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...

AST boosts UK footprint with Symatrix buy

US-based AST LLC (AST) has expanded its UK footprint by acquiring Manchester-based 甲骨文 partner Symatrix, an IBM Company .?

This move enhances AST’s expertise and growth potential in emerging sectors.?Symatrix’s consulting capabilities will boost AST’s proficiency in Oracle Cloud Applications including supply chain and human capital management.?

Symatrix CEO Chris Brooks (pictured)?said: “Joining forces with AST is a natural progression for Symatrix and allows us to service our customers with even greater resources and technical services.”

The Symatrix leadership team, including Brooks, will remain in place, focusing on growing the UK customer base with new offerings and delivery geographies from AST.

AST CEO Justin Winter added: “The capabilities of Symatrix complement and broaden AST’s core services and allow us to reach new global markets.”

NFON boosts Q1 revenue by 2.2%

Cloud telephony specialist NFON AG has advanced its reorganisation in Q1 2024, increasing revenues by 2.2% to ￡21.2m.?

This growth is driven by a 2% rise in customer-installed seats, totaling 658,544, and enhanced cross-selling activities.?

Recurring revenue grew by 2.8% to €19.9m, making up 93.6% of total revenue. EBITDA improved to €2.8m, up from €2.0m in the same period last year.?

Patrik Heider (pictured), CEO and CFO of NFON, said: “The current figures show that our strategy is effective. In the current year, we will continue to press ahead with the changes initiated with the goal of operational excellence, which will enable us to strengthen growth and especially profitability.”

For 2024, NFON expects mid- to upper-single-digit growth in recurring revenue, aiming for over 90% of total revenue, with adjusted EBITDA projected between €10m and €12m.

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Civo launches open cloud services developer hub

Cloud infrastructure services firm Civo will next month officially launch its community developer hub in London.

Civo Tech Junction, a multi-purpose co-working and event space in developer hotspot Shoreditch, East London, is tailored to meet the needs of freelancers, startups, and established companies alike, said the provider.

Regular events at Civo Tech Junction will cover a range of topics such as DevOps, machine learning, cloud computing, software development, and security, all of which will aim to “democratise access to technical insights”.

Mark Boost , CEO of Civo, said: “We’ve always believed in the democratic access to tech, whether through open source machine learning or truly interoperable cloud services. This is the spirit of Civo Tech Junction, where we’re going beyond services to the open sharing of knowledge.”

Civo is hosting a launch party for the venue on 5 June, 2024. Lord Clement-Jones will be the guest speaker, sharing his insights from his latest publication, Living with the Algorithm. The first 100 attendees will receive a signed copy of his book.

Storware names Titan as new backup distributor

Titan Data Solutions has been appointed as a distributor for data backup software provider Storware in the UK.

“We are partnering with Titan to enhance our reach and deliver greater value to customers seeking robust data protection for modern workloads,” said Jan Sobieszczanski , CEO of Poland-headquartered Storware.

“Together, we are well positioned to meet the evolving needs of businesses for reliable, scalable, and easy-to-deploy data backup and disaster recovery solutions.”

Stefan Ferrari , head of technical services at Titan Data Solutions, added: “Storware’s cutting-edge backup solution offers unique functionality that will create new opportunities for our customers. The product integrates with many of Titan’s vendors, allowing us to enhance storage and management solutions with disruptive backup that ensures data availability and business continuity.”

Colt extends unified comms service to seven extra countries

Colt Technology Services has widened the availability of its Colt Intelligent Communications (CIC) unified communications as-a-service offering to seven further European countries.

The additional countries – the Czech Republic, Finland, Luxembourg, Norway, Poland, Romania and Slovakia – mean businesses can now access CIC cloud voice and data services in 20 countries across Europe.

CIC applications run on Microsoft’s flagship Microsoft 365 cloud-based platform, ensuring a familiar desktop experience and providing immersive unified communications with Teams.

Performance is “guaranteed” with Colt’s connectivity to the cloud and voice breakout based on Colt’s Tier 1, globally connected network.

Tyler Hemmen , VP enterprise products and solutions, Colt Technology Services, said: “AI and automation present tremendous opportunities for business to secure a competitive advantage, but the reality is that many organisations are still in the early stages of exploring their potential.

“By integrating AI and automation features into Colt Intelligent Communications, we’ve made it easy for them to dip their toes into the water and create an outstanding connected employee experience which transforms and amplifies productivity.”

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