MicroScope | IT Channel and IT Reseller News

Windows 7 adoption set to grow through 2010

2010-03-18T00:01:28Z

The sales figures since the October launch have already placed Windows 7 ahead of its predecessor Vista but the market for the OS looks set to expand further this year.

According to research carried out by migration specialist KACE, which is now , 87% of those IT professionals it quizzed have plans to deploy Windows 7 compared to just 47% who had ambitions at this stage after the release with Vista.

The sales figures even pre-release for Windows 7 banished the experiences most in the channel had gone through with Vista which struggled to take-off with most users opting to stick with XP.

But the successful launch of Microsoft's latest OS has been credited with helping the hardware market as well as impacting on other areas including the security sector.

Although significant numbers of users plan to migrate to the OS this year there are still some concerns holding them back with migration causing compatibility problems worrying 86% of respondents and 25% not convinced about performance issues.

But overall the positive impact of the Microsoft software looks set to continue to filter through the channel and customers over the course of 2010.

"Windows 7 is looking like it will be the biggest inflection point in Windows OS adoption since XP," said Rob Meinhardt, president of Dell KACE (pictured).

"But because there isn't a direct upgrade path from XP, migrating to Windows 7 could be challenging and costly for most organisations," he added that was where the channel opportunity was at its most prominent.

Recession provides chance for skills gap to narrow

2010-03-17T22:16:14Z

The recession appears to have given the skills gap in the IT industry a chance to close up with the number of trained candidates outstripping the vacancies available.

The problems with skills has been an on-going problem in the computer industry and although there were expectations that the downturn and the drop in demand for staff would have an impact it seems to have helped produce a positive situation.

According to figures in the Technology Demand and Supply report, from the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) and e-skills UK the number of 'ready candidates' is now greater than the demand.

The main skills in demand -SQL, C#, .NET and Linux - continue to be in demand but the number of people who have mastered those areas has also risen.

"Our members are showing increasing confidence in the sector and many of them are looking to hire more recruiters as a result," said jeff Brooks, chair of REC Technology.

'it is very encouraging to see that companies will still invest in technology to develop their businesses even when there is a tough economic landscape. I look forward to the upturn developing into an even stronger rate in the months ahead," he added.

Network ignored in IT decision-making

2010-03-17T16:28:03Z

Over 30% of IT managers, buyers and CIOs are failing to consider the impact of new technology on their networks before buying, even though 74% claim the network is central to their IT strategy, according to new research from Computacenter.

According to the services-led reseller this attitude risks downtime, poor performance levels and raises the spectre of serious security breaches.

Computacenter found worrying misconceptions around the introduction of virtualisation, with two thirds of respondents believing the technology made their networks more secure, when frequently the opposite was the case.

The majority went so far as to say that the networking was hampering virtualisation efforts, with 88% claiming it directly caused network performance issues. 68% claimed they had underestimated the number of network issues arising from virtualisation.

"It is common to see a lack of proactive optimisation directed towards the network, particularly in difficult times when decision makers have other challenges," said Computacenter networking and security practice leader Colin Williams.

"The inherent problem with the network is that no-one notices it until it goes wrong so in many cases it has become a victim of its own reliability," he added.

The survey also found that only a fifth of IT decision makers said there were internal political struggles around virtualisation, which Williams said was surprising considering virtualisation deployments were usually managed by server teams, but ended up affecting network teams.

Speaking to MicroScope this week, Mike Augustine, head of northern European sales for switching vendor Force10 said that the potential for internal political struggles was growing as the vendor community shuffles for position in the datacentre.

"It's a delicate balance, nobody wants to rock the boat, but it results in a cultural challenge if one vendor comes to dominate. Ultimately it's disruptive for the CIO," he warns.

Sunbelt Software aims to build AV share

2010-03-17T13:06:25Z

A strategy of building a consumer business alongside cracking the enterprise market is the approach being taken by Sunbelt Software which is looking to take market share from rival anti virus vendors.

The security market has managed to come through the recession reasonably intact with the competition for share remaining one of the priorities for those pitching anti virus solutions.

David Parkin, EMEA sales director at Sunbelt Software, said that it would be selling through the likes of PC World and Amazon "one of our major pushes it to get the retail part correct" to influence success in the enterprise space.

