Spitfire eases transition to all‑IP with bespoke advice and support ASK THE EXPERTS How should businesses respond to recent cloud outages PAGE 25 SECURITY · CLOUD · ICT · SOFTWARE · HARDWARE PRINT · AV MANAGED.IT SECURITY · CLOUD · ICT · SOFTWARE · HARDWARE · PRINT · AV www.managedITmag.co.uk THE IT SERVICES MAGAZINE & NEWS SITE FOR IT MANAGERS, IT DIRECTORS & CTOS THE IT SERVICES MAGAZINE & NEWS SITE FOR IT MANAGERS, IT DIRECTORS & CTOS IN PRINT AND ONLINE MANAGED.IT SECURITY · CLOUD · ICT · SOFTWARE · HARDWARE · PRINT · AV www.managedITmag.co.uk IN PRINT AND ONLINE IN PRINT AND ONLINE www.managedITmag.co.uk SECURITY · CLOUD · ICT · SOFTWARE · HARDWARE PRINT · AV IN PRINT AND ONLINE Issue 71 · 2025 INTERNET Zen Internet celebrates 30 years of innovation PAGE 30 LEASING What January’s new lease accounting rules mean for you PAGE 16 See page 33
www.spitfire.co.uk/all-ip-special-offer Telecoms and IP Engineering Solutions for Business since 1988 Innovative • Flexible • Reliable • Supportive • Cost Effective Sales 020 7501 3333 • Partner Services 020 7501 3150 www.spitfire.co.uk Your telecoms journey in 2026? • No migration charge from legacy analogue line, ISDN or broadband circuits. • Choice of minimum contract periods from 3 months +. • Digital voice line with call bundle included. • Quality of Service options with performance SLAs up to ‘Ethernet’ standard. • Upgrade to super fast fibre on availability within minimum term. • Also consider Spitfire’s FireSwitch® 2.3 hosted pbx, a feature rich, latest generation telephone system with low cost monthly rental and no up front cost. Spitfire offer a range of easy upgrade paths to All IP and super fast fibre. Key Awards Legacy analogue, ISDN, broadband contracts change in 2026. Take our high road to All IP & Full Fibre. Future proof your business and save costs. Big Switch Off 31st January 2027.
3 www.managedITmag.co.uk Read Managed.IT online... www.managedITmag.co.uk ISSN 2055-3099 (Print) ISSN 2055-3102 (Online) Editor: James Goulding 07803 087228 • [email protected] Publishing Director, Social Media and Web Editor: Neil Trim 01732 759725 • [email protected] Advertising Director: Ethan White 01732 759725 • [email protected] Advertising Executive: Jeff Root 01732 759725 • [email protected] Designer: Brian Cloke 07484 288189 • [email protected] MANAGED.IT is published by Kingswood Media Ltd., 7 Amherst House, 22 London Road, Sevenoaks TN13 2BT • Tel: 01732 759725 No part of MANAGED.IT can be reproduced without prior written permission of the publisher. © 2025 Kingswood Media Ltd. The paper used in this magazine is obtained from manufacturers who operate within internationally recognized standards and which is sourced from sustainable, properly managed forestation. CONTENTS @manageditmag facebook.com/BinfoMag SECURITY · CLOUD · ICT · SOFTWARE · HARDWARE PRINT · AV IN PRINT AND ONLINE www.managedITmag.co.uk THE IT SERVICES MAGAZINE & NEWS SITE FOR IT MANAGERS, IT DIRECTORS & CTOS ISSUE 71 · 2025 COVER STORY: The Big Switch-Off Page 33 Managed.IT GET YOUR FREE COPY To make sure you get every issue FREE, as soon as it is published, just visit www.managedITmag.co.uk, click the ‘FREE Registration’ button and add your details to our mailing list. If you no longer wish to receive Managed.IT magazine please email your details to [email protected] Spitfire launches Switch Off Migration Service to help UK businesses move to all-IP 04 Bulletin The UK’s 20 most popular passwords 08 Telephony Openreach passes digital milestone with closure of first of 4,600 exchanges 10 What’s New This month’s most exciting new workplace products 12 AI Jon Burghart, Chief Revenue Officer at AnywhereNow, on the AI challenges facing CIOs 14 AI How a Somerset-based managed print services provider has successfully diversified into AI voice solutions 16 Leasing Hardsoft explains what new lease accounting rules mean for you 20 Workplace How HP is accelerating the future of work 22 What’s New in Printing & Scanning New print and scan devices from Fujifilm, Canon, Brother, Konica Minolta and Epson 25 Ask the Experts We ask the experts what lessons are to be learnt from recent AWS and Azure outages 28 Data Centres How data centre growth could be impacting housing supply 29 Data Centres The attractions of Scotland for datacentre developers 30 Internet Zen Internet celebrates its first 30 years 31 Cloud IMSCAD Services launches ‘Workstation as a Service’ in partnership with Lenovo and Equinix Data Centres 32 Augmented Reality How TeamViewer Augmented Reality is helping the Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team go faster 34 On Test Neil Trim reviews a pair of Poly Voyager Focus 2 headphones and the HP 738PU Monitor
4 01732 759725 NEWSEuropean workers do one month’s less work each year than US counterparts Every day, Europeans spend about one hour less on productive work than Americans, according to time-tracking and productivity monitoring software specialist DeskTime. Its data shows that while American office workers spend an average of 6 hours and 10 minutes on work-related programs and applications each day, European office workers manage just 5 hours and 20 minutes. The 50 minutes of extra work undertaken daily by American workers adds up to 27 additional 8-hour working days over the course of a year. DeskTime’s analysis of the working habits of 7,000 of its users in the US and 10,000 in Europe shows that the average workday in the US lasts 9 hours and 13 minutes, with workers spending 2 hours 25 minutes a day away from their desks in meetings or on breaks and 37 minutes of their computer time on unproductive activities. In Europe, the average workday lasts 8 hours and 46 minutes with employees spending 2 hours and 39 minutes off-line and 47 minutes of work-time on unproductive activities. DeskTime says the difference in hours worked is partly explained by the EU’s Working Time Directive, which sets the maximum workweek at 48 hours and requires employers to make sure staff take