16 minute read
NEWS
INFOR ACQUIRES MES COMPANY LIGHTHOUSE SYSTEMS
Infor has announced the acquisition of Lighthouse Systems, a provider of manufacturing execution system (MES) software for smart manufacturing. The company’s flagship product, Shopfloor-Online, helps manufacturing companies manage and improve manufacturing operations across production, quality, inventory, and maintenance.
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Lighthouse Systems’ MES solution, which can be fully integrated into
Infor CloudSuite ERP (enterprise resource planning) systems, will help
Infor address a critical customer requirement of 24×7 manufacturing operations. For those manufacturing companies that are looking to implement ERP and MES together,
Infor anticipates that its ability to offer a fully integrated solution “out of the box” will significantly shorten time to value for customers.
“MES solutions are critical for manufacturing organisations that want to ensure data consistency and real-time visibility across all plant operations,” said Infor CEO Kevin Samuelson. “Integrating these capabilities with our industry-specific ERP systems will help us deliver even more powerful solutions to manufacturing organisations, as they look to digitize their operations and grow their businesses.”
Based in Crawley, UK, about 30 miles south of London, Lighthouse Systems has major offices in the UK, the United States and Singapore. Its approximately 100 employees serve customers worldwide in focus industries such as automotive, building & construction, food & beverage, life science, machinery & equipment, packaging, and sustainable energy.
Kevin Samuelson, CEO, Infor
AVEVA ANNOUNCES UPGRADED DESIGN AND PROCESS SIMULATION TOOLS
AVEVA has introduced three add-ons to AVEVA E3D Design – infusing AI capabilities into its advanced engineering design software which maximises efficiency through cloud collaboration. The FTSE 100 company also announced a sustainability enhancement for AVEVA Process Simulation – an integrated platform spanning the process engineering lifecycle of design, simulation, training, and operations.
“Digital transformation is the key enabler for sustainability, efficiency and agility. AVEVA E3D Design and AVEVA Process Simulation enable organisations to build digital plant designs that will empower the future. With E3D Design, teams can collaborate across disciplines to avoid rework and on-site retrofits,” said Amish Sabharwal, Executive Vice President, Engineering Business Unit at AVEVA.
Amish Sabharwal, Executive Vice President, Engineering Business, AVEVA
“Meanwhile, with AVEVA Process Simulation, organisations can quantify, track, and optimise greenhouse gas emissions from the earliest stages of design to operations. The simulation platform empowers companies to design the sustainable processes of the future and bring new processes to market more quickly by accelerating the process design cycle.”
The latest enhancements of AVEVA E3D Design and AVEVA Process Simulation empower organisations from chemicals, oil and gas, power, marine, and mining, metals and minerals to design sustainable processes and plants at the speed the market demands. The new AVEVA E3D Design add-ons improve engineering quality and efficiency through expedited, streamlined design processes, while AVEVA Process Simulation enables organisations to move beyond linear, wasteful workflows to implement circular, sustainable processes.
The ongoing pandemic and the surge in digital services are making cloud the centerpiece of new digital experiences, said Gartner.
“There is no business strategy without a cloud strategy,” said Milind Govekar, Vice President at Gartner. “The adoption and interest in public cloud continues unabated as organizations pursue a “cloud first” policy for onboarding new workloads. Cloud has enabled new digital experiences such as mobile payment systems where banks have invested in startups, energy companies using cloud to improve their customers’ retail experiences or car companies launching new personalization services for customer’s safety and infotainment.”
In 2022, global cloud revenue is estimated to total $474 billion, up from $408 billion in 2021. Over the next few years, Gartner analysts estimate cloud revenue will surpass noncloud revenue for relevant enterprise IT markets.
Gartner analysts said that more than 85% of organisations will embrace a cloud-first principle by 2025 and will not be able to fully execute on their digital strategies without the use of cloudnative architectures and technologies.
“Adopting cloud-native platforms means that digital or product teams will use architectural principles and capabilities to take advantage of the inherent capabilities within the cloud environment,” said Govekar. “New workloads deployed in a cloud-native environment will be pervasive, not just popular and anything noncloud will be considered legacy.”
By 2025, Gartner estimates that over 95% of new digital workloads will be deployed on cloud-native platforms, up from 30% in 2021.
As the operating model changes, the organisation will turn to a productorientated operating model where the entire value stream of the business and IT will have to be aligned by products. This will create new roles and responsibilities, such as site reliability engineers, product managers or communities of practices.