He said that competing for swap-out business had been made slightly more straightforward because of some of the actions of its rivals.

"A lot of the spend in the anti virus channel has been reduced," he added that it was stumping up marketing funds to support resellers via its distributor Interactive Ideas.

Increasingly the model that has been expounded by the likes of Kaspersky Labs using a strong consumer brand to build up an enterprise business is being embraced by vendors including recently Webroot which is looking to sell through retail and etailers in order to reach SME customers.

BroadSoft files for $103m IPO

2010-03-17T10:26:30Z

IP-software developer BroadSoft has become the latest networking sector firm to express an interest in floating on the stock market, giving further impetus to the growing recovery seen in the market.

The Maryland-based firm's $103.5m filing follows recent IPOs from Fortinet, Force10, Meru and Mitel.

In its filing with the SEC, Broadsoft said it planned to use $4.3m from the filing to redeem preferred stock, and hinted at the possibility of acquisitive expansion.

"The remaining proceeds will be used for working capital and other general corporate purposes, which may include the acquisition of complementary businesses, products or technologies," the firm added.

Last year it grew sales a little over 11% to $68m and narrowed net losses to $7.8m. BroadSoft has, however, failed to turn a profit since its inception 12 years ago.

SAP bosses pitch up in US with talk of innovation

2010-03-17T09:55:42Z

The fresh management team at SAP have turned up in Silicon Valley following on the back of an appearance at CeBIT talking of the need to revitalise the company.

The Co-CEO's Bill McDermott (pictured) and Jim Hagemann Snabe, who replaced former boss Leo Apotheker who was ousted last month, have been talking up their determination to claw back the position of the company.

The CEOs penned an open letter to customers which repeats the messages about the safety of the investment users have already made in SAP applications.

"We also recognise that [customers] have made a substantial investment in SAP and built at least part of your business on us, which is why we want you to know that the investment you have made in SAP is protected and valid," stated the letter.

The vendor has been under attack from rivals and also did its own fair share of straight talking about its failings and lost of reseller and customer trust when Apotheker left.

In the letter there was a pledge to listen more to partners and customers to ensure the company was moving in the direction users wanted it to go as well as talking of its plans for the rest of this year.

"Over the coming days and weeks, we will share more updates on our key priorities--for example, delivering new innovation On Demand, On Premise, On Device, and in the Orchestration across your IT environment. Like you, we also highly anticipate the delivery of SAP Business ByDesign in the middle of this year," it said.

Buying Solutions shelves £1bn voice and data framework

2010-03-16T23:31:35Z

Buying Solutions has shelved plans for a public sector voice and data contract worth as much as £1bn to suppliers, because it was deemed to be out of synch with the Government's recently published ICT strategy.

Earlier this year the CIO Council outlined its vision for ICT usage across the public sector and among its efforts to save £3.2bn a year in costs, the government will create a central telecommunications infrastructure to deliver voice and data services.

This basically put pay to the Specialist Communications for voice, video and data (SVVD) procurement programme that was due to run for at least two years from May and was valued at between £500m and £1bn.

The evolution of shared services in the public sector and the rise of the cloud - the government is currently working with suppliers to develop its G-cloud - represent a dramatic shift in the delivery of ICT.

A Buying Solutions spokeswoman told MicroScope: "It is important we adapt to the changing ICT environment, and that we fully align with the ICT Strategy for Government."

She added that the procurement for SVVD was "complex" and overlapped with other schemes including Public Sector Network Convergence.

"These factors, and changing customer requirements, would necessitate amending the current exercise which, we feel, would result in an inadequate procurement offering," said the spokeswoman.

Suppliers had already worked on bids for the framework agreement due to be submitted by the end of this month and Buying Solutions said: "We appreciate that some suppliers will be disappointed with the cancellation."

It is "reviewing whether a replacement procurement exercise or other solution" would better suit IT departments and will "discuss this with them individually".

The Government's most senior tech advisor, CIO John Suffolk has already warned resellers of the need to embrace new as-a-service business models including the cloud, and this change in SVVD is further evidence of the impact it will have.

BT Engage IT sharpens the axe for more job cuts

2010-03-16T14:23:56Z

A fresh round of redundancies at BT Engage IT has seen sales director Nick Wiltshire and commercial director Allan Mulliner leave the firm along with 12 sales account managers.