regular breaks and paid leave. A 2024 survey by Kickresume found that only 34% of Americans are either happy or very happy with their work-life balance, compared to 51% of Europeans. … AI users are happiest Workers who use generative AI daily are more productive and enjoy better job security and higher pay than infrequent users, according to PwC’s 2025 Global Workforce Hopes & Fears Survey. The survey of 50,000 workers in 48 countries shows that compared to infrequent users, daily users of GenAI are more likely to experience tangible increases in productivity (92% v 58%), job security (58% v 36%) and salaries (52% v 32%). Daily GenAI users are also more optimistic about the future of their role (69%) than infrequent (51%) and non‑users (44%). That said, the actual number of daily GenAI users is still small. While 54% of workers say they have used AI in their work in the last 12 months, only 14% of those surveyed use it daily, a very small increase on 2024 (12%). www.pwc.com … ChatGPT now most downloaded app OpenAI’s ChatGPT is the world’s most downloaded app, reaching over 900 million downloads in just 11 months, 200 million more than TikTok and 380 million ahead of Instagram, according to AppMagic data seen by Techgaged.com. NEWS The UK’s Top 20 Passwords 1. admin 2. 123456 3. password 4. 12345678 5. 123456789 6. Password1 7. Password 8. 12345 9. Lennon11 10. 1234567890 11. Password123 12. Fortnite21 13. password1 14. qwerty123 15. qwerty 16. 123qwe 17. abc123 18. Strongman12 19. daday123 20. Liverpool1 No one who reads this list of the UK’s Top 20 passwords, compiled by NordPass and NordStellar, can be surprised that 80% of data breaches are caused by compromised, weak and reused passwords. Words, number combinations and common keyboard patterns dominate the list, as they have done for the last six years. However, there has been a significant increase in the use of special characters within passwords this year, with 32 passwords on the global list featuring at least one special character, up from six in 2024. On the downside, the most used special character is @ and its use is typically no more complicated than P@ssw0rd, Admin@123 or Abcd@1234. NordPass recommends the following best practice: Create strong random passwords or passphrases. Passwords should be at least 20 characters long and consist of a random combination of numbers, letters and special characters. Never reuse passwords. Each account should have a unique password because if one account gets broken into hackers can use the same credentials for other accounts. Regularly check the health of your passwords. Identify any weak, old or reused ones and upgrade them to new, complex passwords. Use a password manager. It can help you generate, store, review and safely manage all your passwords. Turn on multi-factor authentication (MFA). It adds an extra layer of security that can help keep hackers out even if a password gets breached. nordpass.com
www.managedITmag.co.uk 5 Jastra Kranjec, Research Analyst at Techgaged, said: “ChatGPT has achieved what no other app outside the major social media giants ever has: it didn’t just catch up with TikTok, Instagram and Facebook, it surpassed them. Becoming the world’s mostdownloaded app in such a short time marks a historic turning point in the tech landscape and shows just how rapidly generative AI has become a mainstream phenomenon.” AppMagic data shows that between January and November, ChatGPT was downloaded 902 million times, nearly three times more than in the whole of 2024 and almost seven times more than in its launch year of 2023. Since its launch, ChatGPT has notched up 1.36 billion downloads, at a growth rate similar to TikTok, the fastest-growing social media app. TikTok was the second mostdownloaded app in 2025, with 703 million downloads between January and November, distantly followed by Instagram (521.6 million). The only other AI app in the top ten was Google Gemini with 392 million installs. https://www.techgaged.com/ chatgpt-hits-900m-downloads/ … Vibe coding: word of the year Collins Dictionary has picked ‘vibe coding’ as its word of the year. Reflecting a shift in how software is being created, and who can create it, vibe coding is the practice of describing the desired look and feel (or vibe) of an app or website and getting AI to generate the necessary code, rather than writing code oneself. Kevin Curran, IEEE, Senior Member and Professor of Cybersecurity at Ulster University, points out that while ‘vibe coding’ can lower barriers of entry to software development, it also introduces new risks. He said: “Individuals using vibe coding via lateral language prompts and iterative refinement are now empowered to create new apps and software, even with limited programming skills. This capability allows them to generate complex code using plain language inputted into LLMs. However, it can also aid hackers who can use LLMs to identify vulnerabilities and optimise exploits by automating tasks like code completion, bug detection or even generating malicious payloads tailored to specific systems. They can describe malicious behaviour in plain language and get working scripts in return. “The main security implications of vibe coding are that without discipline, documentation and review such code often fails under attack. This increases the risk of sensitive data leaks and can create opportunities for threat actors. Proper secure code development should include refactoring code for production use and adhering to security hygiene, such as input validation, the principle of least privilege, threat modelling, secure storage and other well-established secure coding practices.” NEWS continued... CoCreate Pitch winner Alibaba.com’s start-up competition CoCreate Pitch, held at its inaugural CoCreate Europe event on November 14, has been won by Harrison Nott for a cooling towel that provides instant relief after exercise and on hot days. As the Grand Winner, the 15-year-old from Essex receives a $200,000 