Cross Channel: IBM Seeks EMC Customers And G-Cloud Concerns For SMBs

Welcome to Cross Channel, a weekly round up of the most pertinent stories from our sister site ChannelBiz, where you can find out all the latest developments, views and strategies from the world of the channel.

IBM looks to take advantage of Dell EMC ‘disruption’

IBM is targeting Dell and EMC flash storage customers with a new migration programme to take advantage of “potential disruption” from the looming Dell acquisition of EMC. Big Blue is also targeting channel partners as up to 80 percent of IBM all-flash storage is sold by IBM Business Partners.

The company has also launched a range of “cost-conscious” all flash storage products. The new IBM Storwize V7000F and IBM Storwize 5030F are all-flash arrays aimed at data centre and cloud environments.

Read the full story

SMBs still face uphill struggle to win G-Cloud contracts

Streamwire has just joined the latest iteration of G-Cloud but says smaller businesses still have difficulty gaining public sector contracts. It admits getting onto the G-Cloud 8 framework will open some doors but fears the playing field isn’t level for SMBs.

Kevin Timms, COO of Streamwire, said: “We are now one of 2,726 suppliers providing 26,000 services on the G-Cloud, so the biggest challenge we face is how to get noticed. We can’t expect to just sit on the framework and wait for public sector organisations to come to us – the pool is too big for that to happen.”

G-Cloud 8 has attracted the largest number of suppliers since the creation of the G-Cloud, with 94 percent of the 757 new suppliers being an SME. More than half of the £1.3 billion spent through the G-Cloud has gone to SMBs, says the government, as of June 2016.

Read the full story

Price still wins out on multi-cloud purchasing decisions

Price is still the most important consideration when organisations make multi-cloud purchasing decisions, a survey of IT decision makers has found. Seventy percent said cost was a primary consideration, while only 51 percent chose service level agreements or quality of service.

Compliance, service and support and data sovereignty were all reported by less than half of respondents.

Read the full story

Updata wins NHS trust network and remote working deal

Updata Infrastructure, part of Capita IT Enterprise Services, has been awarded a five-year contract by Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (GHNHSFT) to supply and manage IT networks for healthcare organisations in the region.

As part of the contract, Updata will manage a wide area network and provide local area network infrastructure and services for a range of organisations covering 140 sites, including hospitals and GP surgeries. Updata will also install a virtual private network (VPN), allowing users to work remotely.

Read the full story