Zenith Infotech Joins Hands With Tech Data

India’s Zenith Infotech has signed up with Tech Data, which is the world’s second largest distributor providing hosted managed services platform to solution providers in US. The distributor intends to offer: 24×7 monitoring of Windows servers, desktops as well as notebooks for spyware detection and anti-virus updates; monitored and administered data backup and restoration; and also help desk support for end users having desktop, server or network problems.

The company has positioned itself on the basis of quality and price. Currently it has about 500 Zenith PC Worlds, which are retail outlets that are owned by the company. It also has around 900 dealers across the country. It intends to increase the strength of its channel partner and PC Worlds by 40 per cent. It also plans to launch more laptops for SMEs.

According to Joe Quaglia, senior vice president of US Marketing at Tech Data, SMBs do not have the technology, or the resources to do these things. Zenith has the capability to provide these effortlessly. Tech Data also provided remote-monitoring managed services access according to an agreement with N-able Technologies. It has also signed a deal to offer print managed services through FMAudit.

CIO Connect Undergoes Management Buyout

A management-led buyout team has taken over IT management networking organization CIO Connect from the National Computing Centre. The entire buyout process was led by CIO Connect CEO Nick Kirkland and aided with investment from Shackleton Ventures. The new owner promised to invest further in order to enhance the value of the organization devoted to CIOs and their teams. The price of the buyout was not disclosed. The buy out was helped by investment from Shackleton, who focuses in direct secondary venture capital investments.

Michael Gough, NCC’s CEO, revealed that he expects the extra investment in CIO Connect to enable the organization to grow to the subsequent level and concentrate on upholding the cause of “professional management of IT within the UK”. Hugh Stewart, a managing partner with Shackleton, will be a part of the CIO Connect board.

Nick Kirkland, the Chief Executive of CIO Connect is happy about the fact that he was now free to make extra investment in the network towards improvement. He believes that the success of organization will depend on the success of the members. The NCC Board wished CIO Connect all the success and best wishes as it starts its journey towards the next stage of its growth.

Launch Of Windows Server 2008

Windows Server 2008, the long awaited server operating system of Microsoft, yet again proves that the company is aware of the customer needs and wants. Critics might feel that the new operating system is not too great a step but many small changes can mean that it is considerable development on its predecessor, Windows Server 2003.

Roy Illsley,a senior research analyst at Butler Group, believed that the availability of a main version of the operating system could be a noteworthy advantage, as it will need less number of patch updates and be easier to administer, as a result of its smaller footprint. This could save a lot of time and effort. Yet another important feature is the role-based access where people only have access to only those parts of the operating system that is required for them to do the job.

Mike Davis, a senior analyst at Ovum, believed that Windows Server 2008 does not in any way stand for an enormous change, as a variety of the features have been offered to the user through Windows Server 2003 service packs. He believed that there will be a mere two to three percent take-up on the first year after its release. So in order to generate demand, Microsoft will require providing tremendous detail.

Taylor Wimpey Signs A £30m Deal With Logicacmg

UK’s largest house builder Taylor Wimpey has outsourced the managing of all its IT systems to LogicaCMG for a sum worth £30m. Taylor Woodrow and George Wimpey had joined last year to form Taylor Wimpey. The five-year deal of outsourcing involves the management of all the IT systems of the merged company. LogicaCMG won the contract on the basis of the work it has done with George Wimpey over the past six years. It was doing data centres, desktop services, service desk and remote infrastructure management. It delivered good results and that is what worked in their favor.

The new contract will supposedly result in cutting the costs by around 20 per cent with the help of a common infrastructure that is created all across the merged Taylor Wimpey organization. The deal is designed in a way in order to develop the overall IT services function of the firm as a whole. It is supposed to the entire IT system of Taylor Wimpey, including the project and hosting services. The focus will also be on general infrastructure services all across the merged organization. Apart from the IT outsourcing deal, Taylor Wimpey has also made LogicaCMG a member of its IT leadership team.

iPhone Making Users Happy

O2 is focused on its iPhone efforts on customers. But if research is to be believed, it should not ignore business users who are fond of the touch screen interface. As per a research of enterprise smart phone users by ChangeWave Research, iphone beats all competition where user satisfaction is considered. Almost 59 per cent iPhone users were really satisfied with the device. They were happy with all that it had to offers.

RIM’s BlackBerry - which has the major share of the enterprise market – was second in line as far as customer satisfaction was concerned. Around 47 per cent of the respondents said they were “very satisfied” with their phone. Nokia ranked third with 40 per cent votes. It was followed by Samsung getting 30 per cent votes, Motorola getting 25 per cent votes and Palm securing 10 per cent votes.

Alastair Behenna, CIO of Harvey Nash, believed that the product is quite interesting and the price will surely come down once the product has settled down. If not anything, it will definitely be worthwhile to track the evolution. O2 is in talks with Apple for preparing a business tariff that they can launch in the year itself.