EMIRATES RECOGNISED FOR EXCELLENCE IN DIGITAL CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
Emirates’ marketing team has been recognised by Sitecore for “Best Use of a Customer Data Platform (CDP)”. The award was presented to Emirates at the recent edition of GITEX, Dubai’s technology trade exhibition, for demonstrating excellence in the delivery of its digital customer experience (CX) utilising the Boxever platform.
Emirates was selected from amongst 110 large service organisations, based on its bestin-class CX and digital capabilities. Over the past four years, Emirates has invested in CDP solutions such as Boxever, acquired by Sitecore in March 2021, utilising it in conjunction with its proprietary marketing data platform to deliver to the complex needs of customers. Their combined capabilities are a reflection of the close collaboration between the Group’s internal marketing team and Boxever, who have maintained a steady focus on delivering to a demanding customer agenda.
“Sitecore Middle East recognizes Emirate’s marketing team that has driven its digital customer experiences utilizing the Sitecore CDP solution to meet complex needs of their customers,” said Mohammed AlKhotani, Area Vice President, Middle East, and North Africa, Sitecore. “Emirates Airline shows how the Middle East is leading digital innovation and converting website visits into engaged customers to make their travel planning easier.”
“Emirates is honoured to be recognized with an award in digital customer experience. The world of service marketing has advanced at top speed over the past few years, and our ambition to deliver the best customer experience in the travel industry is very much a core objective for Emirates and our wider group of travel brands. We are delighted to be acknowledged by Sitecore, a company with a tremendous heritage in digital marketing, along with the wider fraternity of digital marketing professionals. We look forward to continue growing our capabilities to better deliver to our customer needs and preferences,” said Boutros Boutros, Divisional Senior Vice President, Corporate Communications, Marketing & Brand – Emirates Group.
SAP DRIVES DX FOR SAUDI ARABIA’S THE RED SEA DEVELOPMENT COMPANY
The Red Sea Development Company (TRSDC), which is driving the development of the giga-project The Red Sea Project (TRSP), has announced it is advancing its digital transformation with global technology company SAP.
Along Saudi Arabia’s west coast, the Red Sea Project is a regenerative tourism destination spanning 28,000 square kilometres spanning more than 90 unspoiled islands and inland sites. The first phase of 16 hotels will open in late 2022. TRSDC is pioneering the diversification envisioned by Vision 2030 with a unique, year-round tourism offering that supports sustainability and environmental enhancement, cultural conservation, and economic stimulation. Tourism is the Kingdom’s second most important sector.
“As part of our digital transformation roadmap with SAP, The Red Sea Development Company is optimising our operational efficiency, procurement costs, and talent development,” said Ammar Alomani, IT Applications Associate Director of TRSDC. “We are also adopting Application Managed Services, a world-class Master Services Agreement, and education services for team training.”
“We are pleased to continue our relationship with SAP having passed through two successful phases with the company already. Having business applications available at the click of a button changes the way employees work, increases productivity and work from our offices here in Riyadh or on our destination sites”, said John Pagano, CEO of The Red Sea Development Company.
“Our commitment to regenerative tourism development is underpinned by our ambition to run our destinations in the smartest ways possible. Digital transformation gives us a solid foundation stone to work from. We’ve become virtually paperless and opened a new chapter of free-flowing information and efficiency.,” continued Pagano.
TRSDC is already running on the SAP S/4HANA real-time business suite, the SAP Ariba digital platform, the SAP SuccessFactors human experience management suite, and SAP’s customer experience suite.
Tenable has announced an expansion of its strategic relationship with IBM Security X-Force Red to deliver comprehensive Active Directory security services that continuously detect and prevent attacks against the Active Directory and connected environment in real-time.
“Vulnerable and misconfigured Active Directories are behind nearly every major cyber-attack today. By leveraging known flaws and misconfigurations, bad actors can elevate privileges and move laterally through networks,” said Mark Thurmond, Chief Operating Officer, Tenable. “We’re excited to partner with X-Force Red to find and fix Active Directory weaknesses before they become tomorrow’s attack path.”
By combining the power of Tenable. ad with X-Force Red’s team of veteran hackers, organisations can identify and disrupt attack opportunities before bad actors can leverage them.
Active Directory is a target-rich environment that can, if left vulnerable, offer attackers a route to privilege and control of the entire domain. Most organisations struggle with Active Directory security due to misconfigurations piling up as domains increase in complexity, leaving security teams unable to find and fix flaws before they become business-impacting issues.
