Good times, bad times
Who was firing on all cylinders, and who crashed and burned, in the channel this week?
Good Times
Cloud rollups
Now is a good time to be a growing cloud managed services provider, particularly if you're looking to sell up and sip cocktails on the beach. There's a new kid on the block from the US that is keen to snap up said firms to create the world's largest pure-play cloud services provider.
New Signature, powered by VC firm Columbia Capital, has already bagged five US players and has now turned its attentions to the UK and Europe, with Dot Net Solutions its first investment target. Roll up, roll up!
Logicalis
BT, CDW and Dimension Didata beware: Logicalis claims to have got its mojo back and is attracting top executives from its rivals again, even if they do all appear to be called Steve.
The latest bigwigs to come on board are sales director Steve Orton, who was previously sales director at BT Global Services, and former Kelway man Steve Fricker.
"We are certainly attracting people from our competitors now, which was not the case six months ago," said Logicalis UK boss Bob Swallow, who added that a ‘can-do' culture is being instilled at the integrator.
Rumours that the recently retired Steve Davis is also in talks to join the HP, IBM and Cisco partner were unconfirmed as we went to press.
Sage customers
In a move by no means driven by a desire to distract the audience from the fact it makes boring accountancy software, Sage has enlisted a trio of Hollywood actors to add some sparkle to its upcoming customer summit.
Gwyneth Paltrow, Zooey Deschanel and Ashton Kutcher will all be sharing their wisdom on how to build a business at the Sage Summit in July.
Anyone questioning the trio's business credentials will do well to note that Paltrow is COO of lifestyle newsletter "Goop" and that Deschanel co-founded online community Hello Giggles. But in a possible sign that Sage's PR team (along with the rest of us) are at a loss as to what he has done with his life since Dude, Where's My Car?, Kushton's business accomplishments weren't listed.
Bad Times
Apple
What started as a bad week for Apple turned into a right royal ‘mare for the fruity vendor, as its first quarterly drop in sales since 2003 was followed by the news that US investor Carl Icahn has cut and run.
Icahn, whose position in tech firms is monitored closely by Wall Street, confirmed that he has sold a stake in Apple worth $5bn, citing concerns over the vendor's position in China.
"In China they will come in and make it very difficult for Apple to sell there," the 80-year-old investor told CNBC. Apple's shares fell three per cent on the news.
Then again, it's hard to feel too sorry for a company with a market cap of over $500bn and cash reserves equal to the GDP of South Africa.
Craig Wright
"I wanna, I wanna, I wanna be adored." Although most of us crave the adoration of our fellow man, the plaintive entreaty of The Stone Roses' 1989 hit holds no truck with Craig Wright, who claimed he just wants the quiet life after outing himself as the founder of Bitcoin.
"I don't want fame. I don't want adoration. I just want to be left alone," the Australian academic told the BBC after revealing he is "Satoshi Nakamoto", the shadowy pseudonym behind the popular crypto-currency, claims that have been questioned in some circles.
And for anyone wanting to avoid the limelight, voluntarily giving an interview with the world's largest news organisation would seem like the obvious step.
Ingram Micro
It's a hard-knock life being a distributor, with margins wafer thin at the best of times and a sector that changes more often than the wind, plus the inevitable fickle customers.
Ingram Micro, which is currently in limbo over whether it is Chinese owned or not, has had a disappointing first quarter, due to a major restructuring drive in Europe, and also because it lost an unnamed retail customer. Perhaps it refused to pay the compulsory 5p charge on plastic bags?