News in the Channel - issue #19

ALSO CLOUD SUMMIT 24

View from the summit ALSO UK recently held its Cloud Summit 24, where GenAI was a major theme as it presents the biggest security challenges and opportunities for British small businesses.

Thus far in 2024, generative AI (GenAI) has been one of the big growth areas in technology, including the launch of Microsoft Copilot for the SMB market. With continual advancements in technology innovation, it is important that MSPs and cloud resellers not only keep up but stay ahead of the curve. To this end, ALSO UK recently held its Cloud Summit 2024, which included hosting a panel of security industry experts to explore the latest trends, developments and challenges in artificial intelligence (AI) and cybersecurity for cloud resellers and SMBs. The expert panel looked at the importance of GenAI in the modern cloud landscape, revealing that 87% of organisations believe AI offers a competitive edge. Keynote speakers at the event included David Bowen, global business development director for Microsoft, and Robert Pritchard, founder of The Cyber Security Expert. Vendor celebration Mark Appleton, chief customer officer at ALSO Cloud UK, says the Summit was also a celebration of some of ALSO’s key security vendors. “As well as an opportunity for top cloud industry leaders to explore the conversation surrounding the latest trends “At the summit Acronis showed our MSPs suite – Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud – an integrated solution for cybersecurity, backup, disaster recovery and management of a large range of endpoints, clouds, SaaS, VMs and servers. “The day was a success for Acronis. We met some interesting people that can help promote Acronis and some MSP business owners, and we can help them scale their managed services businesses. “These events are always important as face-to-face meetings are so important as it the best way to communicate value

ALSO UK Cloud Summit 2024 19th June 2024 London

Mark Appleton chief customer officer ALSO Cloud UK

and developments in AI and cybersecurity,” he adds. “We aimed to provide a venue for cloud resellers who strive for the highest cloud security standards to hear from experts, and the Summit served as a platform for knowledge sharing, collaboration and inspiration, all to provide a unified strategy for MSP cyberteams and businesses. “Since ALSO launched in the UK last year, we have cemented ties with our trusted security vendors. These alliances are not just a benefit but a necessity in today’s cloud landscape, and the summit was a great way to celebrate our partners and our unique offering, while paving the way for the future of discussions with attendees was billing. MSPs struggle with billing for managed services and licenses and how to scale MSPs. The challenges are around staff costs and making it easier for their staff to support their clients. “The MSP sector is consolidating and is likely to subject to additional regulation on the near future due to the importance of IT skills in keeping UK businesses safe from cyberattacks and mundane business interruptions. There is a lot of opportunity to help end users become cyber essentials compliant to help them win more business and tools that can help monitor or enforce cyber essentials policies are becoming more and more important.”

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WHAT THE VENDORS SAID

Ivan Dunn

propositions to decision makers. “The main topic that came up in

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