Dell becomes the king of the servers

Posted on September 15, 2016 by - News

Michael DellNew numbers from the Gartner Group show that Dell has beaten HPE to the top spot for server shipments.

To be fair, though, the market shrank and worldwide server revenue is down 0.8 percent.  Shipments are up by two percent which means that there is some pretty nasty price cutting going on.

Everywhere except for Asia/Pacific and North America is in decline, though shipments in those areas grew by 5.6 percent and three percent respectively.

Jeffrey Hewitt, research vice president at Gartner said: “Dell garnered 19.3 per cent of the market and moved into the No. 1 position in worldwide server shipments due primarily to growth resulting from programmes it has in place in the Asia/Pacific region, most notably in China. However, HPE continued to lead the x86 market in revenue with 26 per cent of the market.”

He added: “x86 servers grew 2.1 percent in shipments and 5.8 percent in revenue in the second quarter of 2016.”

Dell’s strong performance did not see its revenues match the growth. HPE continues to hold more of the market share in revenue though that contracted by 6.4 percent year-on-year, while Dell saw almost 10 percent growth.

IBM’s server revenues dropped by 34.4 percent but then it did flog its business to Lenovo.

HPE’s shipments also contracted year-on-year, shrinking by more than 18 percent, while Dell, Lenovo, Huawei, Inspur and others pulled up their socks.

Staines’ Attenda sold to void dreamers Ensono

Posted on September 14, 2016 by - News

zen_as_a_frogThe Staines-based managed service provider Attenda has been sold to Ensono.

The news will be a great relief to Attenda which has been on the market longer than a haunted house whose occupants have all died in mysterious circumstances. It was put up for sale by its owner Darwin Private Equity last year, but no one was interested because of its poor results.

Ensono is based in Chicago and is an infrastructure-based MSP. It is better known as Acxiom IT but it changed its name in January to Enso which apparently is a Zen term meaning enlightenment, strength, elegance, the universe, and mu (the void). The work site said that this workd is also fused with the Italian one for “in dreams”. Unfortunately in Italian it is singular which means that we are only talking about “one dream” rather than dreams. Still at least it has focus. So basically after their rebranding they were “enlightened by a dream” which was probably not the one about a Mars bar and Eva Green I keep having.

Mark Fowle, Attenda’s CEO and co-founder, will join the board of dreamers and Ensono’s CEO, Jeff VonDeylen, will remain in charge of the combined company

Dell names top channel execs

Posted on September 13, 2016 by - Moving People, News

michael-dell-2Dell has announced its regional execs to run its channel after completing the $60bn buy-out of EMC.

Most of the names are similar to those who ran Dell’s channel before.  In the Asia Pacific region is Ng Tian Being, who was veep of South Asia and Korea; for Latin America is Alvaro Camarena, who was exec director of channel programmes; and for EMEA it’s Michael Collins at least after January.

Collins was only given the channel role and replaced Laurent Binetti, who had been in the job for 30 years. .

Until then, both Collins  and Philippe Fosse (the current EMC EMEA channel head] will continue to jointly-lead the Dell EMC EMEA Channel business in their established roles.

Fosse was EMC’s EMEA East, before he moved into the position more than four years ago. Prior to that he was at HDS, Xiotech and further back in the annals of time he was at StorageTek.

He is yet to have a role in the glorious new Empire. He apparently has a job but it has not been “formally announced” yet.

The only EMC person to have a role announced is Greg Ambulos, who ran global channels for EMC and will control North America channels at Dell.

 

Brexit stuffed up HPE’s bottom line

Posted on September 12, 2016 by - News

logoFormer maker of expensive printer ink Hewlett Packard Enterprise has said that Brexit did have an impact on its bottom line.

The vendor said that there had been a slowdown in public sector spending following the referendum decision to exit the EU. HPE mentioned the slow down of public sector activity in its  latest results announcement but this was largely missed when HPE announced it was off-loading its software business in a spin merger with UK firm Micro Focus.

