Tag: tech

Europeans will lean on tech

Posted on February 22, 2017 by - News

european-commissionGood news for the channel as research from Ricoh Europe suggests that companies want to lean more on technology to improve their fortunes.

While the world is feeling rather uncertain at the moment, many feel that the way the work will change in the near future as a result of digital disruption, economic uncertainty and political turbulence.

More than 95 percent of people thought their business would benefit from the changes.

Most people that were asked for their opinions by Ricoh saw technology as the best way of making sure they could improve the fortunes of their business. On the wish list were using IT to improve customer communications, increased productivity and simpler business processes.

The weak point was that most felt that there will be even more of a scramble for skilled staff.

Ricoh Europe CEO David Mills said: “How people relate to, engage and execute their work is fundamentally changing. In the years ahead we’ll see businesses fall into two distinct camps. Firstly, those with strong fundamental processes which empower employees by enabling them to do their best work, adapt and thrive. Secondly, those businesses which shy away from change and unfortunately set their employees up for failure.”

“As the world feels the impact of unprecedented change, business leaders must ask themselves where they see the most beneficial return on bringing more innovative technology into the company. To enable their business to stay focused on its long-term goals, and remain competitive, often the best place to start is with their employees,” he added.

Resellers are being bombarded with advice from vendors to get more involved in the trend.

London could lose out as Euro tech hub

Posted on December 6, 2016 by - News

are-we-afraid-noLondon could lose its position as the leading destination for start-ups in Europe thanks to Brexit.

Tech investors moaned at the TechCrunch Disrupt London conference, that the government needed to answer shedloads of questions around immigration policy.

James Wise, partner at venture capital firm Balderton Capital, said that Britain employed 31 percent of all the people in Europe working in tech start-ups, and a significant number of them had moved to the country to start their businesses.

Government initiatives to support the tech sector were welcome Wise said, but the British government needed  to show more leadership and clarify the many questions hanging over the free movement of talent.

“The number one concern is still access to talent, and while the raft of announcements are all very welcome, very few of them deal with the ability to attract global talent to the UK to build companies here,” he told Reuters.

Reshma Sohoni, a partner with Seedcamp, which invests in  early stage companies, said funding for such companies had tightened considerably since the Brexit vote.

“We definitely see a narrowing of the kind of companies that can get series A or series B funding,” Sohoni said, referring to early rounds of venture funding that young companies need to grow. “Combining the uncertainty and the trouble getting visas, absolutely it (Brexit) is a problem,” she said at the event.

Matt Hancock, minister for the digital economy, said Britain needed “to be open and welcoming to the brightest and best from around the world” and not just the EU.

“Over the last few years, we’ve had freedom of movement within the European Union but outside we’ve had a fairly tight visa system, and we need to make sure we are clearly attracting and winning the global war for talent,” he told the assorted throngs.

“We’ve been doing this with visas for individual countries over the past few years, improving significantly for instance the visa system for China. Clearly we’ve got to get this right.”

China puts anti-western tech law on hold

Posted on March 16, 2015 by - News

1900-intl-forces-including-us-marines-enter-beijing-to-put-down-boxer-rebellion-which-was-aimed-at-ridding-china-of-foreigners-A law, China claimed was all about counter-terrorism but stopped US technology companies selling so much behind the bamboo curtain, has been put on hold.

A senior US official welcomed the move which he said was a good sign for Western businesses that saw the rule as a major impediment to working in the world’s second largest economy.

President Barack Obama said in an interview with Reuters on March 2 that he had raised concerns about the law directly with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

White House Cybersecurity Coordinator Michael Daniel said the Chinese have decided to suspend the third reading of that particular law, which has put the law on hiatus.

“We did see that as something that was bad not just for U.S. business but for the global economy as a whole, and it was something we felt was very important to communicate very clearly to them,” Daniel said.

The law would require technology firms to hand over encryption keys, the passcodes that help protect data, and install security “backdoors” in their systems to give Chinese authorities surveillance access.

The move has given companies “some breathing room, but not complete relief” because the bill could be picked up again at any point.

The thought is that the Chinese are not ready to kick out all foreign companies, and because they weren’t ready to take that step, they backed off.