prize package to help him scale his CoolTowel business which already turns over £200,000 per annum. Nott was one of 30 finalists selected to pitch their product to a panel of judges including Sara Davies and Rio Ferdinand. Ten other finalists were Highly Commended, including three from the UK: HUID, a Scottish business making compostable packaging from onion skins; Intotum, an adaptive fashion brand designed for those with disabilities; and Nutri Troops, a children’s nutrition company. They each win a prize package valued at $20,000. Alibaba.com Smart glasses shift focus in wearables market The centre of gravity in the global wearables market is shifting from wristworn devices to smart glasses, claims Futuresource Consulting in its Global Wearables Market Outlook 2025 report. While Futuresource forecasts global wrist-worn shipments to grow 4.8% in 2025 to nearly 210 million units, smart glasses shipments are expected to grow at a much faster rate to 2.6 million units, from 1.6 million in 2024. Nikolaos Tzoumerkas, Lead Analyst at Futuresource Consulting, said: “Smartwatches and sports watches are still part of the equation, but smart glasses are redefining what a wearable can be. They’re merging lifestyle, health and connectivity in entirely new ways, and consumers are sitting up and paying attention.” He adds that, led by Meta’s partnerships with Ray-Ban and Oakley, the category is being reshaped with lightweight eyewear that integrates cameras, AI assistants and connectivity to deliver real-time, hands-free interaction with style. “Smart glasses are no longer seen as niche gadgets. They’re lifestyle products that people actually want to be seen wearing,” he said. “With smart glasses gaining ground and AI moving to the edge, the next wave of growth will be defined by connected intelligence, effortless integration and elegant design.” To purchase the Global Wearables Market Outlook 2025, please contact [email protected]. Alibaba has entered the AI wearables market with its first self-developed smart eyewear product. Quark AI Glasses, powered by the Qwen LLM and Quark’s multimodal AI capabilities, are designed to serve as an intelligent, all-day wearable assistant supporting hands-free calling, music streaming, real-time language translation, meeting transcriptions and navigation. www.alibabacloud.com
6 01732 759725 NEWS ...continued CFOs take ownership as cloud becomes financial risk factor Cloud infrastructure costs are now one of the biggest sources of financial volatility and margin erosion amongst technology companies, causing CFOs to tighten their grip on cloud governance and decision-making. So says Cloud Capital in its new report, The Cost of Compute: What 100 CFOs Reveal About Cloud Infrastructure’s Impact on the P&L. Its survey of 100 CFOs and senior finance decision-makers in technology companies with 50-1,000 employees in the UK and US reveals that cloud infrastructure spend already averages nearly 10% of revenue, making it the second-largest expense for tech companies after staff salaries. AI workloads, which make up 22% of total cloud spending, are a big factor in higher cloud costs. In AI-native companies cloud spend can be as high as 30-40% of revenue, compared to 6-12% of revenue in traditional SaaS companies. Over the last 18 months businesses have addressed rising costs by moving cloud cost management from engineering teams into finance, with CFOs either assuming responsibility for cloud spend directly or implementing joint Finance– Engineering ownership models. Cloud Capital says that when Finance gets involved in cloud cost management, forecast predictability doubles, with 32% of Financeinvolved teams achieving highly predictable forecasts (less than 5% monthly variance) compared to 16% of Engineering-owned teams. COGS confidence increases 50% and reported visibility improves 25%. Edward Barrow, CEO and CoFounder at Cloud Capital, said: “CFOs report month-to-month variability of 5-10% as standard. Right now, cloud’s unpredictability is disproportionate to its size and completely out of line with what CFOs expect from any other major expense. That’s the financial tension driving this shift toward tighter governance and Finance ownership.” www.cloudcapital.co … Culture rot – what to look for ‘Culture rot’ – the slow erosion of culture and values that once made an organisation successful, leading to the development of a ‘toxic’ or dysfunctional work environment – is rife in UK businesses, warns global recruitment and talent management company Robert Walters. It says that 54% of UK professionals already recognise ‘culture rot’ as a significant problem in their workplace, with a further 28% saying they’ve noticed its warning signs. Symptoms include limited incentives or rewards (41%), poor collaboration across the company (36%) and unclear or broken-down communications (23%). Lucy Bisset, Director of Robert Walters North, said: “When values erode and morale dips, businesses lose their edge. This isn’t a case of dramatic failure, instead success is slowly diminished through everyday disengagement, broken communication loops and declining incentives.” Danger signs highlighted in Robert Walters’ Employee Benefits Guide include the fact that only 37% of professionals were happy with the bonus they received this year; 76% report that their benefits packages have been ‘scaled back’; and only 14% now feel aligned with their company’s values and workplace culture. Four out of five employers (81%) agree that companywide cost cutting has significantly weakened overall work culture. www.robertwalters.co.uk … Jobseekers turn to the dark side A static UK jobs market is helping to fuel recruitment on the dark web, warns Kaspersky Digital Footprint Intelligence in a new report Inside the dark web job market: Their talent, our threat. It says that the number of resumes and jobs posted on underground forums, which doubled between Q1 2023 and Q1 2024, remains high, boosted by a growing influx of laidoff