Technology Reseller - v21 2019

NEWS : VENDORS technolog y reseller.co.uk 21 British cloud hosting firm UKFast is anticipating a doubling of its public sector business for the second year in a row, as confidence in the cloud grows. By 2020, it expects Government and public sector business to make up 10% of its overall revenue. UKFast’s public sector clients now include the Cabinet Office, MoD, NHS Trusts, healthcare software providers and a growing number of police forces, including Thames Valley Police and Hampshire Constabulary, for which UKFast is providing a cloud-based software as a service platform. Head of UKFast Public Sector Steve Jewell said: “We’ve invested significantly in the last year to build dedicated and compliant environments for different sectors, including the police network and the new Health and Social Care Network (HSCN). We’re now delivering services via eCloud to most of the UK police forces in one guise or another. Working with software suppliers to bring cloud-delivered services to end users is ultimately more efficient and saves the taxpayer money.” He added: “HCSN is another major growth area. We’ve got client solutions running on our HSCN-connected cloud already, but organisations are only just getting to grips with the new network and what it can do, so we expect activity to really ramp up through HSCN in the next 18 months.” Growing confidence in the cloud doubles Government business at UKFast A partnership built on shared values Brother UK Managing Director Phil Jones MBE marked the company’s 35-year partnership with distributor Midwich by presenting Midwich MD Stephen Fenby and his senior management team with a traditional Japanese Daruma figure. Brother UK was the first trade-only print vendor to partner with Midwich, celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, and is now the company’s largest print provider by revenue. Phil Jones said: “Our 35-year partnership has been built on our strong relationship, shared values and passion for service. I’m genuinely delighted to witness Midwich’s continuing success.” Midwich employs 900 people and has a customer base of 17,000 businesses, mostly professional AV integrators and IT resellers. Last year, it grew sales by more than 20% to £570 million. No-code leader launches first UK partner programme Betty Blocks, the leading cloud-based no-code platform, has launched its first UK channel partner programme, featuring a Betty Blocks annual licence, development training, a support contract, sales training and marketing resources. The Dutch company, which entered the UK market in January, has already established a partnership with creative digital agency Holygrow and is hoping to sign up more partners in the software development, digital transformation and business acceleration space. Tom Oudhuis, VP of Partner & Channel Management at Betty Blocks, says that by empowering organisations to build their own applications rapidly and effectively without writing a single line of code, the company is paving the way for a new kind of developer. He said: “The Betty Blocks no-code platform allows people with little to no programming experience to build complex enterprise-grade applications. The platform allows our partners to create applications without recruiting more coders, but by engaging a different type of developer: the Citizen Developer. This approach enables companies to speed up development and deliver more customised software projects.” Oudhuis adds that partners can help their customers implement a Citizen Developer policy, enabling them to be more agile and self-sufficient in application development. “We are looking for partners who are passionate about finding better ways to serve their customers, are committed to invest in training and marketing, and have a clear and specific industry focus,” he said. No-code and low-code development platforms provide a way to meet high demand for software despite the shortage of skilled developers. With growth of 50% per annum, Forrester expects the no-code/ low-code market to grow from $6.5 billion today to $21 billion by the end of 2022. Hundreds of organisations have already successfully deployed Betty Blocks, including Clifford Chance, Atlanta United, KPMG, Deloitte, ING, Vivat Insurance, Ymere and Grant Thornton. bettyblocks.com/partners Tom Oudhuis Couchbase doubles Manchester footprint Couchbase, a developer of cloud-native distributed database technology, has more than doubled its footprint in Manchester with the opening of a new EMEA engineering and support hub in the city’s Northern Quarter. The new office has capacity to accommodate up to 80 Couchbase engineering and support staff who will help dozens of European customers, including Tesco, BT and Sky, to develop new digital services and accelerate application innovation. Since opening its original customer support hub in Manchester in 2013, Couchbase has provided placements to 20 University of Manchester undergraduates through its internship scheme and achieved an employee retention rate of 100%. Huw Owen, Couchbase Vice President of EMEA and APJ, said: “University of Manchester graduates first established our presence in the city six years ago, and our continued connection with local universities is a vital part of the decision to set up our EMEA engineering and support hub in the city.” David Haikney, Senior Director of Engineering at Couchbase, added: “Technology is a crucial element of the UK’s economic future, and Couchbase is proud to be doing its part, both in choosing the UK as one of the global development centres, where our innovative cloud- native distributed database technology is developed, but also in working with dozens of European businesses to develop exciting new digital services.” www.couchbase.com