunities. It is also now no longer the case that moving a mainframe to a new environment is time-consuming or risky. Businesses can re-host their mainframes in a new environment without having to alter their programmes and applications or rewriting millions of lines of code.

Davies said: “The growth we see in the fintech space, and the changing expectations from consumers about how they interact with the financial services industry, presents a challenge for the traditional banks, and the mainframe sits at the heart of this. Those that continue to operate on mainframes will find that they do not have the flexibility or agility to develop new applications and offer the innovative and user-friendly services that customers are becoming accustomed to receiving from fintech start-ups. If these large financial institutions are to thrive in the era of digital transformation, they must take the initiative and move to more advanced IT environments that are compatible with the new breed of digital services.”

 

UK companies ignoring cyber-danger

Posted on April 26, 2018 by - News

wargames-hackerMore than 43 percent of UK businesses have been hit by cyberattack over the last year including two-thirds of large businesses, the government has said.

The National Cyber Security Centre report said a “huge proportion” of organisations are failing to address primary cybersecurity measures, including updating their software and anti-malware products.

Ciaran Martin, CEO of the government’s National Cyber Security Centre, said: “Cyber attacks can inflict serious commercial damage and reputational harm, but most campaigns are not highly sophisticated.”

Phishing has been the most common method of cyber attack over the last 12 months, the report claimed, followed by instances of hackers posing as a company’s employees. “Companies can significantly reduce their chances of falling victim by following simple cybersecurity steps to remove fundamental weaknesses.”

The average cost of a cyber attack for large businesses was £9,260, with some outbreaks costing “significantly more”.

The government called on organisations to take cybersecurity more seriously, particularly with the General Data Protection Regulation’s (GDPR) impending enforcement date.

Information commissioner Elizabeth Denham said: “Data protection and cybersecurity go hand in hand – privacy depends on security.

“With the new data protection law, GDPR, taking effect in just a few weeks, it’s more important than ever that organisations focus on cybersecurity.

“We understand that there will be attempts to breach systems; we fully accept that cyber attacks are a criminal act, but we also believe organisations need to take steps to protect themselves against the criminals.

“I would encourage organisations to use the new regulations as an opportunity to focus on data protection and data security.”

Malwarebytes opts for Trifacta data marketing products

Posted on April 25, 2018 by - News

Malwarebytes-homepage-shareData preparation outfit Trifacta has signed up Malwarebytes for its Wrangler product to automate its marketing.

Malwarebytes is using the product to accelerate the process of onboarding marketing data and take action on their data faster, all with minimal IT support. Because of the automation that Trifacta provides, Malwarebytes has eliminated the associated errors of manually preparing data in Excel.

Director of Data Science and AI at Malwarebytes Darren Chinen said that the outfit’s marketing team generates leads from a variety of marketing activities, and each new batch of leads they receive needs correcting, standardising, and enriching before it can be onboarded into our marketing automation platform.

“Under an Excel-driven process, the team was spending days or even weeks to manually correct lead data, and the delay put our company at risk of losing prospective clients. After implementing Trifacta, we’ve been able to automate much of the process so that the marketing team merely visually inspects and makes slight alterations to the data at hand. We have seen dramatic efficiency gains — in the past three months alone we were able to onboard 40,000 leads, which would have required six months.”

Marketing teams have long struggled to take action on their marketing data and marketing leads. Data is sourced from different channels — ranging from webinars and events to social media or AdRoll data.

The ability to standardise the miscellaneous data in half the time it takes by using spreadsheets enables marketers to swiftly identify actionable leads and marketing performance insights to grow their business.

According to CSO Insights, 60 percent of forecasted deals do not close, and unsurprisingly the same report goes on to say that one in four companies are unhappy with this outcome. To increase customer conversion, companies need to focus on creating accurate data to ensure their resources are being optimised for the right leads.

 

Nuvias opens new EMEA HQ

Posted on April 25, 2018 by - News

Jacqueline+de+Rojas+and+Paul+EccEMEA distributor Nuvias has opened a 13,504 sq. ft. new EMEA HQ at Woking, Surrey.

The move is the latest step in the rapid growth of the company, following its foundation in 2015.

Nuvias CEO Paul Eccleston said: “The new EMEA HQ in Woking is part of our ongoing plans for growth and increased EMEA reach. It will be a focal point for EMEA-wide activities and a centre for training and development, as well as a location for hosting strategic meetings with our customers and vendor partners. It is available as a resource centre for all our partners.”

Turnover at Nuvias is now more than $ 500 million, with an increase across the board of some 13.1 percent in the last financial year. The Advanced Networking and Cyber Security Practices each increased by 12 percent and the Unified Communications Practice by 18 percent.

Eccleston said: “We created Nuvias because the channel needed a new kind of EMEA distributor, to deal with the increasingly complex and diverse needs of the IT customer; the growth in demand for new technologies and emerging disruptive vendors; and the shift in how IT is consumed and provisioned. We’ve been working hard to help partners capitalise on the new opportunities presented by these changes.”

Nuvias has attracted many new vendors and extended its reach with existing vendors, all keen to take advantage of the company’s ethos, strong commitment to growth across EMEA, and ability to provide a consistently high level of value-added services across the region.

New vendor partners include Juniper Networks, Nokia, Malwarebytes, HID Global and BlueJeans. Existing vendors have extended their scope in EMEA with Nuvias, including Riverbed, Lifesize, ProLabs, Broadsoft, Polycom, AudioCodes, Oracle, Panasonic, Snom, VASCO, WatchGuard, Barracuda, Tintri and Kemp.

Since its foundation, Nuvias has also extended its geographical reach with new offices in Austria, Switzerland and South Africa, as well as upgrading Nuvias regional hub locations in Dubai, Germany and France. The company has won many press and vendor distributor awards in the last couple of years.1

Andy Nolan, Vice-President Sales at Lifesize, said: “We have been a long-time partner of Nuvias (formerly Zycko) and have moved forward substantially since Nuvias was established in 2015. We awarded Nuvias our EMEA Distributor of the Year 2017 title and Newcomer of the Year 2017 title for DACH. Lifesize now benefits from the many opportunities available from being part of the Nuvias UC Practice, and sales to Nuvias were up in 2017.”

Eccleston said: “When we started Nuvias, our vision was that by 2020, we would be the business that had redefined value distribution to the IT channel across EMEA, providing services and solutions to enable the channel and vendor community to deliver exceptional business value to their customers. We are now well on the way to fulfilling that aim.”