Speaking to analysts, HPE CEO Meg “Yahoo” Whitman said that Brexit was something that it had felt in its order books in the UK and across the continent.

“What we saw was actually a pause in purchasing in the UK. Certainly the UK public sector, but also the UK and then more broadly Europe which was, this was unexpected, a big change, let’s take a pause and decide what we want to do here. What I will say is that in the last couple of weeks we’re actually seeing orders pick up again,” she added.

But the result of Brexit and the shock to the UK economic system, particularly the value of the pound, has led to ongoing price scrutiny.

“We continue to also monitor the pricing, competitive pricing environment that we see and we adjust as necessary particularly in the channel. So the channel is where we serve SMB and that’s where our ability to sort of move the pricing in response to competition, we look at that actually every single week sometime multiple times a week,” added Whitman.

 

Google buys Apigee for $625 million in cloud plan

Posted on September 9, 2016 by - News

grandpa_simpson_yelling_at_cloudGoogle is buying software development toolmaker Apigee for $625 million, to improve its cloud-based businesses offerings.

Alphabet’s Google has agreed to pay a 6.5 percent premium to Apigee’s shareholders and the deal will be completed by the end of the year.

For those who came in late, Apigee sells a platform that aids companies manage APIs to help developers build software that talks to each other and shares information without revealing the underlying code. APIs have become an integral part of cloud software development, allowing one application to pull data and use services from multiple other programmes.

Diane Greene, senior vice president of Google’s cloud business wrote in her bog: “The addition of Apigee’s API solutions to Google cloud will accelerate our customers’ move to supporting their businesses with high quality digital interactions.”

Apigee has customers which include Walgreens Boots Alliance, AT&T, Live Nation Entertainment Inc. and Burberry Group. Green said that Walgreens uses Apigee to offer APIs and analyse how the tools are being used.

Google has been improving enterprise-focused products, having lagged behind Amazon.  and Microsoft in flogging public cloud computing software.

The Apigee acquisition will also help support Google’s own set of APIs, which include ones that allow developers to pull information from YouTube as well as the Translate and Maps software to imbed in their own apps.

HPE spins and goes British

Posted on September 8, 2016 by - News

hp_enterprise_logoThe former maker of expensive printer ink HPE will spin off and merge its non-core software assets with Britain’s Micro Focus in a deal worth $8.8 billion.

The move is part of HPE Chief Executive Meg Whitman’s cunning plan to shift HPE’s strategy to a few key areas such as networking, storage and technology services since the company separated last year from computer and printer maker HP. It will also off-load the troubled software side of the business.

HPE acquired part of its software portfolio through the $10.3 billion purchase of Britain’s Autonomy in 2011. HP’s $11 billion purchase of Autonomy was supposed to form the central part of the US group’s move into software.

HP later wrote off three-quarters of the company’s value, accusing Autonomy executives of financial mismanagement.

Whitman said in a statement that HPE was taking another important step in achieving the vision of creating a faster-growing, higher-margin, stronger cash flow company well positioned for customers and for the future.

The deal with Micro Focus, a multinational software company based in Newbury was announced along with HPE’s latest quarterly earnings. In the third quarter, HPE reported net revenue of $12.2 billion, down 6 percent from $13.1 billion a year earlier.

The transaction is expected to be tax free to HP. Micro Focus will pay $2.5 billion in cash to HPE, while HPE shareholders will own 50.1 percent of the combined company that will operate under the name Micro Focus and be run by its executives. HP said it would pay $700 million in one-time costs related to the separation of the assets.

Other HPE assets that will be merged include software for application delivery management, big data, enterprise security, information management & governance and IT Operations management businesses.

Micro Focus has been bulking up on acquisitions to boost growth, and this would be its largest deal to date. Earlier this year, Micro Focus acquired U.S. firm Serena Software for $540 million.

Kevin Loosemore, executive chairman of Micro Focus, said that “the time is right for consolidation in the infrastructure software market and this proposed merger will create one of the leading players in this space.”

