Microsoft names new UK partner boss

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

microsoftSoftware King of the World Microsoft has named Glenn Wollaghan as its new UK  partner supremo who will take on a role once occupied by Martin Gregory and Linda Rendleman.

Wollaghan  has had a good week. He started the role of partner development lead this week, after his predecessor Martin Gregory left the role of partner business and development director earlier this year. Gregory did not have time to warm the seat when his predecessor Linda Rendleman returned to to the US last summer.

Wollaghan has been a Microsoft Vole for three years, during which time he has run its SMB and telesales business. He had a decade working for Symantec before that.

Wollaghan’s job is a bit different to the one  occupied by Gregory and Rendleman. For a start he will have a wider remit.

Clare Barclay, Microsoft UK’s general manager for small and mid-market solutions and partners said that  Wollaghan will take the the lead on partner strategy stuff. Microsoft is investing more in partner development because we see the opportunity in the cloud.

 

Channel partners positive about European changes

Posted on July 12, 2016 by - News

emcChannel partners across Europe appear to be an optimistic lot, unless you are talking about HP, according to figures gathered by beancounters at Context.

In the outfit’s ChannelWatch, channel partners generally approved of their distributers and even liked the move by Dell to buy EMC. If they were unhappy about anything it was the splitting off of HP.

Jeremy Davies, Context CEO and co-founder said that resellers were clear on their opinions, especially when it comes to how they rate their distributors where overall the verdict has been good.

The reaction towards distribution in the UK was particularly positive, with 40 per cent thinking their partners were ‘excellent’. That was higher than elsewhere in Europe, which in the case of France and Portugal had the lowest levels hitting the top mark.

The Context survey found more partners thinking of adding Dell to their lists in the next six months. However, HP is not doing so well with two thirds of respondents claiming that the firms split might make them less inclined to take on products in the future.

Oracle culls channel execs in cloud push

Posted on July 11, 2016 by - News

Oracle-Announces-X5Oracle has laid off several channel and sales executives as well as its entire channel pre-sales technical support team. It is part of a cunning plan to push its cloud licensing direct sales.

So far the cuts have been in North America where 225 and 300 staff have been told that they will have to leave the building by the end of the month. Some of those let go were vice president-level sales managers who’d been focused on selling hardware and on-premise software at Oracle.

Gone are Gary Koopman, group vice president of alliances and channels in Oracle’s North America sales group and Christine Aumann who was director of sales consulting for Oracle’s North American hardware alliances.  Steve Vakulskas, group vice president of North America technology sales has gone alone with Anthony Cioletti, who was a senior sales consulting manger and Dennis Schurmeier who looked after Oracle’s public sector business.

The figure includes sales engineers and sales consultants who worked closely with channel partners. Also gone is the entire channel pre-sales technical support team who go into the customer with the partners and determine how the solutions should be engineered and fit together.

Without them the channel is going to have a hell of a time getting deals closed.

This all comes down to Oracle CTO Larry Ellison’s war with Salesforce.com to become the first SaaS vendor to reach $10 billion in annual sales.

 

Microsoft reshuffles sales and marketing execs

Posted on July 8, 2016 by - Moving People, News

reshuffleMicrosoft Supreme Dalek Satya Nadella announced a broad reorganization of the company’s senior executive ranks as the outfit’s Chief Operating Officer Kevin Turner is packing his office up into photocopy boxes.

Turner is leaving for new job CEO of the securities unit at financial-services firm Citadel. He leaves a hole in Vole Hill because he was the bloke responsible for setting up Microsoft’s global sales.

Instead of naming a new COO, Nadella appointed two executives to divvy up the sales responsibilities and report to him. Jean-Philippe Courtois will be in charge of global sales, marketing and operations spanning Microsoft’s 13 business areas, Nadella said in a note to employees Thursday. Judson Althoff will lead the worldwide commercial business, including government and small and medium-sized businesses.

Courtois has been with Microsoft for 32 years as an international sales executive at Microsoft, having run both Microsoft International and Microsoft EMEA previously. Althoff previously ran Microsoft North America and is a former Oracle executive.

