Businesses are stepping up their email security game as hackers ramp up their email-based attacks, according to analyst firm Frost & Sullivan.

The company revealed that spending on email security worldwide rose by 15.9% year on year in 2018, with predictions indicating this could generate a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 9.9% by 2022.

Frost & Sullivan explained that this is presenting a huge opportunity for security vendors, suggesting if they’re not already offering an email security product, they certainly should explore it, taking advantage of the growing popularity of Office 365 and Google G-Suite.

“[Vendors] will also be looking to build out global data centres to meet data privacy regulations, strengthen cloud resilience, and engage with public cloud (AWS, Azure) for higher scalability,” said Tony Massimini, the firm’s senior industry analyst for Digital Transformation.

“Furthermore, they may invest in a global threat intelligence network in order to leverage threat intelligence and analytics for advanced threat detection and other functions for email security.”

To date, the email security marketplace has been a crowded and fragmented sector, but now vendors looking to differentiate themselves from the competition should be looking to collaborate with other firms and offer something truly unique.

For example, they should be introducing automation to help fill the security skills gap, focus on GDPR compliance and ensuring they offer all-in-one security solutions to address a business’s entire infrastructure.

Other areas expected to increase revenue growth are integrating malware-less threat detection using threat analytics and behavioural analysis. Data loss prevention is also a growing trend that firms are expecting to invest in.

“Already, vendors like Mimecast offer a fully integrated suite of proprietary cloud services, while the Symantec Email Security solution tightly integrates with security environments via the Symantec Integrated Cyber Defense platform,” Massimini added.

Property maintenance business Fortem has moved away from legacy IT infrastructure and into the cloud, migrating its communications system, business continuity and disaster recovery solutions to its UK-based data centres.

Six Degrees was called upon to implement Avaya’s Unified Communications solution to ensure the company’s contact centre runs more smoothly, according to the firm. It will now enable Forteem’s support to be accessed 24/7, with a range of options for customers to make use of, depending on the urgency of their request.

Another major part of the brief was to run a business continuity, disaster recovery and 24/7 monitoring system, to support Fortem’s in-house IT team deal with end-user incidents and requests.

“We have clear aims for the IT transition programme. At the programme’s core is the need for Fortem to continue its sustained growth, and to build on the excellent reputation the business has with its clients throughout the UK,” said Chris Hone, systems director of Fortem’s business solutions division.

“The vision that drives the programme is to implement a 24×7 monitored IT infrastructure that is secure and scalable, with future-proofed telephony that enhances our communication and collaboration capabilities. We also want to further increase our in-house technical skills and ensure that users receive the highest possible levels of support.”

Fortem’s in-house team will be tasked with the day-to-day running of the IT systems, working with customers and engineering teams to ensure incidents are dealt with as soon as is possible.

“We are working closely with Fortem to take it on a digital transformation journey that addresses business challenges and delivers a robust technology platform that supports its ongoing success,” added Matthew Brouker, group product director at Six Degrees.

“By leveraging the expertise of Six Degrees through a consultative process, Fortem has been able to design, build and manage the optimal environment that will meet its ongoing needs.”

Google has unveiled a whole suite of updates to its G Suite, including productivity boosting features, connected sheet support, Hangouts chat to email and new integrations with Google Assistant.

G Suite Add-ons make it easier for users to switch between different apps in Google’s lineup. For example, if you’re in email and want to view a document, you can switch to Docs via the side panel. As well as those Add-ons already available, the company has now added integrations with Copper, Workfront and Box.

Connected Sheets brings the power of pivot tables and shared data to Google Sheets. Connected Sheets allows you to connect up to 10 billion rows of BigQuery data without using SQL and then translate the data into tables easy-to-digest information for the rest of the organisation.

You can now also edit Microsoft Office documents, whether spreadsheets in Excel, Word documents or presentations in PowerPoint directly from G Suite, without having to convert to Docs, Sheets or Slides.

