TalkTalk Business is trialling for G.fast through its Wholesale and Partner customers.

The move follows the recent announcement that TalkTalk Business are extending its FTTP, 1Gb full fibre network, beyond York and snuggling up to the Ultrafast connectivity.

G.Fast is complementary to FTTP and can boost internet speeds over the existing copper infrastructure (up to 330MB). G.fast will be available during a trial rollout from April 2018, with a launch expected in line with Openreach’s start in the summer.

This is somewhat useful for TalkTalk Business Wholesale and Partner customers who want to include cost-effective high-speed connectivity in their portfolio,  to deliver over the new services, facilitate the transition to the Cloud or merely to offer the best speeds.

G.fast is available alongside ADSL and FTTC via the Partners API or portal for ease of provisioning, upgrades and in-life management.

TalkTalk Business will launch an unlimited usage G.fast proposition, in line with its FTTC offering, and will pay a fixed monthly cost regardless of the anticipated significant increase in usage. This knocks out the risk for the Partner community where spiralling bandwidth usage costs could be prohibitive.

Pete Tomlinson, Commercial Director at TalkTalk Business, commented: “As businesses and consumers, we have developed an insatiable appetite for bandwidth and TalkTalk continues to lead the way in meeting this need, embracing new technologies to make them simple and affordable. As we continue to champion the drive towards a full fibre future, which for many is still too far away, G.Fast can play an important role in helping customers enjoy the speeds they deserve.”

With only a few weeks to go, resellers should be flat out offering their clients get prepared for GDPR

GDPR is supposed to be implimented by 25 May after which organisations could face fines of up to €20 million or as much as four percent  of worldwide annual turnover if they have not got it set up

It is unlikely that more than 25 percent of businesses in the UK (and across the EU) will be fully compliant in time for the May deadline.

Many companies have left it late but if resellers pull their fingers out they could still make the deadline. The problem is mostly smaller-sized businesses as many large organisations will have employed dedicated GDPR-compliance roles to their ranks.

Basically it is not too difficult to set up companies need to know where information is held, how it moves through the business and what it’s used for.

Smaller-sized businesses are more likely to be reliant on channel partners for much of their IT requirements, so GDPR should be a good opportunity for them as well. There’s real scope for the channel to support customers.

Businesses need to map their environment and establish a data asset register of what sensitive data is held and where. Vendors can help by providing the channel with the skills they need to help customers prepare. Channel partners can be helping to provide a risk assessment. These assessments have helped thousands of companies to identify where all their sensitive, overexposed and classified data is located within the organisation.

AV vendor Avast is set to launch the UK’s largest-ever tech IPO by listing on the London Stock Exchange with a £2.8 billion valuation.

Avast wants to raise $1 billion, Reuters claims, through a combination of primary and secondary sales.

Its IPO will raise at least 25 percent of Avast’s issued share capital with the target of raising around $200 million in initial returns. Secondary sales will raise $800 million and bring its valuation to around $4 billion.

This will eclipse competitor Sophos who made the UK’s largest ever IPO for a UK software company in 2015 when it floated on the London Stock Exchange with a valuation of $1.6 billion.

The listing could take place as early as next month. It will be the second IPO attempt for the firm since it’s 2012 bid to float on the Nasdaq which it abandoned due to “tough market conditions”.

The vendor claimed it had revenues of $780 million in 2017 and a headcount of 1,700 worldwide.

Distributor Exclusive Group has received some cash from private equity player that will give it the funds for its glorious expansion.

Permira has taken a €1.3 billion majority stake in the business and given the outfit access to substantial funding to support the existing management team.  It wants the cash to expand the services and to sign up more vendors and increase its global footprint.

CEO Oliver Breittmayer said:“This investment both validates and enables our trajectory to become the global specialist VAD for cybersecurity and cloud migration, extending our value-based service offerings and strengthening our global reach.”

The deal should close in the next few months and came about because the venture capitalist firm had been charting the progress of Exclusive.

Permire believes  that there is money to be made in the security market as cybersecurity as one of the fastest growing and resilient segments of global IT spend. Exclusive’s value-added approach should be a money spinner.

Retailers are under increasing pressure to discount to keep up with competition and rising customer expectations, but there are signs that the whole process is coming unstuck.

The research, by payments provider Klarna, shows that discounting is no longer confined to the traditional winter and summer sales. The new rules of retail mean discounting has become a fluid and unpredictable phenomenon – with over half (57 percent) of consumers expecting regular sales.

The research of 500 British retailers highlighted the negative impact this can have on the bottom line of merchants. Over half of retailers surveyed (53 percent) say the ‘always on’ nature of sales is having a negative impact on profits. Ten percent say discounting cost them over £25,000 throughout 2017. This isn’t felt just by smaller retailers, but merchants of all sizes – in fact, it’s those with 100-239 employees that feel the burden most with 66 percent saying constant discounts are impacting profits.

The eCommerce channel is particularly vulnerable, with 56 percent of retailers saying the majority of their discounted transactions come from online trade.

Luke Griffiths, Managing Director at Klarna UK, said: “Discounting can be a significant source of stress for retailers of all sizes – from the impact on profits to the operational difficulties that come with managing sales activity. Many merchants will discount to shift unwanted stock, so part of the solution is to make better, more educated purchasing decisions.

“But our research also shows how retailers can win over customers without slashing prices. Instead of discounting, merchants would do well to focus on perfecting the customer journey – from an inspirational browsing experience through to a seamless checkout phase, with multiple payment options and one-click repeat purchase options.”