Google channel gets bigger with HP deal

A new bundle that could travel far indeed for both vendors

Microsoft always said the day would come when an innovative competitor would break its grip on the marketplace. That day may be here: Google has landed a whale of a partner in HP to bundle and deliver its Google Apps for Business to the market through the channel.

HP will create the new HP SMB IT in a Box based on its PCs and printers and cloud-based services provided by Google. Essentially, the deal makes HP a Google reseller - perhaps Google's largest reseller.

And HP is greatly expanding Google's total channel universe by allowing its thousands of channel partners around the world to take the bundle to market.

The HP deal is more than just a massive expansion of Google's channel and market potential; it's also about the potential expansion in capabilities and support.

HP plans to complement Google Apps by integrating it into its management console to ease administration and support.

Google Apps has challenged Microsoft's dominance in productivity applications for years and has scored major wins in government agencies and universities. More than five million businesses - mostly small - use Google Apps as their primary productivity suite.

For Microsoft, the HP-Google deal is a major blow. Sales of Windows 8 - the latest version of its flagship operating system - have been sluggish, while Google's Android mobile OS continues to grow its sales.

Microsoft once enjoyed a near-monopoly on the PC. Now manufacturers including Acer, Lenovo and Samsung are marketing PCs and ultrabooks running Google Chrome. And, as noted, Google has proven a formidable challenger to Microsoft in service sales, particularly in government.

While Google still trails behind Microsoft in most measures - product adoption, revenue and channel support - Google is showing its ambitions by tying up with HP.

And, with HP, Google gains access to a proven and reliable channel that could rapidly expand its sales and market share.

Chances are Microsoft will not take this challenge lightly. Expect to see Microsoft dismiss the value of Google Apps (as it always has) and draw partners tighter to maintain its market share in this lucrative segment.

Blog courtesy of CRN.

Resellers Concern Over Google SafeSearch Porn Loophole

A reseller which supplies safe internet access to schools has spoken out against Google after receiving a series of complaints from customers claiming schoolchildren can access pornographic images while SafeSearch is turned on.

Staff have had to engage in the time-consuming process of individually blocking images.

The resellers managing director was told by schools that when certain number combinations – of which there could be thousands – are entered into the image safe search, adult content is returned.

He claimed that his staff have blocked about 50 combinations so far, but that the job is "never complete" due to the high volume of images and number combinations. He said if the problem persists, he may have to recommend blocking Google Image search altogether.

The website marketing information says: "Whether it is a deliberate attempt to view inappropriate material, or an innocent search term that brings up a questionable website, SafeSearch for Kids is the search tool designed to help keep kids safe...

"By no means does this do away with basic common sense about online safety...”

"This website does not replace parental or teacher supervision. No safe search engine is perfect, so you may want to consider additional protection with security software beyond this free internet filter...”

Simply put, why risk it? We advise you look at Bloxx or Barracuda web and media filters. If you aren't sure on what you need we are here to assist and provide as much information about what they do, how they work and how they can be easily managed. Give our account managers a call and we will be able to put your mind at ease – there really is a quick, easy and cost effective way to solve any web content issues. 

Veeam Backup & Replication v7 introduces tiered backups

Virtualisation specialist Veeam is aiming to make backups of virtual machines more efficient with Veeam Backup & Replication v7, which adds support for tape storage, built-in WAN acceleration for remote backups and can use SAN snapshots as a backup source.

Available in the 3^rd quarter of this year, Backup & Replication v7 adds a number of new features. Many of these are aimed at making it easier for administrators to move some virtual machine backups to less costly storage, freeing up space and enabling more efficient use of resources.

However, some of the high-end features of Backup & Replication v7 will only be available under a new Enterprise Plus licence, which Veeam is also introducing with this release.

Backup & Replication v7 includes features that rivals only offer as optional extras, and also makes backing up virtual infrastructure as simple as possible.

To this end, new capabilities include support for tape storage and built-in WAN acceleration to optimise copying of backups to off-site locations, effectively enabling tiered levels of backup where long-term data can be moved to cheaper storage.

Likewise, the built-in WAN acceleration feature in Backup & Replication v7 is purely to optimise the movement of backup data to the cloud or to another off-site location, according to Veeam.

Another key feature is support for backup from SAN snapshots, but this currently supports only HP StoreVirtual and HP 3PAR StoreServ storage arrays, although Veeam is looking to extend this in future.

Backing up from the snapshot rather than the virtual machine itself allows Veeam to dramatically shorten the time taken to perform the backup.

Veeam also now supports Hyper-V with its virtual labs capability, which allows customers to spin up a virtual machine in a test environment directly from a backup. Previously, this was only supported on VMware.

Veeam is also looking to add grandfather-father-son retention for backups in the future which will do away with the need to perform a regular full backup every month or quarter. This means that you can do incremental forever. You will only have to do a full backup once, and every other backup afterwards can be incremental.

Veeam Backup & Replication v7 will be available as an upgrade for customers with a maintenance subscription. But Veeam is introducing a new Enterprise Plus licence that sits above its current Enterprise level. The WAN acceleration and SAN snapshot capabilities will only be available to customers who licence Backup & Replication v7 at this level, according to Veeam.