Chris Capossela will take the worldwide marketing jon, Kurt DelBene leading IT and Chief Financial Officer Amy Hood taking over the sales and marketing team’s finance group, which had been separate.

Turner had bought the sales and operations organisations a discipline it had lacked and did well boosting the sales of enterprise software. But there was also declining sales growth in the final years of CEO Steve Ballmer’s reign as.

Turner was a candidate to replace Ballmer as CEO in 2014, but was passed over in favour of Nadella. He has been searching for a CEO job for several years we guess it was on his bucket list.

Nadella said that he and Turner had been discussing what needs to be done in sales and support to help Microsoft “continue to reach for the next level of customer centricity and obsession.”

To do that, Nadella said he decided to more closely embed Turner’s unit in the rest of the company. The reorganization dismantles what had become something of a parallel organization within Microsoft, where Turner had his own finance, marketing and communications staffs.

Amazon.co.uk sees no Britexit fall out yet

Posted on July 7, 2016 by - News

amazonsAmazon says that its British site has not seen any sales dip since the vote to leave the European Union, and in fact it is planning to create a further 1,000 jobs across the UK this year.

UK country manager Doug Gurr said that the site’s sales were in line with expectations and it was business as usual.

Gurr, who became Amazon’s UK head in May after a stint in China, said it was too early to say what the impact of the June 23 Brexit vote would be.

“There’s a lot of details to be worked out … We don’t know exactly what the regulatory environment will be, we don’t know exactly what the terms of the new separation will be,” he said.

A survey published last week showed confidence among British consumers fell sharply in the days after the referendum, while on Tuesday department store retailer John Lewis said its sales grew more slowly last week.

On Tuesday the boss of Sainsbury’s, Britain’s second largest supermarket group, said there was a danger of Britain talking itself into another recession.

Gurr said Amazon’s plans for the UK had not changed on the Brexit vote.

“We’re continuing with the plans, we haven’t suddenly invented new plans,” he said.

The additional jobs will take Amazon’s full time permanent employees in the UK to over 15,500 by the end of the year.

The status of EU nationals currently living in Britain has been clouded by the Brexit vote.

“What we’ve said to all of our teams is: ‘As far as we’re concerned nothing changes. We’re still part of the EU as of today, we’ll continue to operate on that basis,” said Gurr.

Dell jacks up Brexit prices

Posted on July 6, 2016 by - News

michael-dell-2UK suppliers are already having to pay the cost for the UK’s Brexit referendum result – Michael Dell is already jacking up his prices by eight percent.

Dell increased UK prices across its portfolio by eight or nine percent, according to its partners. He is not the only one.  Canalys warned that US vendors will begin hiking the prices of its products feared the UK IT market could shrink by as much as 15 percent next year.

Dell tends to hedge everything against the dollar on a quarterly basis. It was expected that he would do it in August but it was brought forward.

Fortunately, all the suppliers are in the same boat and no one is going to get an advantage out of this. However, it does makes sales teams look a bit stupid if they quoted a price one morning and are having to jack up the prices a few days later.

The worry is that clients will start looking at their budgets again and wonder about suspending projects until things have settled down a bit.

In a statement, Dell said:

“Dell’s priority is always to provide great value to our customers and partners. We carefully consider price moves for our customers and partners, and have worked diligently over the past several months to postpone any increases pending the outcome of the EU referendum. In line with the rest of the industry, our component costs are priced in US dollars, and unfortunately, the recent strengthening of the US dollar versus the euro and other currencies in the EMEA region, following the UK’s decision to leave the European Union, will have a direct impact on the price we sell to our EMEA customers and partners.

“We understand that this is an uncertain time for many British businesses and we will continue to work closely with our customers and partners to provide great value products and services,” a spokesDell said.