Leveraging Tenable.ad, the X-Force Red team provides deployment, configuration, support and tool management to identify Active Directory misconfigurations and other weaknesses. From there, the team prioritises the highest-risk flaws based on weaponisation, and manages the complete remediation process from endto-end. The result is a hardened Active
Mark Thurmond, Chief Operating Officer, Tenable
Directory environment, disrupted attack paths, and no next steps for bad actors.
“If you don’t understand your Active Directory attack surface, the risk of a compromise increases. And it’s not just an initial compromise. Attackers can leverage Active Directory to access other sensitive areas of your environment. That’s why continuously finding and fixing Active Directory vulnerabilities must be an essential part of every security program,” said Charles Henderson, Global Managing Partner and Head of X-Force.
VODAFONE TAPS VMWARE FOR WORKLOAD AUTOMATION
Vodafone has selected VMware as its strategic technology partner to deliver a single platform to automate and orchestrate all workloads running on its core networks across Europe, starting with 5G standalone (5G SA).
Vodafone previously announced its selection of VMware Telco Cloud Infrastructure as its Network Functions Virtualisation (NFV) platform. Last year, Vodafone completed the rollout of Telco Cloud Infrastructure across all its European business and 21 markets in total. The company saw gains in productivity as it brought network functions online around 40% more quickly, and cost savings of up to 55%.
Vodafone is now expanding its partnership with VMware to deploy the full VMware Telco Cloud Platform in all European markets. This means that in addition to utilising Telco Cloud Infrastructure for NFV, Vodafone will leverage VMware Tanzu for Telco and VMware Telco Cloud Automation to orchestrate all network functions and services, regardless of vendor, to run its core networks.
Vodafone’s continued partnership with VMware supports the company’s technology strategy, Tech 2025. As part of this five-year plan, Vodafone will focus on developing a network platform starting with the rollout of 5G SA that will be then followed by many other digital network features utilising cloud native architecture powered by VMware. These include voice over internet and next generation of videoconferencing and virtual/augmented reality, all orchestrated into the correct network slices according to different customer requirements.
Johan Wibergh, Chief Technology Officer, Vodafone, said, “We’ve made great strides in modernizing and virtualizing our core network. Now we must turn our attention to layering in automation, software engineering and cloud-native principles to simplify operations and accelerate how quickly we can deploy new applications. VMware Telco Cloud Platform will help us achieve these goals and reach our Tech 2025 targets faster.”
Vodafone has already begun the rollout of VMware Telco Cloud Platform in eight markets – Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Romania, and U.K. – and will expand to all 11 of its European markets over time.
“As service providers modernise their networks to transition to 5G, they require a single platform to automate and streamline delivery of multi-vendor network functions across network core, RAN and edge. VMware Telco Cloud Platform provides this unifying platform to simplify operations, accelerate automation and increase feature velocity across all parts of the network,” said Sanjay Uppal, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Service Provider and Edge, VMware. “Through its partnership with VMware, Vodafone is modernizing its network infrastructure with automation built in, setting them up for long-term success as they roll out 5G services to even more markets in the coming years.”
Sanjay Uppal, Senior Vice President and General manager, Service Provider and Edge, VMware
VIRSEC ANNOUNCES KEY LEADERSHIP APPOINTMENTS
Virsec has announced executive appointments to help lead the company through its next growth phase.
The new joiners include Emmi Nguy, Vice President of Finance & Operations; Marcelo Oliveira, Vice President of Product Management and Thomas Schaeffer, Vice President of People.
“We are on a mission to make cyber-attacks irrelevant. Our ability to map what our customers’ software is supposed to do and stop it from doing what it is not, due to ransomware attacks or other anomalies, is unrivaled,” said Dave Furneaux, Chief Executive Officer of Virsec. “Our mission combined with our innovative technology is attracting the top talents in the industry to Virsec. These experienced executives are very highly regarded in their areas of practice and will play a pivotal role in our success as we embark on our hyper-growth journey as a company.”
Nguy has more than 20 years of experience leading all aspects of financial governance and financial operations. Prior to joining Virsec, she served as VP of Finance, Strategy and Planning at Vectra AI, where she was instrumental in growing and scaling the company to $1B+ in valuation. Before Vectra AI, she held various finance management positions at global companies, including Juniper Networks and Johnson & Johnson. Oliveira is an industry veteran with over 20 years of experience in product management, product marketing, business development, and engineering. Oliveira has been working as a product management executive for over a decade across Cisco, Symantec, and, most recently, Contrast Security.
