Comms Dealer

Witney-based hosting company Storm Internet has unveiled its new portal designed to give customers more control to manage all of their products and services via a single interface.

This 'first phase' launch offers improved navigation and layout, more centralisation of hosting services, and StormCloud Private customers now have increased control with the ability to create, modify, resize and delete their VMs and move them between their parent (hypervisor) servers.

Both private and public cloud customers  have more tools including the ability to enable load balancing between their VMs, back-up and restore VMs, manage settings and power management of VMs, connect via KVM over IP and monitor resource usage (CPU, bandwidth etc).

Customers can also create Custom Escalation Procedures directly via the portal; and have the ability to schedule PCI Compliance and vulnerability scans on their sites and servers and reports can be generated on demand.

Salim Benadel, CEO and founder of Storm Internet, said: "The aim of the new portal is to empower our customers, giving them more control over their hosted services and a range of additional tools at their fingertips.

"The ability for our customers to be able to set Custom Escalation Procedures via the portal is something we're proud of and emphasises what Storm is all about."

Gateshead-based IT firm Advantex has won new contracts to install superfast broadband services in several managed offices across Tyneside as part of a Government funded scheme.

The work, worth £150,000, will see fast growing Advantex Network Solutions undertaking IT infrastructure installations to enable secure Wi-Fi connection at Broadacre House on Market Street and Westgate Road's prestigious The Beacon business centre.

Other sites include the Mea Trust, a five-storey city centre building providing accommodation to charities at affordable rents and at accommodation across the North East owned and operated by The Office Company.

The move will provide faster and secure broadband services to dozens of businesses and organisations occupying the managed offices and is being carried out under the Broadband Connection Vouchers scheme.

This initiative has seen the Government set aside £150 million to enable businesses to apply for up to £3,000 to pay for super-fast broadband connection and associated hardware such as wireless and internet security.

Under the scheme, landlords are also eligible to apply for up to £3,000 worth of funding per tenant.

This is the latest success for Advantex, which as a registered supplier of the vouchers is in the vanguard of delivering the Go Digital scheme to businesses across the North East.

Advantex Director Stephen O'Connell said tenants at the sites stand to benefit well into the future from better access to services using their own super-fast secure networks.

"We are supporting businesses at these sites, paving the way to free funding to help them unlock their potential and underpin growth and expansion plans through the provision of safe and secure, super-fast Internet.

"Furthermore, these contracts are an example of how we are able to support customers benefit from the funding - from the initial application to the final installation and on-going support - with expertise and advice.

"More companies need to register and take advantage of an initiative that can help them to improve competitiveness and boost growth. After all, which business wouldn't want the opportunity to tap into a no-obligation funding package?"

Global FinTech company Currency Cloud says UK enterprises are ahead of the US when it comes to embracing digital payments.

A survey found that over 70% of UK businesses process international payments electronically, while nearly half (47%) of US businesses still pay via paper check for international payments.

As a result, 37% of US businesses cite slow transaction times as a key pain point in processing international payments.

Mike Laven, CEO, Currency Cloud, warns that US businesses will need to adapt to remain competitive in the global On Demand economy.

Nearly half of US businesses are unaware of cheaper and more efficient international payment methods, he says.

"We are experiencing a tech-enabled revolution which is spawning the On Demand economy.

"Consumers already benefit with near real-time services such as Uber, GrubHub and Etsy.

"In this context, it is imperative businesses implement solutions that allow them to remain agile in order to compete.

"It's surprising to see that while consumers are adopting payment technologies such as Venmo and Xoom, the vast majority of US businesses still rely on paper checks for international payments."

The data centre business is moving to relative newcomers among vendors, says researcher Dell'Oro Group.

Digging deeper into the Enterprise Firewall market (now at about $1bn quarterly-run rate and growing a little over 10% per year), it has separated those products optimised for data centre deployment versus those optimised at the edge of the campus as the dynamics of these two locations require very different features.