workers, teenagers and skilled professionals, with a median age of 24. Resumes currently outnumber vacancies at a ratio of 55:45. The most in-demand IT roles posted by employers include developers to create attack tools (17%), penetration testers to probe networks for weaknesses (12%), money launderers to clean illicit funds through layered transactions (11%), carders to steal and monetise payment data (6%) and traffers to drive victims to phishing sites or infected downloads (5%). dfi.kaspersky.com SCC’s Alex Welch sets record for Namib Desert ultramarathon Manchester-based ultra-athlete Alex Welch, who works as a Senior Cyber Security Sales Specialist at technology solutions and services provider SCC, has won the 2025 Beyond the Ultimate Desert Ultra and set a record for the five-day, 250km race across the Namib Desert. Renowned as one of the world’s harshest deserts, the Namib features an energy-sapping mix of towering sand dunes, scrubland and exposed plains and, at this time of year, daytime temperatures of up to 58°C and nearfreezing nights. The race features five stages of 50km, 50km, 42km, 22km and 92km, and athletes must carry all the food, supplies and mandatory equipment they will need over the five days. Earlier this year, Alex became the youngest-ever winner of the Beyond the Ultimate Arctic Ultra and secured a podium finish in the Mountain Ultra in Kyrgyzstan. www.scc.com
8 01732 759725 TELEPHONY of ‘legacy’ exchanges is a major undertaking, with several million services needing to be migrated. Deddington has served as a proof of concept, demonstrating our ability to decommission legacy exchanges safely, securely and collaboratively. “Moving to this new digital world will ultimately benefit everybody. Communication providers will be able to serve their customers from fewer exchanges, helping to save costs through consolidation of equipment and reduced space and power requirements. And millions of end users will benefit from more reliable and faster fibre-based services that will be scalable for decades without needing major upgrades. It’s not just about switching off old kit, it’s about building a future-proofed, simpler network for the UK.” Following closure of its three pilot exchanges, Openreach plans to exit a further 105 ‘priority exchanges’ by December 2030. The next 12 due to be closed, starting in April 2026, with a twoyear window to move customers onto All IP, are Staines, Thames Ditton, Baynard, Wraysbury, Nazeing, Langford, Allestree Park, Beacon, Childwall, Lundin Links, Carrickfergus and Glengormley. www.openreach.com traditional copper-based phone and broadband voice services that will no longer be required once customers have migrated to fibre. Digital networks using fibre cables and software-based switches need far less physical space than traditional copperbased analogue systems, which require large exchanges to house bulky switches and miles of copper wiring. The move to digital means that Openreach will need just 1,000 ‘super digital exchanges’, also called Openreach Handover Points (OHPs), to serve the whole of the UK. On average each OHP replaces 4-5 traditional exchanges, with some in urban areas replacing 10 or more. In Deddington, around 1,800 copper lines providing connectivity to local homes and businesses have now been upgraded to full fibre, with the new digital lines served and managed by nearby Banbury Exchange, one of Openreach’s new ‘super digital exchanges.’ Closing an exchange and migrating affected customers typically takes around 4-7 years, depending on the size and complexity of each exchange. James Lilley, Openreach’s Managed Customer Migrations Director, said: “Closing thousands The Deddington Exchange in Oxfordshire has become the first of 4,600 exchanges across the UK to be fully de-commissioned as part of the nationwide shift from copper networks to digital full fibre infrastructure. The rural exchange has also become the first UK location to completely shut down BT’s copperbased public switched telephone network (PSTN), which uses copper wires to carry analogue voice signals, with all end customers upgraded to digital full fibre. Deddington is one of three pilot exchanges being closed by Openreach, along with Ballyclare in Northern Ireland and Kenton Rd in London, as part of its longterm plan to exit 4,600 exchanges currently used to support Openreach passes digital milestone with closure of first of 4,600 exchanges The shut-down begins Carrot and stick Price rises on the way for users of Openreach’s copper-based products Openreach is hoping to accelerate the rate at which communications providers migrate customers to digital alternatives before legacy services are switched off in January 2027 by announcing steep price rises for four of its copper-based products and services. From April 1 2026, rental prices for Openreach’s Wholesale Line Rental (WLR) products will increase by 20%, with a further price rise to 40% above the current level in July and then another 40% rise in October. At the same time, Openreach is offering Communication Providers (CPs) more incentives to encourage customers to switch to digital alternatives, for example by providing them with free or discounted connections when they upgrade customers to SOGEA, an alternative service providing a digital line where full fibre is not yet available. These pricing changes follow Openreach’s launch in October of Prove Telecare, a migration service that enables telecare users (often elderly or vulnerable people) to move to digital phone lines without losing access to life‑saving devices. Openreach says there are currently around three million lines that need to be upgraded to digital alternatives before the deadline – with a conversion rate needed of around 47k every week. Starting on February 1, 2027, Openreach plans to move these customers to an emergency, very limited, voice-only service that is not reliant on the PSTN but which can emulate PSTN-like features to support legacy equipment.