EU starts €1.8 billion cyber security plan

Posted on July 5, 2016 by - News

european-commissionThe EU has signed an agreement with industry on cybersecurity and stepped up efforts to tackle cyber-threats which it hopes will trigger €1.8 billion of investment by 2020. It would be a big help to security suppliers, if the UK remained in the EU.

The new public-private partnership is part of a series of new initiatives to better equip Europe against cyber-attacks and to strengthen the competitiveness of its cybersecurity sector.

According to a recent survey, at least 80 percent of European companies have experienced at least one cybersecurity incident over the last year and the number of security incidents across all industries worldwide rose by 38 percent in 2015.

As part of its Digital Single Market strategy the Commission wants to reinforce cooperation across borders, and between all actors and sectors active in cybersecurity, and to help develop innovative and secure technologies, products and services throughout the EU.

Andrus Ansip, Vice-President for the Digital Single Market, said: “Without trust and security, there can be no Digital Single Market. Europe has to be ready to tackle cyber-threats that are increasingly sophisticated and do not recognise borders. Today, we are proposing concrete measures to strengthen Europe’s resilience against such attacks and secure the capacity needed for building and expanding our digital economy.”

Under the plan the EU will invest €450 million, under its research and innovation programme Horizon 2020. Cybersecurity market players, represented by the European Cyber Security Organisation (ECSO), are expected to invest three times more. This partnership will also include members from national, regional and local public administrations, research centres and academia. The aim of the partnership is to foster cooperation at early stages of the research and innovation process and to build cybersecurity solutions for various sectors, such as energy, health, transport and finance.

The Commission also sets out different measures to tackle the fragmentation of the EU cybersecurity market. Currently an ICT company might need to undergo different certification processes to sell its products and services in several Member States. The Commission will therefore look into a possible European certification framework for ICT security products.

A myriad of European SMEs have emerged in niche markets  and in well-established markets with new business models (like antivirus software), but they are often unable to scale up their operations. The Commission wants to ease access to finance for smaller businesses working in the field of cybersecurity and will explore different options under the EU investment plan.

Of course this does not apply to the UK. By the time the scheme is ready to go, the UK will have Brexited and will have to find its own source of funds, or not have any cyber security schemes of its own. But at least it can make up its own mind and it still has royality.

Microsoft about to knock Amazon off of its cloud

Posted on July 4, 2016 by - News

Every silver has a cloudy liningBeancounters at Morgan Stanley think that Microsoft’s Azure will edge out Amazon Web Services by 2019 for both Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS).

The 2016 CIO Survey worked out that  31 percent of the CIOs will be using Azure for IaaS, versus roughly 30 percent using AWS. Today, about 21 percent are using AWS and 12 percent are using Azure. While nearly 55 percent of the surveyed CIOs said they’re using no public-cloud IaaS today, that number will drop to less than 10 percent by the end of 2019.

Azure is already leading AWS in PaaS and it is used by 18 percent of the respondents, versus AWS’s 16 percent. Azure’s lead will grow slightly by 2019, growing 9.8 percent versus 6.4 percent, Morgan Stanley said.

Software as a Service (SaaS) spending is looking promising with 95 percent of the 100 respondents predicting it will be flat or will increase, up from 90 percent last year.  Its key driver will be marketing applications from the likes of Adobe, HubSpot and Salesforce.

Nearly one-third of all applications will be migrated to the public cloud by the end 2017, up from 14 percent today, the survey said. On-premises apps will decline to 58 percent, from 71 percent today.

Hardware vendors, including conventional and flash storage makers, will continue to suffer as their market is eaten by the cloud. Hardware spending growth is down this year to 3.2 percent, from 3.4 percent last year.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise and NetApp face the largest threats, the study said. Biggish Blue might be saved by its cloud investments and cognitive-computing offering.

Oracle, EMC, Dell, VMWare and Cisco, in that order, all face declines in their share of the next three years’ IT budgets, ranging from -17 percent to -9 percent.

Dell gives up on Android tablets

Posted on July 1, 2016 by - News

tabletDell has stopped selling Android devices as it moves to Windows 2-in-1 devices.

