Good times, bad times
Who was on top and who came unstuck in the channel this week?
GOOD TIMES
Six Degrees
You'd think Alastair Mills and his team at Six Degrees would be laughing all the way to the Seychelles after agreeing a deal to sell the MSP to Charlesbank Capital Partners.
But it appears next Monday morning will be like any other for the tireless channel entrepreneur as he vowed to use the new owner's "substantial additional capital" to make more acquisitions and establish 6DG as the mid-market's leading converged MSP.
"Benefiting from Charlesbank's expertise, we intend to disrupt and redefine an industry that is ripe for consolidation and innovation," Mills roared. Even reading that makes us feel tired - we hope Mills at least has a kip before returning to the grindstone.
UK tech start-ups
The UK is responsible for almost half of the most valuable technology start-ups in Europe, a report from finance house GP Bullhound has found.
Young tech firms publicly or privately valued at more than $1bn are known as unicorns, and 17 such creatures are located in this sceptred isle, of a Europe-wide total of 40. Our nearest competitor Sweden has just six, and France has three.
Although our Gallic neighbours also apparently have half the world's roundabouts, meaning our own Old Street tech hub could be in for some stiff competition.
Female CIOs
Male CIOs may be far more numerous than their female counterparts, but they're also a lot stingier, Gartner has found.
Having surveyed 2,810 CIOs across 84 countries, Gartner found female respondents expect their budgets to jump 2.4 per cent in 2015. CIOs with an XY combination of sex chromosomes, in contrast, are far more frugal, on average expecting a budget rise of 0.8 per cent.
Probably with half an eye on not being accused of being crude or reductive, Gartner wisely refused to be drawn on what may be responsible for the spending divide.
BAD TIMES
CFOs
The purse-string fingerers of UK plc may have seen their blood pressure rise this week with news that many industries are paying for a mark-up on their IT kit of more than 10 times the recommended amount.
Research and benchmarking outfit KnowledgeBus believes that end users should strive to pay about a three per cent margin on their commodity IT wares. But the current nationwide average stands at almost 20 per cent, with some sectors coming in way ahead of this, including consultancy (35 per cent), recruitment (30 per cent), and manufacturing (24 per cent). The NHS took the wooden spoon for the deal with the single biggest mark-up, with one lucky reseller pocketing a margin of 920 per cent.
Now who says tin-shifting is dead?
Mobil8
Corporate insolvencies may be at their lowest level since 2007 but the collapse of VAR Mobil8 serves as a reminder that no-one is safe in what remains a tough business climate.
Sources tell us some customers were "badly burned" by the demise of the London-based enterprise mobility management specialist, which was liquidated by Marks Bloom earlier this month.
"Its focus seems to have been on compliance and security only," said Keith Reading, managing director of fellow MobileIron partner Qolcom, which has picked up one of Mobil8's largest contracts, with Angus Council Education Authority. "In EMM you need to focus on applications and user experience, not just security, or else you're dead in the water."
We wish staff and customers affected by the affair well.
G-Cloud
For all the publicity and promises, the government's flagship cloud procurement scheme continues to deliver disappointing numbers.
At a recent London event hosted by trade association EuroCloud, a senior figure revealed that the percentage of public sector IT spend currently going through G-Cloud is no higher than six per cent, and could be as little as just one per cent.
"This is very, very low," they pointed out, helpfully.