Workplace AI bots, like Microsoft Copilot, have exploded in use over the last 12 months. They are transforming how businesses operate by automating routine tasks, enhancing decision-making, and allowing employees to focus on more strategic activities.

Back in November 2023, Explain IT discussed how Copilot could potentially revolutionise the workplace. We’re back again to see how it has changed in the last 12 months with our guests Bradley Howe, Copilot Presales professional, and Dave Simmons Senior IT Transformation and Change Manager at Softcat.

Your host for this episode of Softcat’s Explain IT podcast is Helen Gidney, Softcat’s head of Architecture. Join

us as we talk tech in simple jargon free language. Have you got a burning question for the team? Please send an email to

[email protected]

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Cloud computing, first introduced in the 1960s as the "intergalactic computer network," is now essential to our digital existence.

There are so many cloud options available on the market today. Private clouds are essentially dedicated environments that offer greater control and security. They are typically used by businesses to store sensitive data and run critical applications. On the other hand, public clouds are shared environments managed by industry hyperscalers. These providers offer scalable resources but are accessed by multiple users simultaneously. However, which is best?

ln this episode we explore the intricacies of cloud computing with our guests, Mischa Penn, Cloud Sales specialist, and Hadley Grindrod, Enterprise Solutions Architect at Softcat 

Your host for this episode of Softcat’s Explain IT podcast is Helen Gidney, Softcat’s head of Architecture. Join

us as we talk tech in simple jargon free language. Have you got a burning question for the team? Please send an email to

[email protected]

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ever thought about how much of your life is protected by passwords? And why do hackers want to steal credentials? How do they do it and more importantly, how can we stop them in their tracks?

From your emails to your retirement savings, passwords are quite literally the gatekeepers to your online life. And there are layers to password security, from your own password to the passwords that companies use to protect the collective data. Hackers are constantly using different tricks to try to crack those codes to access as much information as possible.

In this episode, we’ll get into the how’s and why's to help you stay strong against cyber threats with the help of our guests; David Higgins, Field CTO at CyberArk and Tom Wheeler, Specialist Sales Manager for Networking and Security at Softcat.

If you want to listen to more episodes from this season, new ones are released on the last Tuesday of every month. Alternatively,

you can stream or download all episodes from every season on your preferred platform. 

Your host for this episode of Softcat’s Explain IT podcast is Helen Gidney, Softcat’s head of Architecture. Join

us as we talk tech in simple jargon free language. Have you got a burning question for the team? Please send an email to

[email protected]

This podcast is produced by The Podcast Coach.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Where do you want to work from today? The coffee shop? The beach? It’s all possible with a Virtual desktop infrastructure.

Virtual Desktop Infrastructure, or VDI, lets you access your companies’ systems from almost any device, essentially you can carry your office in your pocket. In this special episode, we’ll answer some important questions to help you get it right. How do you keep VDI working for everyone? How do you manage it effectively? How do you keep it secure?

Featuring our expert guests Jack Lewis, Softcat’s chief technologist for Workspace and Tom Archer, Director of Sales for EMEA at Nerdio, we’ll dive into the topic.

If you want to listen to more episodes from this season, new ones are released on the last Tuesday of every month. Alternatively, you can stream or download all episodes from every season on your preferred platform.

Your host for this episode of Softcat’s Explain IT podcast is Helen Gidney, Softcat’s head of Architecture. Join us as we talk tech in simple jargon free language. Have you got a burning question for the team? Please send an email to [email protected]

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Customer service is tough for everyone, but how do we make it better for the employee and for the customer?

Business contact centres are starting to use AI at the very first step of their customer interactions. By automating elements of the customer service interaction and using AI insights, staff can resolve service incidents faster and keep customers happy.

Our team of experts, Andrew Hermsen, Softcat's Chief Technologist for Data, Automation and AI, and Lucky Sharma, Senior Partner Solutions Architect at AWS are here to answer the key questions to understand if AI contact centres are the future, and as always, to talk tech in simple jargon free language.

If you want to listen to more episodes from this season, new ones are released on the last Tuesday of every month. Alternatively, you can stream or download all episodes from every season on your preferred platform.

Have you got a burning question for the team? Please send an email to [email protected] and visit softcat.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the hybrid working world, everyone needs a fast and secure way to connect to their company's data.

WAN or Wide Area Networks technologies have had an impressive impact; It's now easier than ever to do business. Using intelligence to optimize traffic across multiple links, we’ve gone from a trickle of information being sent between two direct points to terabytes of data sent at lighting speed across a network of points. 

In this episode of Explain I.T, we answer some important questions. How do we manage those connections? How do we keep performance consistent? And how do we keep our data secure?

