The ITPro Podcast

It’s a very uncomfortable end to June with temperature records once again being broken across Europe. The technology world is moving forward unabated, though, still talking about AI and, in particular, the workforce and infrastructure that underpins it.
Do we have the talent to meet the demand for AI? Do we have the power to keep our data centers operational? And can the European Union get us off our dependence on Google Workspace and Microsoft 365?
ITPro’s news editor Ross Kelly joins Jane and Bobby to look back on some of the most interesting stories of the month.
‘Open source should rest on transparency, not deception’: Euro-Office ‘sovereignty’ claims questioned in scathing open letter by LibreOffice maintainers | IT Pro
The UK is running on fumes as data center build-outs can’t keep pace with demand | IT Pro
UK faces huge AI talent shortage | IT Pro

This week’s episode comes to you live from Las Vegas, where we link up with Jane McCallion at HPE Discover and also ITPro’s news editor, Ross Kelly, at Pure Accelerate.
Jane talks us through all the major announcements at HPE, with a heavy focus on how its Juniper Networks acquisition is impacting its new products and services. She also gives her thoughts on CEO Antonio Neri and the company’s approach to agents.
Across the Las Vegas Strip at Resorts World, Ross gives us his insight into Everpure, the impact of rising hardware costs on its business, and how organizations can get their data AI-ready.

HPE Discover 2026 Live: Day 2 keynotes
HPE unveils a raft of new networking products for AI workloads at Discover 2026
HPE Discover 2026 Live: Day 1 keynotes
Everpure wants you to get your data AI-ready
Everpure continues data management pivot with new Data Intelligence platform launch
Everpure’s data management pivot puts it on a ‘collision course’ with industry big hitters
What will the big announcements be at HPE Discover 2026?

Are businesses heading for an AI pricing time bomb? With companies like Uber suddenly raising concerns about the inability to draw a clear line between token usage and visible improvements, there is a growing question about the real cost of AI and agents.
On this episode of the ITPro Podcast, Bobby Hellard and Ross Kelly are joined by the CEO of Mendix, Raymond Kok, to discuss the different scenarios facing businesses as the true cost of AI hits home.
Highlights
“I think more and more the conversation is shifting in that direction. So, starting with what are the business-relevant use cases, and I'm saying business relevant on purpose, because there are plenty of interesting use cases around generative AI, but it's about the business-relevant use cases. Then it's about what is the job that needs to get done, and then to your question, how do you actually budget for agents like you budget for your human workforce in any company? And I think slowly but surely that narrative is changing, right, and I think what we're going to go see is that after the IPO of Ventropic and Open AI, the prices will further soar, and I think this conversation will become more and more important.”
“I'm glad that actually you're talking about it in your podcast, because I think it's now really becoming an issue, meaning that CEOs and CIOs were obviously promoting their employees to become AI literate and started to make AI tooling available to their workforce. 24 months ago, they were able to sign attractive deals with the big technology providers and get their people going, but now the bill is starting to show up. It used to be maybe 10, 20, maybe 50k a month for a larger company, but it's now moving into the hundreds of ks, and guess what, because this is also usage-based, it's very hard to control, right, so most of the monetization models, as you know, of these large language providers is based on usage.”
'One-size-fits-all' agent governance sets enterprises up to fail
Uber caps usage of AI tools like Claude Code to manage costs (Bloomberg)
Uber’s eye-watering AI bill shows enterprises are ‘still measuring AI success through consumption rather than outcomes’ – and it's warping our perception of ROI and productivity
Could rising token costs boost interest in on-premises hardware?

When we talk about wireless connectivity, often what we’re thinking about is WiFi, however mobile connectivity such as 5G is still important for many sectors.
What happens to a business when mobile connectivity is inadequate or fails completely?
On this episode of the ITPro Podcast Jane and Bobby are joined by Paul McHugh, VP of EMEA sales at Ericsson, to discuss how wireless connectivity issues can affect businesses.
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Three and Ericsson just launched a first-of-its-kind managed 5G service for businesses | IT Pro
ePrivate 5G and partner ecosystems: The blueprint for intelligent infrastructure | ChannelPro

Many IT leaders are at a crossroads in their careers, with the clear potential of AI for cybersecurity matched with the huge threat of AI-powered attacks.
Recent releases such as Anthropic’s Claude Mythos have revealed the wave of AI-assisted vulnerability discovery, which will act as a powerful asset in the defender’s toolkit but could also become a potent weapon in the attacker’s arsenal.
Luckily, IT leaders don’t have to make all these decisions alone. With the right partner today, they can get in the right mindset for AI-speed attacks today, and make the most of automation in their cybersecurity.
In this episode, in association with Automox, the ITPro Podcast is joined by the company’s CTO Jason Kikta to discuss how to do more with less in endpoint management.
Highlights

“A core principle of cyber resilience is that every strategy fails at the inventory layer first, as you cannot defend, patch, or recover what you don't know you have.”
“Cyber resilience is framed as a business problem that requires the investment and attention of the CFO, not solely an IT or security team responsibility.”
“IT leaders are advised to benchmark their security response times against the fastest attackers, not the average, as attacker tooling is improving faster than defensive capabilities.”
“The speed at which attackers can exploit vulnerabilities has drastically decreased, moving from weeks to mere hours due to AI-assisted exploit development.”
Resources
Beyond visibility: endpoint management and mitigation at frontier pace
https://www.automox.com/
https://www.automox.com/resources/ebooks-and-guides/agile-ai
https://www.automox.com/resources/ebooks-and-guides/business-value-of-automox
https://go.automox.com/state-of-endpoint-management-2026/