It says it noticed 'quite a bit of change in the data centre firewall market as the up-start vendors (Fortinet, Palo Alto) grab some of the business in the data centre'. \

Cisco dominates the market and represents about 40% of market sales. Fortinet was aggressive in 2Q15 and Huawei is also showing traction, it says.

Security analyst Casey Quillin said that Fortinet's strength came from a broad base of large Enterprise customers, not just one or two.

The quarterly strength was characterised by the number of customers issuing contracts greater than $1.0m more than doubling compared to the year ago period, although most customers are based in the USA.

Gamma has conferred Platinum Partner status on Rainbow Global Network Services giving the Sevenoaks-based comms resellers access to additional support, training and funding.

Rainbow MD Dave Corgat commented: "Delivering swift support responses and the smoothest possible transition to new services has always been top of our customer care agenda. This will be boosted even further thanks to our Platinum Partnership giving us a direct line to Gamma's escalations team, as well as access to regular training.

"One of our core values as a business is to innovate and embrace upcoming technologies at the earliest opportunity.

"This allows us to bring the latest cutting edge products and services to our clients that could prove highly beneficial in the evolution of their businesses.

"Working with Gamma at this newly accelerated level will greatly help to back this goal."

Zach Woods, BDM at Gamma, added: "Rainbow Global is a long-standing partner of Gamma's and I am delighted that it is now one of our key strategic platinum partners."

Demand for IT workers continued to rise in August, according to the latest Report on Jobs published by KPMG and the REC.

The seasonally adjusted index measuring permanent vacancies in the IT sector climbed to 64.4, from 62.8 in July, signalling a strong and accelerated rate of growth that was above the UK average (63.7).

This placed the IT sector fifth out of nine in the demand for staff 'league table' during the latest survey period.

The respective index measuring demand for short-term IT staff slipped to 58.7, from 59.1 in July.

The latest reading signalled the slowest rate of growth for 26 months, albeit still solid overall. The UK average for temp staff was 60.5. The IT sector registered in sixth place out of nine in the demand for temp staff rankings.

Heath Jackson, Partner in the CIO Advisory practice at KPMG, said: "There was no respite for recruiters in August who were left struggling to fill vacancies after a vast swathe of Britain's job seekers appeared to take the summer off.

"Many candidates may have simply shelved their plans for the summer, believing their prospects to be stronger in September. However, this is of little comfort to those businesses needing staff now to meet demand for their goods and services.

"With candidates having their pick of the job market, companies need to offer more than just cash.

"In order to attract and retain the best people, businesses need to offer a bespoke package of benefits including flexible working, which can be tailored to suit the individual and their priorities and commitments."

Touchbase UC has redefined its strategy with a name-change to Natilik, a major rebrand and international expansion with new offices opening in both New York and Sydney.

The move comes five years after Touchbase UC performed a venture capital backed management buyout of the UK business.

The company has since grown 35% year-on-year and established itself as one of Cisco's key Gold Partners across collaboration, networking, security and data centre technologies.

"As we planned for the next five years of growth, it was key that we took the final step to establish our own brand that is a true representation of how we operate and the role we play with our clients," said Mike Danson, Chief Executive Officer, Natilik.

The Natilik name is inspired from the group of people who helped Roald Amundsen reach the South Pole - his confident guide.

It captures the ethos and purpose of Natilik, acting as the confident guide for their clients in the world of IT and communications, explained the firm.

In addition to the new name and brand, Natilik has opened new offices in New York and Sydney.

These offices further expands Natilik's reach and services capabilities across the Americas and Asia Pacific.

Combined with the UK office, it creates a single Network Operations Centre that operates across three regions on a follow-the-sun basis 24x7.

"We already support our clients in over 50 countries worldwide," added Danson.

"Traditionally, international organisations have had to go to the major global integrators or find local partners in each territory. We fill this gap in the market."