Shop the Brother colour laser range now ⎙ � High speed printing, no quality compromise A fully circular cartridge returns scheme Predictable monthly costs with Brother MPS When it’s worth printing, print it in colour. *T&Cs apply CASHBACK £100 UP TO (GO ON THEN) * PLUS 3 YEAR WARRANTY* Shop the Brother colour laser range now ⎙ � High speed printing, no quality compromise A fully circular cartridge returns scheme Predictable monthly costs with Brother MPS When it’s worth printing, print it in colour. *T&Cs apply * PLUS 3 YEAR WARRANTY* Shop the Brother colour laser range now ⎙ � High speed printing, no quality compromise A fully circular cartridge returns scheme Predictable monthly costs with Brother MPS When it’s worth printing, print it in colour. *T&Cs apply * PLUS 3 YEAR WARRANTY* Shop the Brother colour laser range now ⎙ � High speed printing, no quality compromise A fully circular cartridge returns scheme Predictable monthly costs with Brother MPS When it’s worth printing, print it in colour. *T&Cs apply UP TO (GO ON THEN) * PLUS 3 YEAR WARRANTY*
10 01732 759725 WHAT’S NEW WHAT’S NEW will enable retailers to make faster, smarter decisions and help frontline teams to be more efficient in performing critical tasks. Nitin Mangtani, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Salesforce Commerce and Retail Cloud, said: “In a new era of agentic commerce, we’re bringing together Salesforce Retail Cloud POS, Zebra Technologies’ innovative devices and Google’s Android operating system to empower store associates with cutting-edge tools and smart, AI-powered insights for enhanced productivity.” www.zebra.com … AI Hub for DocuWare Document management and workflow automation solutions provider DocuWare has opened a global AI research and development hub to accelerate the development of proprietary AI-based document processing and content management solutions for DocuWare partners and customers. Dr. Michael Berger, CEO of DocuWare, said: “With the acquisition of natif.ai, we secured deep AI expertise at an early stage. The DocuWare AI Hub now unites all our AI knowledge, allowing us to realise innovative technologies and build great products and solutions even faster. This approach not only strengthens our market leadership in cloud ECM but will ensure us a leading position the field of AI.” Areas of focus include intelligent document processing and AI-based generative search and agentic automation for the DocuWare Enterprise Content Management platform. DocuWare.com … Wider-format labelling Brother is meeting growing demand for wider-format label printing with its first six-inch labelling devices for high-volume applications in logistics, warehousing and manufacturing environments, such as pallet identification, outer‑case logistics labels, chemical safety labelling and product ID tags. Completing the company’s industrial label printing line-up, the new TJ-6421TN and TJ-6521TN printers feature a robust metal sparkling or ambient water and add up to three enhancements, including natural flavours (Peach & Mango, Mixed Berries, Cucumber and Watermelon) and an optional sugar-free sweetener. Each flavour pouch produces over 550 drinks at an average cost of 11p per drink. Zip Twist is available to rent from £80 per week, including free delivery and installation. www.zipwater.co.uk … Zebra and Salesforce cocreate Zebra Technologies and Salesforce have launched their first (but not last) co-developed solution as part of an ongoing collaboration to improve retailer productivity and the customer experience. Retail Cloud POS on Android aims to tackle inefficiencies in retail environments, such as manual data capture, inaccurate inventory and fragmented workflows, by integrating Zebra’s Android TC5 series and EM45 series mobile computers with Salesforce’s cloud‑based customer platform. Real-time, location-based data Native Bluetooth headset New from EPOS, the IMPACT 500 is an on-ear Bluetooth headset for professionals with dynamic workstyles. Call clarity is assured through adaptive microphone technology powered by EPOS AI, which intelligently identifies and shuts down noise, and EPOS BrainAdapt hybrid active noise cancellation (ANC), which can reduce listening effort by as much as 67%. The headset comes with a Bluetooth dongle but will soon be available in a native Bluetooth version that connects directly to a PC, mobile phone or tablet without the need for a dongle. With a planned software release the IMPACT 500 will become EPOS’s first native Bluetooth headset certified for Microsoft Teams Open Office. www.eposaudio.com … Water with a twist Zip Water UK is bringing a new level of personalisation to workplace hydration with the launch of Twist, a filtered, flavour-infused water dispenser that lets staff create their perfect drink with a choice of over 600 combinations. Users can select either chilled, UK digital sovereignty BT, a founding member of the UK Sovereign AI Industry Forum, is leveraging its expertise in delivering secure sovereign services to critical national infrastructure customers with the launch of a new platform for the delivery of sovereign voice, cloud and AI services to the UK’s wider community of public and private sector organisations. Providing assurance that operations, systems and data are controlled and managed within UK infrastructure, supported exclusively by UK-based staff where required, the platform will underpin a new suite of digital sovereign services BT is planning to introduce in the next few months. It will also enable BT’s Business unit to provide sovereign versions of its core products and services in the first half of 2026. Jon James, CEO of BT Business, said: “Our launch reflects BT’s unique position as the digital backbone of the UK and the only provider with the scale, capabilities and experience to enable true UK sovereign solutions that ensure data and operations remain secure, compliant, resilient and future-proofed.” https://business.bt.com/ connectivity/sovereign/
www.managedITmag.co.uk 11 WHAT’S NEW of the Storage Products Division at Toshiba Electronics Europe GmbH, said: “The surveillance market is rapidly evolving, with AI analytics driving new requirements for storage performance, capacity and reliability. With the S300 AI, Toshiba continues to expand and tailor its HDD range to meet these demands, delivering higher capacities (8-24 terabytes), enhanced performance and enterprisegrade durability purpose-built for AI workloads.” www.toshiba-storage.com … Two-in-one world first Memory brand ADATA Technology is targeting smartphone-using content creators with the launch of a world-first external SSD with integrated power bank. The combined unit enables users to boost their phone’s battery via the power bank’s wireless charging feature while simultaneously connecting the external SSD to the phone’s port for direct recording of highdefinition 4K or ProRes footage. Another useful feature is the integrated kickstand. The SR800 Magnetic Power Bank SSD combines a storage capacity of up to 2,000GB with read/write speeds of up to 2,000MB/s, approximately 20 times faster than a traditional external hard drive. www.adata.com AI-enhanced sourcing At its inaugural CoCreate Europe event in London, business-tobusiness (B2B) e-commerce platform Alibaba.com