To discuss this topic we’ve networked with our partners to bring you some expert guests Adam Batten, Networking and Connectivity Solutions Engineer at Softcat and Kanwar Loyal, VP of North Europe and MEA at Cato Networks.

If you want to listen to more episodes from this season, new ones are released on the last Tuesday of every month. Alternatively, you can stream or download all episodes from every season on your preferred platform.

Your host for this episode of Softcat’s Explain IT podcast is Helen Gidney, Softcat’s head of Architecture. Join us as we talk tech in simple jargon free language.

You can stream or download all episodes from every season on your preferred platform or at softcat.com. Have you got a burning question for the team? Please send us an email to [email protected]

This podcast is produced by The Podcast Coach.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

To the public, elections can look relatively simple. However for lots of public sector organisations, there are weeks of preparation fraught with risk, excitement and a huge sense of purpose. 

Despite using paper ballots and lots of people-based processes on the day, technology and digital is key to delivering a successful election. 

There are so many technology areas to think about pre and post-election, from how authorities can protect election data, and how they prevent interference or rigging, to how social media usage can help voting and reduce “fake news”, and even how a new government might affect authority IT investment.

Here to help us through the minefield of information on this General Election Special is Softcat’s dream team, Paul Fleming – Advisory Lead for Public Sector, Radhika Rangaraju - Chief Strategist for Public Sector, and Kieron Newsham – Chief Technologist for Cyber Security.

Your host for this episode of Softcat’s Explain IT podcast is Helen Gidney, Softcat’s head of Architecture. Join us as we talk tech in simple jargon free language.

You can stream or download all episodes from every season on your preferred platform or at softcat.com. Have you got a burning question for the team? Please send us an email to [email protected]

This podcast is produced by The Podcast Coach.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the year of AI, can we get even closer to having it right at our fingertips?

Helen Gidney, Softcat’s head of Architecture, and a team of experts discuss this fascinating question. 

AI is developing quicker than we can think and we’re seeing it pop up in our everyday lives more and more and in this episode we'll answer the big AI questions of the moment like, what is an AI laptop or AI PC and what can one do? How can it help customers in their work day? What could AI PC’s help us do in the future?

In today’s episode we’ll delve deeper, with the help of our expert guests Kelly Calver, Hybrid Workspace Sales Manager at Softcat, Carlos Bento Senior Technology Strategist at Microsoft and Carlos Fernandez Pilo Director, EMEA Enterprise & Commercial Channel Sales at Qualcomm Technologies Inc 

This podcast is released on the last Tuesday of every month. Alternatively, you can stream or download all episodes from every season on your preferred platform or at softcat.com. Have you got a burning question for the team? Please send us an email to [email protected]

This podcast is produced by The Podcast Coach.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Do you know everything that’s going on in your organisation?

Today we’re talking about Observability. It isn't just a buzzword; it is the evolution of application and network performance monitoring into a seamless way to measure your full systems health.

As IT environments become more complicated, observability is crucial for pinpointing the root causes of issues, harnessing data and logs from every corner of your environment to ensure that your systems remain efficient, reliable, and customer-centric.

Hosted by Ashleigh Baker, guest host and Team Leader in Softcat’s Architecture Services, Ashleigh has the help of our experts, Tom Rowley – Chief Technologist for Networking and Connectivity, and Mat Ryer - Principal Engineer at Grafana Labs, we’ll get more observant on the topic!

This podcast is released on the last Tuesday of every month. Alternatively, you can stream or download all episodes from every season on your preferred platform or at softcat.com. Have you got a burning question for the team? Please send us an email to [email protected]

This podcast is produced by The Podcast Coach.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

With the explosive growth of internet connected devices in our everyday world, from mobile phones to our cars and even our homes, we are generating massive amounts of data all the time. Traditional centralised infrastructures just can’t keep up with the pace of information. So how do we bring processing power closer to the source of this data to help us harness its insights? What is Edge Computing? What are the benefits of Edge Computing? What are the challenges with Edge computing and could customers use cloud instead of on-premise edge computing? 

As ever we'll answer these questions and more in simple, jargon free language. This episode is hosted by Helen Gidney, Softcat’s head of Architecture and features expert guests Gary Hawkins, Softcat’s chief technologist Hybrid Platforms, and Luke Price, Partner Technical Specialist at IBM.

This podcast is released on the last Tuesday of every month. Alternatively, you can stream or download all episodes from every season on your preferred platform or at softcat.com. 

Have you got a burning question for the team? Please send us an email to [email protected]

This podcast is produced by The Podcast Coach.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.