Schaeffer has several decades of experience leading People Operations, helping scale six technology companies from startup through IPO and beyond. Several of these IPO technology companies included Synopsys, StrataCom/Cisco, Juniper Networks, and, most recently, NIO.
SAUDI’S EDARAT GROUP SELECTS IBM CLOUD SATELLITE
IBM has announced that Edarat Group, a data centre and ICT infrastructure firm in the Middle East, has selected IBM Cloud Satellite to enable its customers in Saudi Arabia to harness IBM Cloud services in hybrid cloud environments. Using IBM Cloud Satellite, Edarat Group will enable its customers to run workloads in hybrid cloud environments while keeping their data in Saudi Arabia. This is a key for regulated industries like financial services, telco, and healthcare, and can allow companies in these industries to run workloads in local and global data centers. This will be a catalyst for technology innovation in Saudi Arabia, a core component of the Kingdom’s Vision 2030.
IBM Cloud Satellite brings IBM Cloud services securely to any environment where data resides – whether at the edge, on premises, or on multiple public clouds. It is designed to enable clients to access cloud services with speed and security across any environment.
Rather than having to migrate workloads fully to a public cloud environment, Edarat Group’s enterprise customers can access secure IBM Cloud services in any environment where their data resides – allowing them to abide by local regulation.
The adoption of IBM Cloud Satellite is designed to improve Edarat Group’s agility and enhance its operational efficiency in an increasingly competitive and evolving data center and ICT landscape in Saudi Arabia. By expanding the partnership with IBM, Edarat will harness open hybrid cloud technologies to gain better deployment flexibility, enhanced security, and access to advanced services that can fuel innovation.
“In a phased approach, we are addressing the evolution of the market landscape in the Kingdom and across the Middle East. As Saudi Vision 2030 has laid out a roadmap for digitalization, increasing numbers of companies require services and consultancy that embraces the agility and flexibility that their data requires,” said Jihad Nehme, Transformation & Workload Migration Principal Consultant at Edarat Group. “Through IBM Cloud Satellite, we are able to comply with the comprehensive data regulations across the kingdom while providing the flexibility that hybrid cloud services allow our own workloads and in turn our own customers’ needs.”
KYNDRYL AND MICROSOFT COLLABORATE TO ACCELERATE DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION
Kyndryl, the IT infrastructure services provider, and Microsoft have announced a global strategic partnership that will combine their market-leading capabilities in service of enterprise customers. The deal with Microsoft is Kyndryl’s first since recently becoming an independent public company and provides incremental multibillion dollar revenue opportunities for the two companies. Together the companies will bring to market state-of-the-art solutions built on the Microsoft Cloud that will accelerate hybrid cloud adoption, modernise applications and processes, support mission-critical workloads, and further enable modern work experiences for customers.
The long-term partnership will open additional markets and new customers to Kyndryl across all industries and illustrates the speed and commitment the company is placing on forging strong relationships with leading enterprise technology innovators. Microsoft becomes Kyndryl’s only Premier Global Alliance Partner, increasing Microsoft’s access to the $500 billion managed services market where Kyndryl leads.
“As an independent company, we’re investing in our partner ecosystem to support the success of our customers, and we’re focused on expanding our market opportunity across cloud, data, security, and intelligent automation,” said Martin Schroeter, Chairman and CEO of Kyndryl. “In this landmark relationship with Microsoft, Kyndryl is matching our deep expertise in missioncritical IT systems with the benefits of Microsoft Cloud to be at the heart of progress for our global customers.”
“The case for digital transformation has never been more urgent, and clearer,” said Satya Nadella, Chairman and CEO, Microsoft. “As Kyndryl’s only premiere global alliance partner, with the power of the Microsoft Cloud we will help customers across every industry manage and modernize their business for the era ahead. We are looking forward to partnering with Kyndryl to serve our shared customers, building on its expertise and understanding of mission-critical IT systems, as well as the company’s deep relationships with enterprises around the world.”
The companies will jointly bring customer solutions to market in the areas of data modernisation and governance, AI-driven innovations for industries, cyber security and resiliency, and transformation of mission-critical workloads to the cloud. Kyndryl will lead with advisory, implementation and managed services for complex hybrid IT environments.