announced the integration of agentic AI capabilities directly into the user journey. AI Mode will interpret natural language queries, analyse technical specifications and automatically compare suppliers across pricing, logistics, certifications and production capabilities, delivering tailored recommendations in seconds. By connecting with existing Alibaba.com services, such as secure payment, Trade Assurance and after-sales support, AI Mode aims to enable a fully automated, end-to-end trade experience. AI Mode is powered by Accio, the world’s first AI-powered B2B search engine which, thanks to advanced multimodal understanding, can extract meaning from unstructured inputs, including product sketches, engineering blueprints and documents, and match them with manufacturing capabilities. Alibaba.com says this helps surface specialist or regionally focused suppliers that may not be picked up using traditional, keyword-driven discovery models. Alibaba.com … With a view to AI Toshiba has introduced a new generation of surveillance hard disk drives (HDDs) engineered for AI‑driven video applications, including continuous highresolution video capture, analysis and storage. Larry MartinezPalomo, Vice President and Head construction for durability and a touchscreen display for easy operation in fast-paced settings. A high ribbon capacity of 450m means less time is spent replacing label rolls, while fast print speeds of up to 12ips and optional internal rewinders for batch labelling boost labelling efficiency. The devices are backed by a five-year return-tobase warranty as standard, with the option of an on-site service pack for enhanced service levels, including next working day support. https://www.brother.co.uk/TJ … Must Dash With 95% of AI tools failing to get past the pilot stage because most don’t work across all the content and tools people use for work, Dropbox has launched Dropbox Dash – a context-aware AI teammate that helps workers find information, get answers and stay organised by connecting to all the apps they use for work including Slack, Microsoft 365, Notion, Canva and Dropbox. Key features of the app include summaries of documents and insights; naturallanguage search across all work tools and files; workspaces, known as Stacks, that bring files, links and updates together for everyone on the team; and built-in privacy and security controls, with Dropbox’s commitment that user data is never sold or used to train AI models. Dash not only connects to the tools you already use but also works inside them. With Dash’s Model Context Protocol (MCP) server you can securely search all your content directly within MCP-compatible apps such as Claude, Cursor and Goose, without switching tabs or copying and pasting information. dropbox.com/dash Translations on tap Real-time translation specialist Pocketalk is giving enterprise users access to fast, accurate language translation with the launch of the Pocketalk Enterprise App for iOS and Android devices. The app’s ability to translate 92 languages instantly, without the need for an extra device, is a significant development for healthcare, public safety and law enforcement bodies that issue staff with mobile devices for their work. Another benefit is that with Pocketalk every conversation remains confidential and protected. Unlike apps or devices that might store and analyse data, Pocketalk doesn’t retain conversation history unless enabled by the user or administrator. Pocketalk is planning to launch other enterprise solutions in 2026, starting with Sentio, a web-based SaaS solution that simplifies multilingual meeting translations for live and virtual audiences, set to launch in January. pocketalk.com/pocketalk-enterprise-app
12 01732 759725 robust governance isn’t a nice-tohave, it’s a must. The fourth revolution Beyond technology, the roundtable explored AI’s cultural and workforce implications. CIOs described AI as the ‘fourth revolution’, reshaping roles and skillsets. Actuaries becoming DevOps engineers? It’s happening. Generational divides are emerging. Native AI workers may trust the tech too implicitly, risking a loss of critical thinking. The message? Human oversight is essential. The future of AI in CX One unresolved question: how do we monetise AI? Many organisations are still figuring out how to translate AI capabilities into business value. One compelling vision is that every company will eventually have its own trusted AI vendor deeply embedded into its BI systems, mirroring AnywhereNow’s approach to embedded intelligence. Ethically and intelligently The final takeaway? Every decision must serve a single vision: delight the customer. Great customer experiences drive shareholder value, strengthen teams and differentiate brands. AI can elevate what people do, but only when deployed with ethics, process and purpose. Using AI for CX requires a new mindset. The most successful organisations will be those that use AI to empower their people, protect their data and never lose sight of the human experience. As CIOs navigate this evolving landscape, their advice is clear: start small, learn fast and keep empathy at the heart of every AI‑powered interaction. Anywhere.now questions like ‘Would you like me to walk you through the steps to reset your password now?’. These interactions offer minimal value for human agents but are ideal for AI. The result? Reduced handling time, improved consistency and happier customers. AI is also being used internally. A bank CIO shared how live translation and voice-to-text transcription tools cut call durations by 30%, while improving accessibility for customers with language barriers or digital fatigue. A cautious, modular approach Despite the optimism, CIOs voiced concerns about vendor lock-in. With AI features bundled into every platform, there’s a risk of building a new kind of legacy before the organisation is ready. Many are opting for modular strategies, deploying AI in manageable components across departments, then integrating them into a unified CX ecosystem. One CIO described their approach as ‘divide, conquer, integrate’. It’s agile, scalable and avoids premature commitment. But even with modularity, empathy remains central. Chatbots, when poorly designed, can frustrate more than they help. The preferred model? Humans overseeing AI teams, letting technology handle the routine, while people step in for emotive or complex situations. Prioritisation and data trust With so many potential use cases, prioritisation is key. CIOs stressed the importance of focusing on a few high-value, scalable pilots. As one CIO put it: “Even if it’s painful, you have to start somewhere”. Data trust was another major theme. With the EU AI Act tightening the link between compliance, ethics and security, As a CRO, I’m constantly evaluating how emerging technologies can drive revenue, deepen customer relationships and sharpen our competitive edge. At a recent CIO roundtable, one thing was clear: artificial intelligence (AI) is no longer a future consideration, it’s a presentday priority. The CIOs around the table weren’t talking about AI as a tool for cost-cutting or ticket deflection. They were talking about transformation. It’s not about replacing people, it’s about empowering them. One CIO summed it up perfectly: “AI won’t replace people. People who use AI will replace those who don’t.” That sentiment resonated deeply. AI’s role is to augment human capability, automating routine tasks so agents can focus on high-value, emotionally nuanced interactions. The consensus? The future of CX is a hybrid model: humans managing teams of AI agents, with empathy as the differentiator. In sectors like pensions and healthcare, the ethical use of AI is paramount. Transparency isn’t optional, it’s foundational. Customers must know when they’re interacting with AI. Whether it’s a visual tag or an audio chime, these signals build trust. And trust, as we all know, is the currency of customer loyalty. From data to delivery While most CIOs are still in pilot or discovery phases, clear strategies are emerging, and they start with data. Many are analysing customer interactions that exceed five minutes, identifying friction points where AI can intervene without compromising the experience. One widely discussed use case was automating ‘turnkey’ queries, binary, solution-oriented By Jon Burghart, Chief Revenue Officer at AnywhereNow AI in CX: the challenges and opportunities facing CIOs AI Jon Burghart
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14 01732 759725 software and Foldr document management software. Just before Covid, it added VoIP telephony to its offering, giving it not just a new source of recurring revenue but a wider customer base to go after. Practical starting point In many respects Lanier South West is a typical, wellrun, 12-person MPS provider serving a local area – Bristol, Bath and Taunton – with a core offering enhanced by sensible diversification. This begs the question: what prompted Calum to dive into the fast-moving world of AI, develop new skills in-house and then launch a whole new business with UK-wide reach? “I saw something about AI voice on social media and my first reaction was ‘Telesales’,” he explains. “How can we use this to communicate with our customers and communicate with prospects? And how can I do that without spending more money on staffing? I had an online conversation with somebody, then went away and thought about it and, with more research, realised we could do it ourselves.” Calum quickly decided the best starting point was not telesales but the processing of incoming service calls, where AI could help provide a better service through round-theclock assistance and cover when someone’s ill, on holiday or simply away from their desk. Over the next six months he and Lanier South West’s in-house IT expert developed an AI Voice bot fully integrated with the cloudbased Vantage Online software the company uses to manage meter readings and billing, contract administration, help desk and field service management. This API integration, which is also configured into a text-based Like many business owners, Calum Smith, Managing Director of MFP and VoIP telephony provider Lanier South West, has been exploring how he can use AI within his operations to boost productivity, improve customer service and potentially create a new revenue stream. Unusually, he and his colleagues have done this so successfully – and generated such a level of interest from existing contacts in the managed print services (MPS) industry – that Calum has now set up a separate business, AI Voice Solutions, to develop AI phone agents for services businesses in other sectors and other parts of the country. He seems more surprised than anybody that what he describes as “a little company in the southwest” should be at the forefront of this next wave of automation. “I assumed everybody was investing in AI,” he says. “But someone in our industry told me that wasn’t the case. He said people tend to think AI is ChatGPT or Copilot and will use it for simple things like finding some very basic information or writing an email, but they’re not integrating it into their internal systems to make them better. I was surprised. I genuinely thought the younger guys would be looking at this and doing all the running.” They haven’t been – at least not in Cheddar, Somerset – giving 56-year-old Calum Smith an opportunity to take what he has learned from developing AI for his own business out to other small businesses across the UK. Early days Lanier South West’s roots go back to 1968 when Calum’s parents set up Norset Office Supplies in Cheddar. In the 1970s they switched focus to electrostatic photocopiers and, in 1976, became a Sharp dealer – the first company in Somerset to specialise in plain paper copiers. In 1992, Norset adopted Lanier South West as its trading name, having entered into a partnership with the Harris/3M organisation, then known as Lanier (UK) Limited, five years previously and taken on its full range of copiers, fax machines, voice products and document management systems in 1990. For the last 15 years, Lanier South West has majored on Toshiba devices, which now account for around 95% of its MFP sales, with Develop supplying the remaining 5%. Alongside Toshiba MFPs, Lanier South West sells complementary products like PaperCut print management After developing an AI voice agent to help process its own service calls, a Somerset managed print service provider has started offering its AI expertise to other service companies across the UK Leading by example AI Calum Smith
www.managedITmag.co.uk 15 when staff are busy on other calls, a service provider wanting to automate service requests and warranty extensions, and a toilet hire business looking to streamline septic tank appointments. “Whether you are serving an MPS provider or a fish and chip shop, the idea is the same,” says Calum. “You map the repetitive calls, you integrate with systems that hold the truth (the service portal, the consumables portal, the booking calendar) and you let the agent do the repetitive transactions or at least triage them so a human only takes calls that need attention.” Conversations with customers and the speed of change in the AI landscape are presenting further possibilities, including transitioning from purely voice-based solutions (24/7 AI phone answering, intelligent appointment booking, smart call routing) to non-voice, text-based applications in process and task automation. With so much potential, Calum says the greatest challenge is maintaining focus on the present. “The way AI is constantly changing is amazing. Sometimes I have to calm myself and say ‘hold on, let’s finish what we’re doing now before we jump on the next big opportunity’.” What started as an in-house efficiency project to capture the knowledge of a small, experienced team and make it available 24/7 has rapidly proved itself to be an effective way to defend margins, win tenders and offer better service to customers that has applications far beyond its roots in the MPS industry. www.aivoicesolutions.co.uk He is now developing additional functionality, such as integration with the internal email system so that the AI Voice agent can interrogate information contained there, and extending its capabilities to outbound applications initially to call existing customers but ultimately to prospect for new business. From in-house project to new business Associates in the print industry noticed what Calum was doing with AI, and their reactions –particularly