This takes the total headcount reduction close to 150 positions since chief executive Martin Balaam came on board in October.

A spokesperson at BT Engage IT confirmed it, "like many other businesses" had reviewed the operations.

"This has resulted in a small number of redundancies in the business," said BT. "We are advising all staff of this and working with those affected to ensure that they are treated appropriately."

]]> It added that Mulliner had left on 12 March but it did not comment on the departure of Wiltshire, who was placed on gardening leave weeks ago.

Job cuts are not the only de-motivating issue that sales staff have been confronted with; a new commission structure will be introduced that sources say cuts down the money staff can make.

BT said: "We annually review our commission structure and as a result of the latest review we will be making some changes to ensure it supports the overall business strategy."

Sources believe the commission structure will be capped at £60,000 per year but BT insisted there will be no such mechanism in place.

The departure of long serving directors Wiltshire and Mulliner follows the resignation of former BT Engage IT boss Nick Gorringe and the exit of Paul Edgeley, who ran Lynx Technology which was BT's second reseller acquisition.

Other changes have seen BT make job cuts across field engineering, customer services and the closure of recruitment arm Red and Blue.

In January, BT Engage IT also stopped reselling IT Site Manager and laid off some staff involved in that operation.

Colt enhances VAR services proposition

2010-03-16T13:45:39Z

Business communications provider Colt has added additional bandwidth and self-monitoring options to its SME voice and internet access bundle, VoIP Access, and updated its partner programme to deliver training, support and reward options to its VAR community.

On the partner side Colt has streamlined its order process and enhanced access to its sales and support team and partner portal.

It also claims reseller set-up time has now been reduced to 10 days, having implemented new remote testing services for the VoIP Access package.

"Just as the VoIP Access solution has been enhanced to improve the customer experience, it was right to ensure our partners also reaped the benefits of improved service delivery," said Colt partner director Gary Moore.

"By reducing the time our resellers spend on sourcing information and placing and managing orders we have ensured they can get on with delivering customer service," he added.

The upgraded package also includes enhanced flexibility and scalability and added security features including anti-hacking and fraudulent IP call prevention features.

Blue Coat takes first steps into virtualisation world

2010-03-16T12:56:49Z

WAN optimisation vendor Blue Coat is taking its first steps into the virtualisation arena and hopes to cosy up to VMware resellers through its distribution partnership with Arrow.

The firm has just launched a line-up of virtual WAN optimisation appliances pitched at branch offices with between 10 and 300 seats that it says will run on industry standard servers and offer a more cost-effective and flexible set-up for customers.

Blue Coat EMEA marketing vice president Nigel Hawthorn said the move to take WAN optimisation into a virtualised environment was a response to how people were buying technology.

Blue Coat believes that by virtualising its own appliance instead of providing a virtualised environment that runs branch office functions on its physical boxes it can make its proposition more appealing to cash-strapped end-users.

"There are a number of vendors in our space talking about virtualisation but saying that the customer still needs to buy their hardware," said Hawthorn. "Customers are now realising that that doesn't give the long-term benefits that they want."

Security market shows strength through the recession

2010-03-16T12:29:41Z

The security market has remained one of the most robust in the face of the worst recession for sixty years maintaining growth when other sectors experienced deep cuts in their rates of expansion.

According to the latest research of the worldwide security market from channel analysts Canalys the last three months of last year saw the sector grow by 10% up on Q3 and 3.6% on 2008.

The worldwide market was worth $3.6bn in Q4 2009 and hardware and software grew with hosted security software emerging as an important slice of the market.

"The release of Windows 7 and the resurgence of the PC market have dramatically helped the client security market, said Nikki Babatola, analyst at Canalys.

"This improvement will likely continue throughout 2010 as businesses role out more computer systems," she added.

In terms of client security vendors Symantec took the top spot with 26.7% market share, followed by McAfee and Trend Micro. On the appliance front Cisco kept its position as the dominant player in the market.

Most of the major vendors have been able to produce financial results that showed they were charting a reasonably safe course through the choppy waters of recession and the RSA show in he US last week was also held in a positive atmosphere.

The theme at RSA was cloud security, which is also expected to feature prominently on the agenda at next month's InfoSec show in London.

Dell sues five LCD vendors for alleged price fixing

2010-03-16T12:27:16Z

Dell is suing five Far Eastern LCD panel makers for allegedly colluding to set prices at an artificially high level.

