This week in the IT Channel...

Every Friday morning, IT Europa compiles a summary of the week's most significant news from the channel.

In this week's news...

Systal and Coca Cola ink direct multi-year partnership

Systal Technology Solutions has strengthened its six-year relationship with Coca-Cola Europacific Partners (CCEP) by securing a direct, multi-year partnership.?

The Scotland-based managed network services company will now support over 6,500 devices across 300 locations in 11 European countries.

The company has supported CCEP for over six years through a multi-partner agreement.?

This new direct deal aims to help CCEP, which serves 600 million consumers, achieve its goal of becoming 'the world’s most digitised bottler'.

CIO Neil Wisbey Systal said: “Our team’s agility and dedication to providing a higher value service delivery has been the bedrock of our CCEP partnership over the past six years.?

“We aim to continue supporting CCEP as they innovate and transform their critical network infrastructure.”

Tim Davies , Director of Infrastructure and Network Services at CCEP added: “This contract will significantly enhance our operational efficiency and allow us to better serve our customers and stakeholders.”

e92plus,Tanium partner to accelerate endpoint security growth

Cybersecurity VAD e92plus has partnered with Tanium to drive its growth in converged endpoint management (XEM).

This collaboration targets growth in the $10bn global endpoint security market by giving e92plus' VAR and MSP clients access to Tanium's technology.

e92plus CEO Mukesh Gupta ?said: “We are seeing growing demands for more automation to reduce costs, more integration to leverage existing investments, and a platform approach to support vendor consolidation – and Tanium absolutely delivers on those needs.”

Tanium, with over $700m in annual recurring revenue (ARR), partners with Microsoft and ServiceNow and serves over 40% of the Fortune 100.

Neil Langridge , Marketing & Alliances Director at e92plus, added: “Many of our partners work closely with Microsoft, in particular around the Microsoft 365 and Azure cloud offerings, and it’s essential that we help offer solutions that support those relationships, and the technology its customers have already invested in.”

Bechtle strengthens Italian foothold with MMN acquisition

German IT provider Bechtle has acquired IT company MMN, Bechtle Group (MMN) to expand its footprint in the Italian market.?

MMN, founded in 1989 and based near Milan with a second site near Venice, brings 100 employees and €68.6m (￡57.67m) in annual revenue to Bechtle.?

Konstantin Ebert , COO of Bechtle AG, said: "In MMN, we are gaining a company driven by its remarkable passion for technology and which is incredibly creative and fast when it comes to developing modern services.”

?"This acquisition will help us grow our portfolio in this very interesting European market."

MMN's status as an Apple Authorised Enterprise Reseller (AAER) makes Bechtle one of only two such companies in Italy, enabling it to offer iOS and Mac solutions to enterprises.

MMN is known for its augmented and virtual reality solutions with Apple Vision Pro and has a development team at Europe's largest innovation centre in Roncade.

PierDamiano Airoldi, co-founder and CEO of MMN, added: “We aspire to achieve above-average growth with and for our customers into the future. Bechtle's security and size coupled with MMN's flexibility and innovative spirit is the perfect combination for us to realise our future growth plans.”

The Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Westcon-Comstor to distribute Nokia drone-in-a-box solution

Specialist distributor Westcon-Comstor is now an approved distributor of 诺基亚 ’s Drone Networks in the EU, UK, Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore.?

This expanded partnership allows Westcon to distribute via Nokia-certified resellers, systems integrators, and service providers, creating opportunities for new customer acquisition and business growth.?

Nokia Drone Networks, a CE and FCC-certified drone-in-a-box solution for Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) operations, reduces costs and automates security and inspection workflows.

Antony Byford (pictured), VP of IoT & Collaboration at Westcon-Comstor said: “Our strategic relationship with Nokia brings its drone-in-a-box solution to a wider audience of end-user businesses through our channel partners in multiple geographic territories.”

?Hyve doubles US business and staff counts mushroom across firm

UK cloud services firm Hyve Managed Hosting has doubled its US business in a matter of months.

The company’s revenue has grown by 51% over the past three years, and earlier this year, Hyve set up a US hub in Austin, Texas, and a European hub in Berlin, Germany, in order to meet growing global demand for bespoke cloud services.

Since then, the firm has doubled its US customer base, and is looking to double its headcount in the US office in the next quarter.

The company is now projecting global operational growth of 50% year-on-year for the next three years – in both customers and turnover.

Hyve says it is seeing “huge demand” for its bespoke approach to building and maintaining cloud stacks. Buoyed by a shift in demand towards managed hybrid and multi-cloud environments, the provider has on-boarded 46% of its current customers since 2020.

The company’s global headcount has also grown by 33% in the past year to help accommodate the expanding customer base.

“The US continues to prove its status as a leader when it comes to considered cloud adoption, with the market already representing a large proportion of our revenue,” said Charlotte Webb , marketing and operations director at Hyve. “Meanwhile, our new Berlin office helps us seamlessly and securely serve EU customers, especially paying attention to helping them navigate compliance with data sovereignty and data protection regulations.”

Hyve also continues to offer managed VMware cloud services across all business units in its global network of data centres. The company was invited to the new Broadcom Advantage Partner Program as a VMware Cloud Service Provider at the Premier Partner level earlier this year.

Jake Madders , director and co-founder of Hyve Managed Hosting, said: “Despite the controversy surrounding VMware’s restructuring following Broadcom’s acquisition, we continue to see high demand for VMware-powered cloud services, particularly for private cloud. And the demand continues to grow."

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