those of BITS, provider of a device management portal for MPS providers – encouraged him to set up AI Voice Solutions. “We use Vantage Online for our internal system and the BITS OneStop MPS portal for our toner monitoring. If a customer rings in and says they want toner, our first reaction is to check when they last had one, because we find that when a customer runs out of toner they often ring us before checking whether they have a replacement in a cupboard somewhere. To stop the bot from sending toners out each time one is requested, we realised we would need to interrogate OneStop to find out when we last sent a toner to the client and when they last fitted one. If we see that we’ve sent one, but it hasn’t been fitted yet, we can ask them to find it. “We asked BITS if we could have their API and when we explained why, they expressed an interest in offering what we’ve done to MFP dealers in other parts of the country. Since then, another software company has made the same request, which got us to think about what other sectors might want it.” For commercial clarity, Calum concluded it would be better to break the association with Lanier South West and set up a separate company and website focused purely on AI Voice. Evolving opportunities AI Voice Solutions already has about a dozen customers from diverse sectors, including a fish and chip shop wanting the ability to take orders and payments chatbot on Lanier South West’s website, enables the AI agent to log incoming service calls and relevant details provided by the caller straight into Vantage Online, providing an experience that Calum says is both more fluid and potentially more informative than registering a fault via Vantage Online directly. “With Vantage Online, you have to set up a login for the end user and when they log in they have to fill out a form to log a call. With our bot, people just need to provide their device’s serial number to log the call. There’s no format to it. It’s fluid. You can also ask it for other things. If, say, you’ve got black lines on copies, it will give advice on whether it’s from the engine or you need to clean the glass. If you ring and ask for guidance on setting up scan to folder, it will email you a Scan to Folder guide or a video link. Soon, it will do this by text or WhatsApp as well. So, we started looking at AI voice from a service point of view, at how it could help our clients.” Assistance, not replacement Calum was clear from the outset that the AI was to assist existing staff, not replace them. Incoming service calls are still answered by Jane on the service desk. The AI Voice agent will only kick in if Jane is away from her desk or on another call. “If you ring our service desk and Jane doesn’t answer, it will announce that it’s an AI service and is there to support Jane, so people are completely aware of what they’re talking to. It will then ask how it can help and, once the call has been logged, send a confirmation email to Jane and to the customer. If the caller doesn’t want to talk to AI or if they decide they want to talk to a human at any point during the call, they can go back to the internal phone system.” Calum is collecting feedback to gauge customers’ feelings about AI Voice, but from his perspective it has already proved its value by freeing up staff to deal with more complex tasks and by enabling Lanier South West to compete for tenders that require 24-hour service. AI
16 01732 759725 accountants were only too happy to emphasise when presenting a client’s finances. New rules are designed to remove some of this opacity. When FRS 102 adopts IFRS 16-style rules from 2026, laptops and similar IT devices will continue to qualify for the low-value asset exemption.3 The same is also true for larger firms operating under IFRS 16. In this white paper, we will: Explain the changes to FRS 102 and IFRS 16. Clarify how and why leases of new computers typically qualify for the low value exemption if elected. Examine the financial case for leasing laptops versus buying them. Explore why confusion persists in the sector. Set out why leasing IT subscription services are a compelling option for businesses today. What is FRS 102 and why the changes? FRS 102 is the Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland.4 From 1 January 2026, amended FRS 102 will require most leases to be recognised on the balance sheet. This mirrors the guidelines set out in IFRS for your workforce – incurring a major capital outlay – when you can lease as an operating expense instead? However, recent media coverage about lease accounting changes has created confusion, particularly around IFRS 16, with some reports insisting that any leased item can no longer be expensed. This is inaccurate. IFRS 16 applies to listed and large UK firms that report under international standards, while FRS 102 is more relevant to UK SMEs and private entities. However, IFRS 16 principles have indirectly shaped the 2026 amendments to FRS 102.1,3 Companies using either accounting rules have similar leeway when it comes to leasing certain items, which we will explore further in this paper. A drive for more transparent reporting As the accounting landscape evolves to bring greater transparency and consistency to financial reporting, lease expense reporting is now subject to greater scrutiny. Historically, many leases were recorded as operating expenses, meaning they did not appear as balance-sheet liabilities. This reduced reported debt – a quirk of the rules that some Overview Leasing has long been a practical way for businesses to manage technology costs. It provides access to new technology whenever needed and often comes with a suite of additional services, such as tech support, security and device management. One of the biggest attractions of using Devices as a Service (DaaS) is that it does not usually require a business to incur large CapEx costs when kitting out a team. However, for accounting periods beginning on or after 1 January 2026, new accounting rules about leasing under IFRS 16 and FRS 102 will need to be considered.1 Confusion reigns. Much has been made in the media about how new rules will force all leasing contracts to be recorded on the balance sheet. But this isn’t actually the case. This paper explains why, in most instances, computer leasing will continue to be accounted for as an expense due to the “low-value asset” exemption, rather than requiring capitalisation on the balance sheet under the new lease accounting rules.2,2a In short, it provides UK firms with the confidence they need to continue leasing computers as an operating expense in most cases, and sets out to provide reassurance in the face of misinformation about how new rules affect leasing. Introduction The global financial crisis, business rates, National Insurance contributions and Trump’s tariffs have left many UK firms feeling understandably spooked. The pressures many are facing explain why flexible tech subscriptions have become so popular. It’s an easy concept to buy into. Why purchase a suite of computers IFRS 16 and FRS 102 changes affect IT financing – but laptops remain a straightforward expense. Demystifying computer leasing for UK businesses LEASING
binfo.co.ukRkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NDUxNDM=