The PC giant has filed a law suit with the district court in San Francisco against Japanese brands Sharp, Hitachi, Toshiba, Seiko Epson and Taiwanese HannStar.

A spokesman at Dell confirmed that it was taking legal action against the alleged cartel but did not specify the amount it was trying to recoup.

"Dell is seeking a jury trial to recover money collected from it for LCD panels purchased at artificially-inflated prices set through the unlawful, collusive collaboration of the suppliers named as defendants or co-conspirators in the suit," he said..

These cases are not new in the ICT sector, at the start of last year Sharp, LG, Hitachi and Chunghwa Picture tubes were fined more than $585m after being found guilt of fixing panel prices sold to Dell between 2001 and 2004.

In October AT&T accused LG, Samsung and AU Optronics of fixing prices of LCD panels used in phones, and two months later Nokia filed a class action for the same reason.

Dell was itself called upon in recent years to give evidence in AMD's trial against Intel' for anti-competitive behaviour.

A speedy resolution is not expected.

Becrypt adds Security IP as distie to target enterprise space

2010-03-16T11:33:46Z

In a move designed to increase its presence in the enterprise market data encryption specialist Becrypt has added Security IP to its distributor roster.

The market for encryption has expanded in the last couple of years fueled by a large number of highly public data leaks across the government and public sector.

Security IP will offer the data security range from Becrypt including the encryption tools aimed at laptops and desktops PCs and its USB product.

Clive Larkin, vice president business development at Becrypt, said it had made the distribution appointment as it looked for "specialist channel players to help us increase our corporate footprint".

"Through this partnership, we aim to further penetrate the market for Information Assurance and data security solutions," he added.

On the other side of the relationship Andi Robinson, managing director at Security IP, said it would be taking the products out to its reseller base that already worked with corporates to protect data.

Becrypt already uses four distributors with Arc Technology, Sigma Software and Tekdata with Blue Solutions targeting the SME market.

Digital Economy Bill moves closer to becoming law

2010-03-16T10:37:31Z

The Digital Economy Bill, which is designed to protect the UK's creative industries has been passed by the House of Lords and looks set to become law before the general election.

The Bill contains in it the proposed option of dealing with those that download illegal software with reduced speeds on their internet connection or the prospect of being cut off the web all together.

Software industry lobby groups have been pushing for the Bill with the belief that it will make it more difficult for users to file share applications and bypass the legitimate channel.

With the Bill now passed by the laws it heads back to the House of Commons to be rubber stamped before the election.

That will not end the ongoing debate about the rights and wrongs of cutting off users with large web players including Google expressing concerns about the Bill.

Speaking on BBC's Panorama programme last night a spokesman for Talk Talk said it would resist cutting off its users from the web because it disagreed with the approach the government was taking.

Selway Moore calls in the administrator

2010-03-15T16:44:50Z

Selway Moore has become the first major reseller casualty of 2010 after cash flow issues left management with no option but to shut up shop.

The Reading-based HP Gold partner has called in administrator BDO LLP and the remaining staff have been made redundant.

Phil Reakes, managing director said it had been impacted by fierce price competition in the channel, a slowdown in sales and overheads it could not afford.

"Selway Moore is no more," he told MicroScope, "all our problems come down to the last two and half years and the most severe economic crisis the industry has ever faced."

]]> The firm, which was founded in 1996 by Reakes was split into two divisions in 2002; reselling high-end server systems and recycling old data centre equipment, however the unprofitable SML Recycle closed in 2006.

Reakes is evaluating his next move which may include setting up an IT recycling business.

Selway Moore filed abbreviated accounts for the year to 31 January 2008 - the most recent - that showed a loss of £250,000 on the back of revenues in the region of £7m.

Historic data shows that company failures rise in a post recessionary economy and Alan Norton, head of intelligence at Graydon UK expected 2010 to be no different.

"There will be those that have struggled in the last two years that have run out of cash and were unable to secure more because the banks are not lending; and those that over-trade as the market picks up and are unable to support the business," he said.

Eddie Pacey, director of credit services for Europe at Bell Microproducts, agreed banks were being "less than helpful" in the current environment.

"There are a large number of resellers out there that have run out of steam and are unable to change track," he said.