If you need to share any of these documents with others not in your organisation, you can do so using the new Visitor Sharing in Drive function, allowing others to collaborate on files without gaining full access, but using a pin code.

For those that use Hangouts for live messaging and video calling, Google has debuted Google Hangouts Chat into Gmail, so teams can view all communications from the Gmail pane. At the bottom left corner, you’ll see people, rooms and bots. Open up rooms to see conversation streams and threads. While in Hangout Meet video calls, users can now opt to have on screen captions display, powered by the company’s speech recognition tech.

The extension of Google Assistant to enterprise environments makes it much easier to keep your work life organised. Your calendar will sync with Assistant so you can make sure you get to meetings on time, know where you’re going and stay ahead of any schedule changes.

Businesses can now up their data centre management game, thanks to the launch of Schneider Electric’s EcoStruxure IT Advisor, an easy to deploy data centre management platform.

IT Advisor combines cloud-based planning and modelling to uncover where businesses can make savings and improve uptime through optimising their facilities.

It can also analyse the business impact that decisions are having on the entire environment, automating workflows to ensure the data centre is running at its optimum.

“Hybrid data centre architectures are driving the industry to rethink the way their data centre infrastructure is managed and operated” said Kim Povlsen, vice president and general manager of Digital Services and Software at Schneider Electric.

“EcoStruxure IT Advisor addresses this need by offering customers a powerful cloud-based or on-premise data centre planning and modelling software, accessible from anywhere, and delivered with a flexible subscription model.”

Schneider Electric’s EcoStruxure IT Advisor features asset management, laying out data in each environment and enabling teams to view device details and asset attributes in a logical way.

In-depth risk planning models potential incidents and demonstrates the impact they may have on devices and infrastructure, while change management is supported by automated workflows, reducing the possibility of human error and ensuring best practices are out in place.

Schneider Electric has also integrated features to help co-location facilities understand how data is distributed.

It maps out areas, cages and racks with assets in a “floor view”, displaying how racks are being utilised so organisations know where there is space and make sure they’re using their resources in the most logical and efficient manner.

The IT Advisor system is an expansion of Schneider Electric’s EcoStruxure IT platform, which also includes EcoStruxure IT Expert, software that allows for the monitoring of physical IoT assets, and EcoStruxure Asset Advisor, a 24/7 monitoring service provided through its partner network.

HPE and Nutanix have expanded their partnership with the launch of an integrated hybrid cloud-as-a-service platform, combining HPE’s GreenLake and Nutanix’s Enterprise Cloud OS software.

The companies said that offering their products together will serve up a hybrid infrastructure fully-managed by HPE, at a lower cost than on-premise solutions. It also offers more flexibility in both customer data centres or a co-location facility.

The offering has been designed for businesses wanting to scale-up their infrastructure to operate mission-critical workloads and big data applications. It supports SAP, Oracle, and Microsoft environments, plus virtualised big data applications, such as Splunk and Hadoop.

The announcement is in response to a problem of overcomplexity from legacy hardware, and concerns over vendor lock-in when attempting to move to a hybrid model, according to the companies.

“HPE created the modern on-premises, as a service consumption market with HPE GreenLake. Hundreds of global customers now leverage HPE GreenLake to get the benefits of a cloud experience combined with the security, governance, and application performance of an on-premises environment, while paying for the service based on actual consumption,” said Antonio Neri, president and CEO, HPE.

“Today, HPE is expanding its leadership in this market by providing additional choice to customers seeking a hybrid cloud alternative that promises greater agility at lower costs.”

As part of the agreement, Nutanix’s channel partners will gain access to HPE’s servers, giving them the opportunity to sell the hardware alongside Nutanix’s software, offering customers a fully-integrated solution.

“Our customers tell us that it’s their applications that matter most. Our partnership with HPE will provide Nutanix customers with another choice to make their infrastructure invisible so they can focus on business-critical apps, not the underlying technology,” said Dheeraj Pandey, founder, CEO and chairman of Nutanix.