It has said that it is giving up on its Venue line of Android tablets, and will no longer offer the Android-based Wyse Cloud Connect, a thumb-size computer that can turn a display into a PC.

Dell has long said that the slate tablet market is over-saturated and declining. They appear to be being replaced by  2-in-1s which provide a more spiritual  blend of PC capabilities with tablet mobility.

Dell won’t be offering OS upgrades to Android-based Venue tablets already being used by customers.

Customers who own Android-based Venue products, Dell will continue to support currently active warranty and service contracts until they expire, but will not be pushing out future OS upgrades.

Dell now mostly has laptops and 2-in-1s with Windows on its books with a smattering of Chromebooks, which run Chrome OS. These can run Android apps through access to the Google Play Store but not Android.

If you don’t want Windows, Dell also sells XPS and Precision laptops with Ubuntu to developers, and thin clients with Linux, Windows Embedded and Wyse’s ThinOS operating systems.

Venue is a brand often placed on the chopping block by Dell.  It killed off Venue smartphones in 2012, but reintroduced the brand through the tablets. You can find Venue tablets with Windows but the product has not been upgraded in a while.

HP is also doing something similar. It now offers just a handful of Android tablets, mainly for businesses. Lenovo is offering fewer Android tablets and has expanded its Windows-based, 2-in-1 lineup.  So much for Steve Job’s “game changing” technology which was going to change the world.

Dixon Carphone plays down Brexit worries

Posted on June 30, 2016 by - News

carphone-warehouseDixon Carphone attempted to play down the personal impact of market volatility that a post-Brexit vote will “inevitably” cause.

Dixon Carphone CEO Seb James talked bullishly about the business and its prospects but noted that things could get a bit edgy since Friday’s EU referendum.

“The nation has spoken and there has been a vote to exit the EU in due course. As you can imagine, we have been giving some thought to this,” he said.

“Our view is that, as the strongest player in our market and despite the volatility that is the inevitable consequence of such change, we expect to find opportunities for additional growth and further consolidate our position as the leader in the UK market,” said James.

Dixon Carphone said group sales edged up three per cent year-on-year to £9.78bn for the year ended 30 April. Sales in its UK heartland went up one per cent to £6.4bn, reflecting stores closure.

Demand for white box goods offset weaker trade in computing, TV sales benefited from the Rugby World Cup last year it said. The mobile element saw market share gains helped by the store within a store concept, the launch of a 4G network branded iD and lasting benefits of Phones4You going pop in the prior financial year, the company said.

Connected World Services jumped to £152m from £121m. Dixon has a deal to roll out CWS in Sprint stores across the pond.

Profit for the year was £337m, up from £285m in the prior financial year.

 

Cisco writes a cheque for cloud-lock

Posted on June 29, 2016 by - News

Cisco Kid Networking Tsar Cisco has written a $293 million cheque for cloudy security outfit CloudLock.

CloudLock provides cloud access security tech, and analytics on user behaviour and sensitive data for cloud services.  Cisco said that the acquisition will close in the first quarter of fiscal year 2017 and the  CloudLock team will join Cisco’s Networking and Security Business Group.

It will be ruled by Senior VP and general manager David Goeckeler.

Cisco Corporate Development’s Rob Salvagno said the acquisition will boost security for companies seeking to migrate to the cloud. In fact Cisco is buying rather a lot of cloudy security outfits lately.

It bought Lancope for $452 million, the Portcullis Computer Security for an undisclosed sum, and OpenDNS for $635 million.

 

 

Intel culls sales and marketing staff

Posted on June 28, 2016 by - News

Bent AxeIntel is ordering its sales and marketing staff to clean out their desks as part of its glorious campaign on restructuring.

In April, Chipzilla announced it would lay off 12,000 employees worldwide saying that there was no more money in this PC lark. It also stopped work on its Atom chip and those working on it were the first to be escorted from the building with their belongings in an old photocopy paper box.