HPE is the latest firm looking to Britain for expansion opportunities after the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union. Valuations of British companies have been relatively low given current exchange rates.

Bill Amelio is Avnet boss

Posted on September 7, 2016 by - Moving People, News

long.amelio.cnnAvnet has named former Lenovo leader Bill Amelio as its CEO.

Amelio  held the job since July after longtime leader Rick Hamada stepped down. The outfit needs to make a few changes particularly when it comes to making more cash for shareholders and the adoption of emerging technologies.

William Schumann, chairman of Avnet’s board, said in a statement that the company was lucky to have someone of Amelio’s character and experience.

“He brings energy and focus to the business, and the board unanimously agreed that making him the permanent CEO was in the best interest of our customers, employees and shareholders.”

Amelio said that the company had an experienced management team and an engaged workforce.

“By better aligning those resources with our competitive solutions specialist, embedded and supply chain strengths, Avnet will undoubtedly be positioned to achieve profitable growth for our shareholders.”

Amelio told investors he is busy identifying and doubling down on the profit-generating sources within Avnet, and fixing or exiting from Avnet’s areas of poor profitability.

He will be rolling out new business management systems that emphasise accountability, address organisational barriers and allow the distributor to work more effectively through collective operating groups.

Amelio said he values Avnet’s Internet of Things and digital technologies initiatives, he is more interested in getting the outfit’s margin and return performance more in line with long-term financial goals.

Amelio will earn a prorated base salary of $850,000 annually and be eligible for a bonus of up to 100 percent of his base compensation, according to a July filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. He also received an award of stock options and restricted stock units worth a total of $2 million.

 

Equistone buys a slice of print services outfit Apogee

Posted on September 6, 2016 by - News

history-of-print-16th-century-printing-companyManaged print and document services outfit Apogee has woken up and found a big chunk of itself has been bought by private equity investor Equistone Partners Europe.

Maidstone-headquartered Apogee employs around 450 staff across 14 offices in the UK and mainland Europe selling hardware and managed services on kit from Canon, Xerox, Konica Minolta and Kyocera.

The Apogee founders Jason Collins and Robin Stanton-Gleaves will stay in charge but Equistone’s minions Steve O’Hare and Andrew Backen will join the board. Equistone’s cash means that the company is valued at £185m, the parties said.

Money raised from sale will be used to fund an expansion programme.

Apogee sells its services to the likes of McDonalds, which bought a print infrastructure and managed service, as well as fashion label Ted Baker, PC maker Dell and BDO.

It is doing quite well. In 2014, Apogee turned over £66.1 million and reported operating profit of £7.47 million. In 2015 the firm bought fellow print managed print services business Balreed Group.

 

Kaspersky ends reseller contract with Quadsys

Posted on September 5, 2016 by - News, Products

40153923-1-kaspersky1Russian security outfit Kaspersky Lab has told security reseller Quadsys to go forth and multiply after its company bosses admitted hacking rivals.

Quadsys owner Paul Streeter, MD Paul Cox, director Alistair Barnard, account manager Steve Davis and security consultant Jon Townsend pleaded guilty to securing unauthorised access to computer material, contrary to section 1 of the Computer Misuse Act 1990.

The five were charged in summer 2015 with hacking into a rival’s database to plunder customer information and pricing details. Sentencing is set for 9 September.

Quadsys, which was accredited as a Kaspersky Gold partner, the vendor’s top tier certification has moved to distance itself from the troubled outfit and has ended its business relationship with the company.

Others are expected to follow, but still have not gone on record.  Sophos had actually promoted Quadsys to its platinum certification on 1 August, just nine days after the Quadsys Five pleaded guilty at Oxford Crown Court.

Capita buys security outfit Westpoint

Posted on September 2, 2016 by - News

46cdcf4a-9eb0-11e5_1025920cMega outsourcing outfit Capita has just written a cheque for the security testing player Westpoint.