“We are delighted to partner with HPE for the benefit of enterprises looking for the right hybrid cloud solution for their business.”

Slack has introduced a new suite of Microsoft Office 365 integrations, connecting the collaboration platform with many of Office’s features, such as email, calendar and OneDrive.

Although the ability to share files with cloud-based platforms such as Google Drive and Box has existed for a while within the Slack communication tool, its enhanced integration with OneDrive enables users to import and search for files stored in the cloud, directly from Slack.

If you want to share files stored in OneDrive with others using Slack, you can now just click the + icon, choose OneDrive and select the file you want to share. If you add the file to a message stream in a channel or direct chat, everyone can discuss it.

You can also preview Slack files stored in OneDrive, whether you want to view a presentation, Excel document or Word file without needing to download it. This means you can quickly check a spreadsheet, view changes in a presentation or approve a Word document with a single click.

For Outlook users, Slack has tagged on the ability to send or forward emails to a Slack channel. For example, if a customer or partner emails you, but you need a response from the appropriate team before replying, you can just forward the email to the Slack channel to get a collaborative response.

Slack also now integrates more closely with Outlook calendars. If you’re invited to an event, such as a meeting, it’ll be forwarded to your Slack stream, where you can instantly reply. You’ll also get reminders, can join Skype meetings if the meeting is virtual and if you’re in the meeting, your Slack availability will be updated as “in a meeting” so you’re not disturbed.

“By using apps to connect Outlook and OneDrive with Slack, repetitive tasks such as checking your calendar or sharing email attachments with a group can be done right from your workspace,” Slack said. “Each little improvement to these workflows adds up to a whole lot more time for you and your team to do your best work.”

A new partnership has been launched that will give Siemens customers access to SAS advanced and predictive analytics through the open IoT platform MindSphere.

The deal will focus on creating new IoT edge and cloud-enabled services, integrating machine learning and AI to reduce operational risk.

With near real-time embedded AI for IoT applications on the edge of the network, the collaboration will enable businesses to experiment with their IoT applications in a much freer way. The integration of SAS and Siemens platforms will increase workplace productivity by providing better insights into IoT use, the company claims, and will offer businesses the chance to implement optimised asset performance across the organisation.

Specifically, SAS and Siemens are targeting their combined tools at the manufacturing, healthcare, energy and utilities, smart cities, transportation and automotive industries.

“SAS is a recognised world-leader in advanced analytics, machine learning, and artificial intelligence. We are excited to leverage their analytics in MindSphere,” said Stephen Bashada, executive vice president and general manager of Siemens MindSphere. “The combination of Siemens’ deep industrial domain knowledge with SAS’ deep analytics knowledge is a powerful step forward for IoT.”

The partnership will offer both new and existing customers the opportunity to port and deploy SAS models into MindSphere, with access to its analytics capabilities.

“Siemens remain unmatched when it comes to revolutionising operational assets, software and processes. Siemens is committed to digitising the world’s industries and provides a unique platform for IoT to realise its full potential through AI,” said Peter Pugh-Jones, Head of Technology, SAS. “This partnership can accelerate adoption of the transformative value of IoT for our customers.”

BMW and Microsoft have joined forces to develop a cloud-based open manufacturing platform, which aims to help businesses take advantage of industrial IoT tech.

It’s been built to power factories of the future, focusing on open technologies that can be used and interconnected with any other manufacturer’s infrastructure.

The companies have not disclosed how much money they’re investing in the project and not have they disclosed any other businesses they’re in talks with to expand it, but Microsoft has explained it hopes to work with another four to six manufacturers and suppliers by the time the year is out.

The partnership also revealed it wants to have launched 15 use cases by the end of the year, whether they’re to create open source components that can be used across manufacturers, standards or data.

The Open Manufacturing Platform will be built upon Microsoft’s industrial IoT platform and will be powered by Azure (no surprise there), just like BMW’s current set-up.