Cloud Distribution has launched a Hyperconverged Appliance solution, hyperserV, to the SME market.

Bruce Hockin, Director of Storage Solutions, Cloud Distribution, commented: "Hyperconvergence shouldn't be for the exclusive use of the enterprise, and channel partners simply don't want the pain of putting together an 'out of the box' solution themselves.

"By bringing hyperserV direct to the channel, we are empowering our partners to make Hyperconvergence accessible to the SME market and generate new revenue streams.

"We are now actively recruiting partners to embrace hyperserV, especially those who target education, local government, legal and not for profit organisations."

HyperserV is technically validated by DataCore as part of the 'DataCore Ready' Programme.

Brett Denly, Regional Director, DataCore Software UK, added: "There is an increasing appetite from SMEs for hyperconvergence in the UK, simply because of the ability to dramatically optimise storage environments without the overhead of SAN management."

hyperserV is available in four models with a choice of capacity points and hypervisors.

BlackBerry has strengthened its influence in the secure cross-platform mobility management space following the acquisition of Good Technology for $425m in cash.

The acquisition is aligned with BlackBerry's strategy to offer customers complete end-to-end solutions that secure the whole mobile enterprise across all platforms, said the firm.

Following the deal BlackBerry will expand its ability to offer a unified, secure mobility platform with applications for any mobile device on any operating system - supported with security that has been certified by governments around the world embedded in every component of the mobility infrastructure.

Good will bring complementary capabilities and technologies to BlackBerry including secure applications and containerisation that protects end user privacy.

With Good, BlackBerry will expand its ability to offer cross-platform EMM solutions. Good has expertise in multi-OS management with 64 per cent of activations from iOS devices, followed by a broad Android and Windows customer base.

"By acquiring Good, BlackBerry will better solve one of the biggest struggles for CIOs today, especially those in regulated industries - securely managing devices across any platform.

"By providing stronger cross-platform capabilities our customers will not have to compromise on their choice of operating systems, deployment models or any level of privacy and security," said John Chen, BlackBerry Executive Chairman and CEO.

Good's technology will integrate with BlackBerry's enterprise portfolio and global network, creating a management solution for all mobile devices.

BlackBerry expects the transaction to be completed toward the end of the company's 2016 fiscal third quarter and the company anticipates the acquisition to be accretive to earnings and cash flow within the first year after closing.

BlackBerry also expects to realise approximately $160m in GAAP revenue from Good in the first year, including the impact of an expected write-down of certain deferred revenue of Good.

Chess Telecom has acquired Scottish Microsoft Partner IRW Systems, a specialist in software design, development and support. IRW Systems brings significant capability and market share within the growing Chess IT and software consultancy space, providing 50 additional Software Design Specialists working in Glasgow and Edinburgh and adding £3m annual turnover to the Chess Group.

Chess Chief Executive, David Pollock, said: "IRW Systems has proven expertise within the Microsoft solutions portfolio, cloud applications and technical services arena.

"Together, we are positioned to deliver a range of consulting and software services to our existing and new customers and partners.

"This foundation is essential for enabling the next wave of technological change for customers focusing on the transition to cloud-based technologies and applications."

Ian Warnock, MD of IRW Systems, said: "Our complementary technologies and portfolios will enable our continued success in the cloud solutions arena."

Chess Director Richard Btesh added: "Our expanding presence from telecoms to the cloud, data and hosted space is bringing us more high profile acquisitions enquiries."

IRW Systems specialises in software and portal design, development and support services. Its solutions are built around the Microsoft platform and tools, particularly SharePoint, .Net, CRM, Mobile, Power BI, Web and Cloud based systems.

IRW Systems has built a blue chip customer base across the public and private sectors including central government departments, health, police, local authorities, communications, engineering/manufacturing, finance, professional services and the voluntary sector.

The firm employs over 50 employees across Glasgow and Edinburgh.