Manchester-based Westpoint is rather established and been around since 1999. It sells into the finance, media, telecoms, public sector and retail markets. The company was one of the first to be appointed by the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Approved Scanning Vendors in 2004. As well as checking for card payment vulnerability the firm tests mobile, social media, architecture and code security.

The move is part of Capita’s ambitions to increase its cyber security coverage and includes the acquisition of Westpoint and its holding company Smartpoint.

Lesley Bosworth, managing director of Capita IT Professional Services said the sale would give Capita with capabilities and expertise that complement its existing position.

Mike Williams, director of Westpoint Limited, said that it would be in a stronger position as a result of the acquisition. He said that  Capita has a reputation as an experienced, trusted provider of IT services and has the scale and expertise to help us expand and develop Westpoint offerings.

 

 

Cisco buys Container X

Posted on September 1, 2016 by - News

Cisco Kid Cisco has just written a cheque for the 18 month-old container management specialist ContainerX.

The outfit put its first product into the channel in June so it does not seem that Cisco is waiting for it to get established. ContainerX has switched off product downloads, webinars, and product support.

ContainerX’s technology is  a turnkey container platform designed for enterprise IT to administer as easily as they’ve administered VMware vSphere or Microsoft HyperV over the years, with dev and ops self service. Enterprise IT can set up the platform in under 60 minutes, integrate with various enterprise infrastructure aspects including storage, network, orchestration, LDAP etc, create pools with resource limits, for various dev/ops teams to self service,  the company wrote on its website.

Writing in his bog, Cisco’s Rob Salvagno said the technology that gives Cisco “enterprise-class container management” across various target platforms. The ContainerX team will join Cisco’s Cloud Platform and Services Group led by vice president Kip Compton.

According to ContainerX’s site, the software can manage bare metal, virtual machine, Windows and Linux systems on public or private clouds.

Salvagno said the technology will give Cisco the ability to develop its own “comprehensive cloud-native stack” for container users.

It is not clear how much the Cisco Kid paid for Container X.

 

Google close to Paypal cloud coup

Posted on August 31, 2016 by - News

PAY-Lion-King-cloud-MAINGoogle is pushing into cloud computing and could be about to score PayPal as a key client.

PayPal is evaluating the other leading providers and hasn’t made any final decisions, but what is worrying for Microsoft and Amazon is that it has put Google into the running.

PayPal has some existing business with AWS, namely its Braintree and Venmo products, which the company acquired in 2013. In moving infrastructure to the cloud, big companies often start with test and development workloads before touching critical customer information, and that’s likely where PayPal will begin.

But cloud services would open up new technical capabilities that are difficult inside their existing infrastructure. If there are big shopping days, Paypal could obtain some servers on the fly.

There is a lot at stake, Google wants to prove that it’s a legitimate player in the rapidly expanding cloud infrastructure market and to do that it has to kick the leaders Amazon Web Services and Microsoft firmly in the nadgers.

Google has also been allocating cash to its cloud technology as well as the sales, marketing and support needed to meet enterprise standards.

But it looks like this particular battle will be settled by cost. AWS has dropped the price of a storage product by 47 percent, the 52nd time Amazon has slashed prices.

Google may use its cash mountain to start a pricing war which is an area where Amazon would not be keen to go.  Microsoft might be able to use its own cash reserves to take on the rival.

But technically Google needs to match or beat AWS in terms of speed and reliability while also winning on price against a company that’s grown up thriving on razor-thin e-commerce margins. It has a long way to go before it can give AWS a run for its money. AWS generated sales of $2.9 billion in the second quarter, almost six times the amount Google makes in an entire year, based on RBC’s estimates.

However, there are signs that things are getting better. At the beginning of the month the Synergy Research Group claimed that Google’s cloud revenue surged 162 percent in the second quarter from a year earlier. The company still only commands 5 percent of the market, but it is growing fast.

It has also poached some good clients including Snapchat, Spotify, Home Depot and Walt Disney. Getting PayPal would represent another feather in its cap.

