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...

Westcon to roll out Extreme Networks' solutions in EMEA

Westcon-Comstor is now the first distributor to officially be recognised as a?delivery and solution partner for Extreme Networks solutions?in EMEA.

This partnership aims to enhance stadium and venue experiences by introducing Extreme’s solutions to the IT channel across the region.

Westcon will leverage its network of channel partners to accelerate the adoption of Extreme’s technologies and install infrastructure tailored to each venue.

Martin Flensburg (pictured), VP, Business Operations, Global Supply Chain Solutions and Services at Westcon-Comstor, said: “This new element in our relationship with Extreme creates new opportunities for our partners and adds to our long-held collaboration, enabling the delivery of projects across Extreme's networking solutions, supported by Westcon services.”

Extreme Networks' solutions are already used by clubs like Manchester United and Borussia Dortmund, and major US sports organizations such as MLB, NASCAR, and the NFL.

European SAP staffing specialist acquired by Oxford Global

US and Europe professional services firm Oxford Global Resources has acquired Linksap Europe Ltd , a leading provider of SAP staffing services across Europe.

Linksap supports clients in more than 40 countries. The acquisition serves as a strategic expansion of Oxford’s existing SAP services in European markets.

Linksap’s co-founders, Rupert Bassi and Alistair Coker , as well as the broader Linksap team, have joined Oxford and will continue to lead Linksap moving forward.

Bassi said: “We look forward to bringing our SAP platform expertise, strong customer relationships, and highly skilled network of specialists to Oxford.”

“We are highly impressed with Linksap’s premium expertise, quality service offering, and geographic reach,” added Rob McGuckin , chief executive officer at Oxford Global Resources. “Our partnership with Linksap will bolster our SAP capabilities in Europe, and add new clients that can benefit from Oxford’s broad service offering across technology platforms.”

Onecom boosts UC and IT services portfolio with Daly Systems buy

Onecom has acquired Daly Systems Limited , marking its 12th deal since 2020 and boosting its Unified Communications (UC) and IT managed services.?

Daly Systems adds a strong customer base and partnerships with Gamma, Microsoft, Openreach, and Jola, while expanding Onecom's reach via its Leicester Operations Centre.?

Martin Flick , CEO of Onecom Group, said: "This deal is yet another transaction that fits into our expansion and diversification strategy. We foresee cross-sell opportunities with our combined customer groups.”

Transaction support came from Shoosmiths and HMT LLP for Onecom, and Knight Corporate Finance , Torr Waterfield Accountants, and Nelsons Solicitors for Daly Systems.

Top Microsoft partners adopt its AI tech to aid their customers

微软 UK channel partners Softcat and Advania UK have both adopted its Copilot technology to further their AI initiatives.

Softcat has integrated with Copilot for Microsoft 365, providing all employees with licenses. The goal is to provide first-hand expertise to corporate and public sector customers who are embarking on their own AI journeys.

"As a business, we are committed to being at the forefront of AI technology adoption and advocacy, and our investment in Copilot for Microsoft 365 is a testament to that," said Graham Charlton , chief executive officer at Softcat. "By embracing this technology we can provide our people with the tools they need to stay ahead of the competition in an ever-evolving market, as well as supporting our customers in their own adoption."

Richard E. , general manager, small, medium and corporate at Microsoft UK, said: "Softcat’s decision to fully embrace Copilot for Microsoft 365 underscores its commitment to innovation and excellence. By equipping its entire workforce with this advanced technology, Softcat is well-positioned to drive significant productivity gains and offer unparalleled support to its customers on their AI journeys."

Advania UK has announced its own workforce-wide adoption of Microsoft Copilot for over 1,000 employees.

The Advania leadership team made the decision to standardise on the tech after noticing "radical improvements" in employee productivity and creativity with Copilot. Internal results "inspired confidence" that the AI companion would give Advania’s teams a clear competitive advantage in their daily work advising and digitally transforming hundreds of clients across the UK.

Every Advania team can now use the full Microsoft AI platform, including Copilot for Microsoft 365, Copilot Studio, and private ChatGPT deployments, to address complex client challenges, including efficiency, building out new digital capabilities and workforce productivity.

Geoff Kneen , chief executive officer of Advania, said: "Our pilot deployments revealed the tremendous potential to improve employees’ experience and productivity by using Copilot for automating repetitive tasks. More exciting was the power it gave our employees to accelerate problem solving.

"We witnessed individuals coming up with creative ways to solve the little niggles that distract them from doing their best work. We had to go workforce-wide, the potential was too compelling to delay roll-out.”

On top of the standard use cases such as summarisation, sifting through stuffed inboxes, and jump-starting content creation, Advania’s teams have already identified dozens of more complex use cases for Copilot. These include digesting and responding to complex RFPs, analysing data and producing presentation-ready graphs, analysing sentiment of client communications, and improving interactive client workshops. The productivity gains are fuelling higher quality systematic outputs and improving business processes, said Advania.

Advania is looking to share its experiences as broadly as possible, participating in a multi-portfolio working group, organised by global financial services leader and Advania partner, Goldman Sachs.

"As one of our most certified partners in the UK, I am pleased that Advania has committed to bringing the value of Copilot for Microsoft 365 to all of its employees, said Orla McGrath , GPS lead at Microsoft UK. It has been an early mover in the adoption of Microsoft’s generative AI technologies, and I know the experience gained from its own use of Copilot will quickly inform how it helps its thousand-plus clients across the SMC, enterprise and public sector segments achieve even greater value from this transformative technology."

CRM firm raises $200m to help expand global partner channel

Creatio , a vendor of a no-code platform to automate CRM and enterprise workflows, has sealed a $200m capital raise at a $1.2 billion valuation. A chunk of the extra cash will be used to expand its growing partner channel.

The investment round was led by Sapphire Ventures, with participation from The Stepstone Group Polska and current investors, Volition Capital and Horizon Capital . The round is a minority investment focused on fuelling Creatio’s global expansion.

Creatio has been delivering 50% annual revenue growth, significantly increasing its global customer base and partner network.

Creatio says it maintains a “partner-centric strategy and culture”, with 50% of its business coming from channel partners. Together with its partners, Creatio serves thousands of customers in 100 countries that use the platform in 23 different languages.

With the new investment, Creatio says it will “further empower its channel network” to “jointly deliver remarkable business outcomes to customers”.

Creatio has a global team with representatives in 25 countries. Creatio says it will expand its team further across all key areas, including R&D, customer success, marketing, and sales, among other areas.

“Together with our channel partners, Creatio is on a mission to deliver an unprecedented time-to-value to our clients through the powerful combination of no-code and AI,” said Katherine Kostereva , CEO of Creatio. “With this investment, we will continue to disrupt the traditional enterprise software approach, helping our clients to accelerate time-to-value and use technology as a competitive differentiation in their business.”

“Creatio’s true AI-powered no-code platform – built on a unique, composable architecture – offers exceptional flexibility and usability that empowers enterprise customers to swiftly build, deploy and personalise applications for a variety of use cases across CRM, case management, and workflow automation,” added Rajeev Dham , managing director at Sapphire Ventures .

Thank you for tuning in. Don't forget to subscribe at the top of this newsletter to receive the latest updates directly to your inbox. We look forward to welcoming you back next Friday for more news.