Security: uncertainty in digital transformation
The wider movement towards digital
transformation, and all of the
component parts, provides significant
sales opportunities for most of the channel.
Digital transformation also moves forward
organisations by infusing and integrating
technology across more business processes,
with the theory it makes them more efficient,
agile and profitable. Every organisation
is different, and so too is their digital
transformation journey. However, the one
certainty of this increased digital estate is that
the potential attack areas for cyber criminal s
have also increased.
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Cyber security is one area of concern that’s
obviously not going away. You only need to
look back at the past two to three years of
news headlines and you’ll see that the number
of high-profile companies that have fallen foul
of hacks continues to grow at a frightening
pace – from the old-fashioned bricks and
mortar companies like Marriott hotels and
Liberty, through to the tech and digital players
that you’d imagine had the best cyber security
available, such as Apple and Facebook.
In this edition of The Margin, our main
theme is around cyber security, as it’s an area
that will only continue to grow in demand, and
offer potential opportunities for the channel.
The subject under investigation in our
analysis piece in this edition is also something
that the channel needs to keep an eye on. We
look at the ongoing trade wars between the US
and China. Both ZTE and Huawei have suffered
in different ways thanks to the administration
of US president Donald Trump. And then there’s
Kaspersky Labs, which was subject to a ban
of its solutions being used on US government
equipment, thanks to its actions in Ukraine
and rising paranoia about interference from
Russia in US political issues. While there’s some
interest locally about how this escalates, we
need to consider how much any of this might
affect us in South Africa. Can we expect any
local clients to start following suit and making
decisions based on their connection to a
particular nation state?
Another topical issue is the ability of the
channel to deal with shortages, which will
continue to remain in focus as Intel struggles
to supply sufficient 14nm and 10nm CPUs for
entry-level PCs into 2019. We’ve seen it before
with GPU shortages last year when crypto
miners started buying up the components,
leaving gamers frustrated with the lack of stock
available, and pushing prices up. Of course, with
the CPU market, there are more competitors so
this opens up opportunity for other CPU players.
There are some other great stories in these pages, including a look at IoT and blockchain
and its impact on the logistical side of the
channel. And because it seems no issue of The
Margin would be complete without dipping
into the impact of the cloud, we also look at
the market for selling servers in the cloud era,
what server less is all about and our round table
focuses on Software-as-a-Service.
My final note here is literally my final note
here, as the time has come for me to hand
over the reins of the publication to our online
editor Matthew Burbidge. I’ve been involved
with The Margin since inception in 2012, and
it’s a publication I’ve got great affection for
and had great fun working on, because the
channel is such a fascinating area and one I’ve
thoroughly enjoyed digging into. I‘m sure I’ll still
be working on some stories for The Margin,
and Matthew will continue to bring you top class,
relevant stories. In closing, I’d like to
wish each and every one of you a happy and
prosperous new year.
Happy reading.
Adrian Hinchcliffe
Editor
adrian@itweb.co.za
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