Staying informed is a constant challenge. There’s so much to do, and so little time. But we have you covered. Grab a coffee and take five while you nibble on these tidbits.
SAP to lay off up to 3,000, may sell Qualtrics stake
During its financial results call this week, business application giant SAP announced that it will lay off up to 3,000 employees (about 2.5 per cent of its workforce), though it did not provide details of the affected geographies or business units. Chief executive officer Christian Klein said the layoffs are part of what he called “a targeted restructuring in select areas of the company.”
The company also said that it is considering selling its stake in Qualtrics, which it acquired in 2019 and then spun off in 2021 while retaining 71 per cent ownership. That decision would be subject to market conditions and negotiating an acceptable deal, as well as the usual approvals from regulatory bodies and the company board, it said.
Aptum earns Microsoft Azure Expert MSP status
Aptum, a hybrid multi-cloud managed service provider (MSP), has been recognized by Microsoft as an Azure Expert MSP. The designation identifies the company as a qualified global partner to deliver Azure offerings to customers.
The company said in a release it is among a group of MSPs globally to earn this certification, having completed an extensive auditing process by an independent third party. The certification process, it added, consisted of a “rigorous audit of 66 controls” in areas such as Microsoft services, security and governance, and assessment and design.
Susan Bowen, chief executive officer and president of Aptum, said the recognition by Microsoft is a “true testament to the hard work of our team and their holistic approach to cloud infrastructure, building best practices around people, process operations and technology.”
Phoenix Systems named as SYSPRO Canada's Partner of the Year for 2022
SYSPRO, a supplier of ERP software for manufacturers and distributors, announced that Phoenix Systems has been awarded its Canadian Partner of the Year for 2022. SYSPRO says it recognizes top-performing partners for their “outstanding contribution to new account acquisition, customer satisfaction and revenue generation through this annual award.”
Headquartered in Newmarket, Ont., the ERP software reseller has been a SYSPRO partner for over three decades.
A release stated that, with SYSPRO ERP, the company “played a vital role in digitalizing operations of various Canadian manufacturers and distributors who were using legacy and other ERP systems, modernizing their operations and enabling them to be more agile in the face of changing conditions.”
Broadvoice names VP of channel
Cloud communications services provider Broadvoice has named cloud communications channel veteran Sean Johnston as vice president of partnerships and alliances for North America. He will lead Broadvoice’s channel strategy, and focus initially on driving partner sales for the new Broadvoice GoContact omnichannel cloud contact centre solution, which was rolled out to North America last month.
The company also offers hosted voice, unified communications as a service (UCaaS), omnichannel contact centre as a service (CCaaS) and SIP Trunking services for small and midmarket businesses.
“With the launch of GoContact, we can meet the UCaaS and CCaaS needs of ever-larger customers through our partnerships with agents, VARs and MSPs across North America,” said Kim McLachlan, senior vice president of sales for Broadvoice. “Sean’s experience working with partners in the U.S. and Canada makes him a great fit for our expanding Broadvoice channel team.”
Dell’Oro reveals key datacentre trends for 2023
Dell’Oro Group analyst Baron Fung has laid out predictions for the data centre infrastructure market in 2023. “The market conditions will be dramatically different in 2023 compared to the prior year, as supply chains normalize, and demand softens with mounting economic uncertainties,” he wrote. “We anticipate the market to maintain near-term growth fueled by backlogged shipments and the current cloud expansion cycle before decelerating through most of 2023.”
Data centre capital expenditure (capex) by the top four U.S. cloud providers will fall, with single-digit growth instead of last year’s 30 per cent growth. However, Fung expects the slowdown to be brief. He also expects enterprise data centre capex growth to be in the single digits, as, he said, “mounting economic uncertainties and the rising cost of capital could cause enterprises to slow capital purchases, and cause more enterprises to shift to the cloud.”
He sees edge computing use cases emerging, including Multi-Access Edge Computing (MEC) that will enable latency-sensitive applications such as smart factories. Dell’Oro expects revenue from these applications will grow by over 60 per cent over the next five years.
It also predicts that smart NIC deployment this year will move into the mainstream; while they have been mostly deployed by hyperscalers until now, their growth in the rest of the market could exceed 50 per cent this year.