“Microsoft is joining forces with the BMW Group to transform digital production efficiency across the industry,” said Scott Guthrie, executive vice president, Microsoft Cloud + AI Group. “Our commitment to building an open community will create new opportunities for collaboration across the entire manufacturing value chain.”

The German car manufacturer said it already has 3,000 machines running using Microsoft’s cloud suite of services and analytics tools and many of its innovations will be absorbed into the Open Manufacturing Platform.

“The interconnection of production sites and systems as well as the secure integration of partners and suppliers are particularly important,” Oliver Zipse, member of the Board of Management of BMW AG, Production said.

“We have been relying on the cloud since 2016 and are consistently developing new approaches. With the Open Manufacturing Platform as the next step, we want to make our solutions available to other companies and jointly leverage potential in order to secure our strong position in the market in the long term.”

Gartner thinks cloud services industry revenues will increase by 17.5% during 2019, reaching a high of $214.3 billion by the end of the year, up from $182.4 billion at the end of last year.

The most significant rise will be in infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS), which the research firm is predicting will grow by 27.5% over the 12-month period. Platform-as-a-service (PaaS) revenues will also experience a hefty jump this year, with 21.8% year-on-year growth.

Other big players in 2019 will be those focusing on business process-as-a-service that’s set to accelerate fast by 2022, with forecasted revenues of $61.1 billion compared to 2018’s revenues of $45.8 billion and cloud management and security, with revenues increasing from $10.5 billion up to $17.9 billion.

“Cloud services are definitely shaking up the industry,” said Sid Nag, research vice president at Gartner. “At Gartner, we know of no vendor or service provider today whose business model offerings and revenue growth are not influenced by the increasing adoption of cloud-first strategies in organisations. What we see now is only the beginning, though. Through 2022, Gartner projects the market size and growth of the cloud services industry at nearly three time the growth of overall IT services.”

Tech providers are taking this seriously and are shifting towards a cloud-only model, from the previous cloud-first approach. By scrapping legacy systems, vendors can generate higher ongoing subscription revenues, while businesses benefit from lower upfront costs.

“Organisations need cloud-related services to get onboarded onto public clouds and to transform their operations as they adopt public cloud services,” Nag said.

“As cloud continues to become mainstream within most organisations, technology product managers for cloud related service offerings will need to focus on delivering solutions that combine experience and execution with hyperscale providers’ offerings,” said Mr Nag. “This complementary approach will drive both transformation and optimisation of an organisation’s infrastructure and operations.”

Equifax and FICO have teamed up to offer the Data Decisions Cloud to businesses, a risk management and marketing suite focused on offering improved customer experiences for financial organisations.

The service brings together Equifax Ignite data and analytics platform with FICO Cloud applications and the FICO Decision Management Suite (DMS) to help businesses analyse different data points, uncover new insights and build predictive models to lead the development of new customer services.

It will streamline the way customers interact with financial institutions and reduce operating costs by introducing better transparency into organisations.

“We are energized about this broad partnership between Equifax and FICO. Two industry leaders are joining forces to help financial institutions better meet the needs of consumers and improve business agility,” said Mark W. Begor, CEO of Equifax.

“Our partnership will seamlessly integrate Equifax’s differentiated data assets and Ignite platform with FICO’s market-leading cloud based decisioning software and applications.”

The end-to-end development platform will enable businesses to explore opportunities, test and deploy apps and services within their organisation.

It will lead the way to three other joint developments, including a connected platform to create new predictive data technologies, A compliance-as-a-service product to support anti-money laundering schemes and a pre-screen marketing automation platform to develop FCRA-compliant campaigns.

“Our common mission is to empower financial institutions to leverage data-driven decisioning in all their customer interactions,” said William J. Lansing, CEO of FICO.

“With this strategic partnership, FICO and Equifax will help organizations operationalize the best data with unparalleled predictive analytics and applied AI, and do so in a streamlined and cost-effective way.”