But now sales and marketing in Intel’s distribution channel operation are having to face the music. Ironically a corporate PR person who has not been sacked yet issued a statement saying:

“To support our transformation, we are restructuring our sales organization to drive tighter alignment with Intel’s business units and fuel our growth engines. Customers can expect to see more specialized technical support, faster decision making, and streamlined processes with a strong focus on enabling a consistent and personalized customer experience.”

Still it is early days yet. The cuts are not being completed until the end of the month, so maybe the person who wrote the above comment is still blissfully unaware that there is a corporate axeman waiting in the corridor waiting to pounce.

It looks like regional head offices will be the target. Intel offices will now report direct to the US headquarters rather than to their nearest regional head office. Big processor buyers, such as China-based Lenovo and Taiwan’s Acer, will also deal direct with teams in California from now on

 

UK’s tech channel bewildered over Brexit

Posted on June 27, 2016 by - News

euThe UK’s tech channel is in a panic this morning as its managers try to get their head around Friday’s Brexit decision.

Gartner has forecast that Britain’s tech buyers will now stop spending in 2016 and 2017, turning earlier growth numbers negative and the industry will fall into recession. There is also a fear of the cost of hiring EU workers, taxes and tariffs which is enough to send the industry into a tail spin.

Still at least we won’t have those nasty foreigners telling us what to do, we can just sit around muttering there will always be an England as the French start turning off the power.

Most of the tech companies have said that they needed Brexit like a hole in the head and are wondering how they can recover their position.  Basically the issue is that global business value chains are more integrated, while Brexit envisages a market which was out of date 40 years ago with Britannia ruling the waves.

SAP has said that things might be alright if the country pulls finger quick and makes its escape as fast as possible.

However, outfits like Alfresco Software moan about the huge uncertainties which gets more than half its business from the EU.

 

 

Government likely to water down EU data regulations

Posted on June 24, 2016 by - News

ukflagNow that the UK has voted for Brexit the government is almost certain to water down the EU’s proposed tough data regulations to allow US companies to snoop on UK citizens.

The EU alarmed the US tech companies by drawing up rules, which would insist that European data stay in Europe. The US government wanted its companies operating in Europe to be able to hand over data with a court order. Essentially this meant that any Euro cloud data could end up in the hands of Uncle Sam.

While the Germans and French thing this is a bad idea, the British are less keen. Not only are they closer to the US intelligence communities, but they are also chummier with big US tech.

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) was due to come into place by 2018 and have been should be a huge shake-up of EU data protection laws. It included tougher penalties for companies in breach of EU data protection law. The UK government had wanted to water down the legislation, but it was not sure if it could get the EU to agree.

With Brexit that has all gone by the wayside. With the UK is out, the government can ignore bringing the laws in completely and can push ahead with its own data sharing plans. These could give data to whoever it likes and spy on whoever it wants. From a supplier perspective it means it will be easier to house data in the UK, but UK customers might have to be happy to have their data snuffled by US spooks.

Suppliers could also be forced to hand over data to US courts, if the UK really does need to suck up to the US government.

Nutanix shows a different sort of channel plan

Posted on June 23, 2016 by - News

Nutanix-Product-Shot-3US outfit Nutanix has decided to take on an unusual approach to the channel which has got vendors across the pond sitting up and taking notice.

The outfit does not have a three tier program with clip levels and does not pay back end rebates. What it does is sort out an investment strategy with channel partners that will see the company work in lock-step with 40 solution providers globally.

It still has a channel of more than 4,000 solution providers, but these are served through distribution.

Nutanix channel chief of Chris Morgan told  CDN that the company practices the 80/20 rule; it’s just applied mostly to the 20.

“The investment strategy with partners are based on which partners are ready on what we are doing and take it to the customer. Partners can still be transactional with distributors but we are focused on a small number and we want to help them transition their business. What has to happen is they need to break from the past and go to the future,” he said.

Incentives for the 40 partners include a strict deal registration program that ensures price protection. Morgan added that these partners also have the freedom to sell anything else.

The cunning plan appears to be working and putting the fear of god into outfits like Cisco.