Brexit causes Computacenter UK profit plummet

Posted on August 30, 2016 by - News

logoComputacenter’s UK operating profits plummeted by 38.9 percent in the first half of its financial year and observers think it is to do with Brexit.

The company’s UK operations are a key part of its revenues, but punters in Blighty delayed procurement decisions in the lead up to the referendum.

As a result, there was a 7.3 percent year over year decline in services revenue, which stood at £244 million and a 4 percent decline in supply chain revenue which ended up at £408 million.

UK turnover fell by 5.2 percent compared to last year to £653m and adjusted operating profits dropped by a dramatic 39 percent to £14 million.

If it had not been for a strong performance in Germany making up for the losses the company would be in deep do do [are you sure that it is a financial term? Ed]. The fact that its French business was suddenly emerging from the mire also helped.

Mike Norris, CEO was upbeat, rather than beaten up and said:

“The first half of 2016 finished slightly better than we had anticipated at the time of our Q1 Trading Update in April 2016, mainly due to the better performance of Computacenter in France. Despite the challenging market conditions in the UK referred to in our Q1 2016 Trading Update, as well as planned investments, the Board expects the full year to show modest progress in our adjusted profit before tax1, as compared to 2015 after allowing for the £3 million benefit from the one-off gain realised in the comparative period.”

Greg Lock, chairman said that when it came to Brexit the company was changing very little in what it did and expected.

“We are represented in our core countries of the UK, Germany, France, Belgium and Switzerland by our own people, and we will continue to support our customers in their countries and develop our business there,” Lock said.

Rackspace goes private

Posted on August 29, 2016 by - News

privateCloud management provider Rackspace has decided that it will pay its shareholders more than $4.3 billion and go private.

Apollo Global Management says it will pay $32 per share to buy out stakeholders and run Rackspace as a private company. The deal is not that bad, the stock closed at $30.19 per share.

The deal is expected to be completed in the fourth quarter of this year. Actually this was all predicted a few weeks ago and this had caused Rackspace’s stock price to go up so the closing prices is little to do with the actual value of the company.

Rackspace wants to see off larger competition in the cloud management space and had been mulling over a buyout since 2014.

Rackspace CEO Taylor Rhodes said that the outfit had been presented with a significant opportunity today as mainstream companies move their computing out of corporate data centers and into multi-cloud models. Apollo and its partners take a patient, value-oriented approach to their funds’ investments, and value Rackspace’s strategy and unique culture.”

IT managers think the cloud is more secure

Posted on August 26, 2016 by - News

PAY-Lion-King-cloud-MAINHalf of IT managers think they will be more secure on the cloud than having their own data centres

According to a SADA Systems study which asked 200 enterprise IT professionals regarding their use of cloud services, 51 percent of the respondents said data security is better in the cloud, while 58 percent cited the cloud as “the most secure, flexible and cost-effective solution for their organizations,” according to SADA Systems.

Tony Safoian, president and CEO at SADA Systems, said this was a reversal of enterprise sentiments since the cloud’s early days when security was a significant adoption obstacle.

The supplier no longer has to prove to customers that the cloud was cost effective, not a passing fad and secure.

Instead, the cloud discussions now revolve around what workloads will move to the cloud, on which platforms will they reside and who will help get them there, Safoian noted.

As for the latter problem, 43 percent of the IT managers SADA Systems surveyed said they have and will continue to use third-party consultants to manage public cloud infrastructure.

In addition, enterprises are asking about what business advantages they can obtain in moving to the cloud, Safoian added.

In other SADA Systems findings, half of survey respondents said they are likely to increase public cloud use by at least a quarter over the next two to three years. Another quarter of the IT professionals polled said they would increase their public cloud use by 50 percent during the same time span. More than 84 percent of respondents said they are using public cloud infrastructure today, and 45 percent of the companies surveyed said their cloud migrations took three to six months. Another 23 percent said the migration took less than three months.