Existing Entperise level customers will be able to move up to Enterprise Plus for no extra charge when they upgrade to Backup & Replication v7, according to new coming from Veeam, or they can stay on the current licence going forwards.

For more information on Veeam please contact our account managers today. 

Dell HP PC merger not likely to happen

There were rumours earlier this week (can’t say we actually heard many people discussing this) of Dell pursuing an acquisition deal with HP which would see the two companies join forces and make a run at the PC market together.

More hurdles than there was in the Olympic 400m final? Such a deal is very ambitious and surely would be a massive uphill battle for both companies however there would mean that there would be a significant advantage for the merger in the low margin of the PC market.

Dell would wake up one morning and find itself with plenty of negotiating power, and the ability to command deals from its hardware suppliers.

As a result of the deal, the merged size of this new brand could mean that they could drive some pretty incredible economies of scale and work out deals with the suppliers that would make the combined business more profitable. It also means that by buying large numbers of components needed for their PCs, the companies are able to get into the good books of suppliers and receive better prices on their server and data centre costs.

.

All in all though it’s probably not going to happen (if we may dare to say that as we all know anything really is possible within the industry) but in the meantime, why not have your cake and eat it with IML. We offer HP and Dell brands at pricing to suit any budget. Our consultants will be able to listen to your requirements and suggest only the most suitable product for you needs.

Call our East Midlands team now on 01623 726 100 or our West Midlands team on 0845 301 7711. 

Replacing an objects colour across a whole InDesign document

I hope this is as helpful to everyone else as it was to me because I had a lot of trouble trying to find this out; even the wonders of Google couldn't aid me (if you have already found how to do this then your'e better at searching then me..).

What I wanted to do was locate a colour in InDesign and choose a colour to replace it with, much like the Find/Change tool for finding and replacing text. After hours of searching and finding nothing I came across an article that said it was only possible to “mass” change the colour of text and not objects so I thought I would look into this a bit more.

After playing about I found out it was possible and boy did it save me a lot of time, especially when working with a 20 page brochure!

Here’s what I did:

By pressing CTRL+F (Command+F1 for Mac users) it will bring up the Find/Change tool - next you want to click the “Object” tab:

This will then bring up a similar form as the “text” section but it will be for objects instead.

Now what you need to do is simply click the button marked by arrow “1” and choose the original colour you want to change - then click the button marked by arrow “2” and choose the new colour you want to switch to.

You will now see in the “Find object Format” and “Change Object Format” boxes the two colours you want to switch around. 

All you need to do now is select the “Change All” button on the right and voilà!

All the colours in your document should now have changed from one to the other.

If for some reason it hasn't worked just check that you have chosen the exact colour to change, especially if you’re working in CMYK as colours can look very similar but the code might be slightly out.

There you go, I’m not sure why I couldn't find this information anywhere on the internet but I hope this helps and saves you a lot of time just as it did for me. Share this post if you think anyone could benefit from it.

Green With Energy Envy - Cisco Top Greenpeace List

Cisco have topped an annual report by Greenpeace for being the most energy efficient within the IT industry.

The “Cool IT Leaderboard” report from Greenpeace is in its sixth year and ranks 21 technology firms on three main criteria:

·     Their offerings to customers that can help reduce energy use,

·     Their own energy footprints,

·     Use of influence to advocate government’s pursue green policies.

 Cisco was praised but urged to do more in lobbying US politicians to make green issues a stronger priority, with most political work by the firm done in Europe and the UK.

Cisco earned top marks for its increased leadership in addressing its growing energy footprint, with an update to its greenhouse gas (GHG) and renewable energy targets, along with a performance-based commitment to direct its growth toward cleaner sources of electricity and away from coal.

Cisco also scored higher for its policy advocacy leadership than it did last year, but nearly all of its advocacy occurred in the EU - particularly the UK - while being nearly non-existent in the US and even its home state of California.

So, many of Cisco’s competitors will be going “green” with envy that, for now at least, Cisco are taking the accolade for helping save our planet.

Whilst on the subject on saving… If you want to save money on your Cisco hardware purchases then call our sales team now. 

Lenovo interest in IBM’s x86 server business

China-based PC maker Lenovo is said to be in negotiations to buy up IBM's x86 server business, coming after only eight years of taking over IBM’s personal computer division.

Although neither IBM or Lenovo have commented officially there’s usually no smoke without fire.

IBM caused a bit of a wave in the industry back in 2005 when it sold its PC division to Lenovo, reasons for which were “declining margins and a decision to put focus instead on services to enterprise customers.” Their loss was Lenovo’s gain as the ThinkPad and ThinkCentre ranges have gone from strength to strength and are now second to only HP.

In an ideal world it makes sense for IBM and Lenovo to go ahead with the buyout, IBM focusing on the bigger enterprise business and Lenovo being happy to sell to the smaller business end of the market. Let IBM concentrate on what they do best and pass the buck to Lenovo to be able to compete with HP and Dell.

All of this can only mean one thing, competition… and we all know that healthy competition means buyers get better deals!

One this is for sure, you will always be getting the best advice and the very best value for money with IML Technology.

Contact us now and speak to one of our account managers to see how we can add value to your business.