The CEO Edit: April 2024

With the first quarter of 2024 behind us, I’m pleased to report we’ve had some impressive developments here at Servium HQ alongside some exciting plans and announcements.  

The new business team in Basingstoke is now up and running, helping introduce our broad range of services to a wider audience – either directly or in conjunction with our well-established services ecosystem.  

We’re also continually working with our customer base to provide more and more integrated services, and in the last month we’ve launched another managed service helpdesk for a care home with 500 users. Initial feedback has been excellent, so long may that continue. 

And on the back of customer feedback, our account teams have been working incredibly hard to increase our face-to-face interactions. Teams and Zoom meetings are great, but we’re a company built on truly seeing things from a customer’s perspective so, for the most part, getting out there and shaking hands on-site really is the best way to get things done. 

Viva HP Inc.

I recently came back from Las Vegas, where I spent three casino-free days at HP Inc.’s Amplify Partner Conference. It’s a long time away from my desk, but it really was well worth it to get such a comprehensive update from the industry and join over 1,500 commercial, alliance and distribution partners representing 95 countries. As a business with customers further afield than the UK, I always appreciate an opportunity to network amongst the international partner community, sharing ideas and experiences. 

We heard some fantastic keynotes from major vendors, and it was great to hear from a stellar line-up that included: Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Intel Chief Exec Pat Gelsinger, Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon, AMD CEO Lisa Su, Nvidia CEO Jansen Huang, and Google Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai. 

It was also fantastic to see a genuine emphasis on sustainability, with the conference powered by 100% renewable energy and hosted in a LEED Gold venue. No single-use plastics were to be seen and leftover food was donated to a local food bank. In addition, HP promised to measure the environmental footprint of the event and purchase offsets to mitigate the carbon emissions – that’s what I like to hear! More on this theme later… 

AI gets personal

Undoubtedly the biggest talking point at HP Inc. Amplify was AI and AI-ready PCs, with a real buzz around NPUs. Neural Processing Units will soon offload the processing of AI-related tasks away from the main CPU on a device, and by 2027 most PCs will be shipped with NPUs which will allow them to take full advantage of technology around AI – especially private local processing as opposed to AI in the cloud.  

I’ve no doubt in my mind that AI is the single most impactful accelerator across the technology industry. And as we brace for a wave of device refreshes four years post-COVID, alongside the demise of Windows 10, it’s vital that Microsoft OEMs, software providers, component suppliers and the channel, commit to effectively communicating the benefits of AI-ready PCs to customers.  

Organisations will have to make a call on what kind of adoption path they take, which will largely depend on how quickly they believe they can adopt AI and how enamoured they are by specific AI use cases which are still being developed. Whatever the approach, the importance of proper planning for projects of this kind cannot be underestimated. And of course, the high-performance compute required to establish private AI/LLM will require new, agile management and consumption models such as HPE’s GreenLake. 

Windows into the not-so-distant future

The Windows 10 support switch-off date of October 2025 may seem a long way off. But for medium to large enterprises, the task of assessing an entire estate for device compatibility and procuring the tech for any delta is very much an immediate concern.  

Add to that the introduction of AI PCs and it’s abundantly clear to me that organisations need to take a hard look at their asset refresh strategy if they have any hope of getting the right devices in place to take advantage of these technologies. And as we always say, the longer your lead time, the easier it is to mitigate and spread any additional costs that are incurred. Speak to the Servium team if you need some expert support. 

(E)mission success

Away from the event, I took the opportunity to visit one of Las Vegas’s newest attractions, The Sphere. This architectural and technological wonder is covered in LED screens both inside and out, allowing for an unprecedented visual (and sensory) experience. Most importantly, it’s been designed to minimise environmental impact; a concept that stayed front of mind as I sat back to enjoy the ‘Postcard from Earth’ show. 

Sustainability is something that’s really important to us as a business, and I’m personally incredibly proud of our recent ITAD projects and the impact they have on reducing IT waste that goes into landfill. 

I’m also thrilled to announce that we achieved carbon-neutral levels last year by reducing our energy emissions and carbon offsets, and we’ll be publishing our Carbon Emissions report on our website in the coming weeks. 

Under observation

Looking ahead, we’re excited to be to attending HPE’s Worldwide Partner Conference in June, which will focus on HPE’s developments around observability and managing our ever-disparate, ever more complex modern IT environments.  

This is technology that sees deeper and wider and across multi-generational environments in a way that has never been experienced before. It’s revolutionary stuff, and I’m especially keen to learn more about how these cutting-edge solutions will create business outcomes and improve customer experience. 

And with the contents of the next update already taking shape, I’ll leave it there and bid you all a safe and successful few months ahead. Until next time.