The initial draft, published by the NPC late last year, requires companies to also keep servers and user data within China, supply law enforcement authorities with communications records and censor terrorism-related Internet content.

Although the law would apply to both domestic and foreign companies, officials in Washington and Western business lobbies complained that the combination of that law, the banking rules and anti-trust investigations amounted to unfair regulatory pressure targeting foreign companies.

 

Peak Google is the latest daft rumour

Posted on February 25, 2015 by - News

Google's Eric "Google Glass" SchmidtThe US tech press is full of a bizarre story that Google might have hit its peak.

According to NPR, some tech industry observers aren’t sure that Google will be ready for the next big thing and there is talk of something called “Peak Google”.

Farhad Manjoo wrote in The New York Times:  “Technology giants often meet their end not with a bang but a whimper, a slow, imperceptible descent into irrelevancy.”

Now apparently Google is having trouble mastering mobile. When you look at the fact that most of the world uses Google Android this one might be a little hard to swallow, but apparently it is all because smartphones and mobile computing have killed off the PC and no one wants to buy adverts.

In a world cantered on a fragmented mobile advertising market, Google could suffer.

Google has also not had much luck with getting its innovations into the market. Resources have been directed toward lots of flashy ideas that, in many cases, ultimately lack in financial follow-through.  Google Glass was a case in point.

Other reasons include the normal esoteric decline which always follows businesses which get too big. It is normal among technology companies for a dominant company to be unable to dominate the next big thing. Industry giants lack the manoeuvrability of a younger company.

However there is are some reasons to believe that all this is total rubbish. Google has so much money sitting in the bank it can just buy the new technology it needs. It bought Android in 2006 and Nest in 2014. There is no reason that it just can’t buy its way into the next big thing.

In addition, it is curious that few people are saying the same thing about a tech empire with even less ability to adapt – Apple. If Google goes then surely Apple will be long gone before the search engines demise.  After all tablets are tanking, ipods have long vanished, the smartphone market is saturated, and Apple, unlike Google, is out of ideas.

Light fingered employees put strain on high street

Posted on April 29, 2013 by - News

highInside job thefts in highstreet stores are continuing to rise as light fingered staff see selling knock-off products as additional income.

However, one manager of a high street store has warned prices will continue to rise to cover the loss in sales as well as rise in security and insurance premiums.

High street clothing sales have faced a hard start to this year thanks to bad weather and the economic climate preventing people from splashing out on new clobber.

However, it seems luxury brands and the tech retail industry are facing more trouble from staff who believe they can earn an extra bob or two.

In its 2012 Retail Crime survey, the British Retail Consortium said the cost of crime had risen significantly by 15.6 percent, to an overall cost of £1.6 billion.

It said employee theft accounted for four percent of retail crime by cost, although just one percent of the number of incidents. However it pointed out there were 10.2 incidents of employee theft per 1,000 employees, almost double the rate of the previous year.

The average cost per incident also rose sharply at more than four times the previous year’s level. The average cost per incident of employee theft reached £1,577,  riven by a larger number of high value thefts compared with recent years. The BRC pointed out that this was the highest level of average theft recorded for at least eight years.

“There has been more items going missing from our store rooms,” a manager for a high-end retailer told ChannelEye.

“It seems no-one is happy to have a job anymore. I think the rise is probably more obvious in the luxury brands sector with people wishing to buy items from designer stores but without the cash.

“By buying knock-off gear they are saving themselves money but what they don’t realise is that we’re also having to push prices up to compensate for this. It’s a vicious circle.”

Another manager for a fashion retailer blamed the lack of wages for the rise in crime.

“We’ve seen more thefts but we’ve not caught anyone out. It’s just things missing in our inventory. We still carry out the usual bag check at the end of the day and before breaks but it’s inevitable things are going to be swiped,” she told ChannelEye.

“Products are getting more expensive and our staff are coming in on minimum wage. Some see the opportunity to sell things on and get more money as a good thing. There’s no loyalty anymore.”

And it seems the tech industry is also faring badly. “With the economy the way it is we’ve seen thefts, most of which could have only been performed from inside,” one assistant at a high street tech company told ChannelEye.

“Gadgets make good money and at times it doesn’t suit us to claim on insurance for it. We’re tightening up our CCTV in warehouses now as well as bag checking a lot more.”