Print.IT Reseller - issue 51

01732 759725 4 BULLETIN IT professionals expect salaries to rise IT and technology professionals are well aware that their skills are highly sought after across a wide range of industries, particularly those specialising in cyber security and web development. As a result, they have high expectations regarding salary increases. 59% of IT professionals are expecting their salaries to rise in 2018 and 55% are also expecting to receive a bonus, according to new research from Robert Walters. The study also found that the majority of employers plan to increase salaries for IT professionals, with 43% planning increases of 1-3% and 29% planning increases of 4-6%. However, almost a third have no plans to increase remuneration. Associate Director Ahsan Iqbal said: “Demand for specialists across cyber security and development has been high for the past few years, driven by the rising threat of cyber-crime and the drive towards digitalisation projects. As a result, salaries for IT and tech professionals are already at a notably high level as employers compete to secure top talent.” www.robertwalters.co.uk Small firms hit hardest by internet downtime UK businesses lost almost 82 million hours to internet outages last year, according to research conducted by business internet service provider Beaming. On average, businesses suffered two major internet outages each during 2017 that prevented them from trading or accessing vital services online. Although this was half the number experienced in 2016, the total amount of productive time lost increased by 4% year-on- year, mainly due to the severity of the outages and it taking longer to restore service. The amount of time it took to restore service to businesses with fewer than 10 people increased from eight hours on average to 12. For companies employing between 10 and 49 people, the average outage duration increased from seven hours to more than 10 over the same period. Although Beaming’s research shows that small businesses still struggle with outages, they are also more prepared for them. Half of the businesses surveyed said they focused on tasks that didn’t need the internet during outages, while almost a quarter said they switched to alternative connections such as the 4G network. www.beaming.co.uk Public cloud IT infrastructure growth According to the IDC Worldwide Quarterly Cloud IT Infrastructure Tracker, vendor revenue from sales of infrastructure products (server, storage, and Ethernet switch) for cloud IT, including public and private cloud, grew 27.3% year over year in the fourth quarter of 2017), reaching $12.8 billion. For the full year 2017, the combined public and private cloud deployments continued the double-digit annual growth trend from past years with revenues reaching $43.4 billion for 21.7% year-over- year growth. Public cloud infrastructure revenue has almost doubled in the past two years to $8.5 billion, growing 34.0% year over year in 4Q17. Private cloud revenue reached $4.3 billion for an annual increase of 15.7%. Total worldwide cloud IT infrastructure revenue in 2017 more than doubled when compared to 2013. The combined public and private cloud revenues now represent 42.2% of the total worldwide IT infrastructure spending, up from 39.3% a year ago. Traditional (non-cloud) IT infrastructure revenue grew 12.8% from a year ago, although it has been generally declining over the past several years; at $17.5 billion in 4Q17 it still represents 57.8% of total worldwide IT infrastructure spending. www.idc.com Eager for training Some 80% of IT professionals surveyed for the 2017 CompTIA research report “IT Career Insights” said they anticipated needing additional education and training to progress on their chosen career path. Practice tests and assessments (63%), labs and simulations (60%) and eLearning courses (55%) were among their preferred training methods. The value of IT certifications continues to grow, as well. Nearly three-quarters of IT managers surveyed for the same study rated IT certifications as a valuable resource for validating skills and evaluating job candidates. “A desire for lifelong learning and the acquisition of new skills is in the DNA of IT professionals,” said Todd Thibodeaux, President and Chief Executive Officer. “CompTIA is committed to supporting them by offering them the educational resources, assessments and credentials to help them achieve their career aspirations. We’re also expanding our outreach to new generations of workers by offering them access to learning content and resources to prepare them for careers in high-tech.” www.comptia.org Organisational productivity is suffering Research from M-Files Corporation has revealed that two thirds of organisations are seeing negative impacts on staff productivity caused by them continually needing to navigate through different systems to find and verify the most current versions of their documents. Key findings include: nearly half of organisations believe that their company struggles with managing information silos. 60% of respondents found it difficult to locate the most recent version of a document or file at least once a week and almost a quarter encountered the problem every single day. 66% of participants find different versions of document or files spread across different systems or locations and 40% say that it is difficult to confirm whether they are working to the most recent version of a file or document. To address these challenges, M-Files has launched M-Files 2018 - a major new product release designed to revolutionise how businesses manage information. www.m-files.com