Good morning, channel partners. Here are five technology news updates, insights, chatter, and plenty more to sip on for Tuesday, May 24, 2016.
Actually, there are 19 entries for VARs, managed services providers (MSPs), cloud services providers (CSPs) and independent software vendors (ISVs) to sip on. Take a look…
19. Networking Layoffs: Telecom network equipment maker Nokia is likely to cut 10,000 to 15,000 jobs globally as part of a cost-cutting program following its acquisition of Franco-American rival Alcatel-Lucent, Reuters said. The cuts come amid continued data center networking market shifts, which some companies are struggling to navigate. Avaya, for instance, is exploring the potential sale of some or all assets.
18. Financial Services Hacks: Recent hacks of international banks through the SWIFT messaging system raise serious questions about cyber-related risks to U.S. firms, Representative Carolyn Maloney wrote in a letter to the country's top banking regulators that asked about measures to strengthen systems' security, Reuters said.
17. Tech Support M&A: HelloTech and rival in-home tech support company Geekatoo have merged. HelloTech, which launched about a year ago, has raised $17 million from investors, while 5-year-old Geekatoo has raised close to $3 million, Reuters noted. We're taking a closer look at the deal and will offer more thoughts later today...
16. Cloud Cost Controls: Among Amazon Web Services (AWS) customers, nearly one third of companies do not proactively manage cloud usage or spend, and 82% indicate reconciling cloud services bills with their Finance department as being difficult, according to a Cloud Cruiser and Dimensional Research survey. As ChannelE2E has pointed out multiple times: There's an opportunity to help customer get cloud costs under control.
15. Google Enterprise Hire: In its ongoing push to bolster its enterprise business, Google has nabbed Tariq Shaukat, the chief commercial officer for casino kingpin Caesars Entertainment Corp., recode reported. Shaukat will be president of enterprise sales at Google, the site confirmed. It's the latest move in the Google Cloud Platform push directed at businesses. Google last year hired VMware Co-Founder Diane Greene to drive the cloud effort, which trails Amazon, Microsoft and even IBM in terms of cloud market share.
14. Workspace as a Service: ACES, a managed services provider, has embraced Vertiscale's Workspace-as-a-Service platform. More than an application access platform, Vertiscale positions its offering for secure, compliant information access. Still, the WaaS market is quite crowded with MSP-friendly solutions.
13. Fighting Ransomware, Malware: AppSense, focused on User Environment Management solutions, has launched an Endpoint Security Suite to more effectively prevent ransomware and malware attacks. AppSense is part of the larger LANDESK organization.
12. Fresh Funding: vArmour — a startup that offers security solutions specifically aimed at enterprises that run services and apps across multiple clouds — has raised $41 million in a Series D round of funding, TechCrunch said. To date, vArmour has now raised $83 million.
11. Merger: CSBexcellence, led by Todd Hussey, has merged with KloudReadiness. The combine company will focus on a platform that helps vendors to measure the "cloud readiness" of their channel partners.
10. Millennials and Application Performance: For those of us who grew up with the Atari 2600 and dial-up connections, it's time to face facts: Millennials expect blazingly fast application and network performance. A new study from InfoVista and BT reinforces those points, driving home the need for better application performance management tools and best practices.
9. Disaster Recovery to Azure: Zerto is set to preview "enterprise class disaster recovery to Microsoft Azure" along with a new mobile application at ZertoCON, the company's core conference.
8. IT Outsourcing Shrinkage: While the overall IT outsourcing market remains strong -- thanks to managed and cloud services -- the typical enterprise deal size is shrinking. A case in point: BAE Systems recently outsourced IT operations to CSC for $600 million -- less than one-third the size of a similar deal struck in 2005, The Wall Street Journal notes. Moreover, the average size of the top 100 outsourcing deals for 2015 was $392 million -- down from $680 million in 2005.
7. Distribution, Part I: Westcon-Comstor has named Ken Bast as its executive vice president of global partner management. Bast, an Ingram Micro veteran, will oversee Westcon-Comstor’s top global vendor and customer relationships across security, collaboration, networking, data center, cloud and services.
6. Distribution, Part II: Tech Data has launched a Security and Information Management business unit, which includes the company’s software and network security vendor portfolios. The new business unit is led by Tracy Holtz, who was recently appointed to director, Product Marketing, Security and Information Management.
5. Earnings Season: Watch for HP Enterprise (HPE) earnings late today (May 24), and HP Inc. (HPQ) earnings tomorrow (May 25). We'll share analysis after the quarterly results surface.
4. Careful of the Big Data Hype: Worldwide revenues for big data and business analytics will grow from nearly $122 billion in 2015 to more than $187 billion in 2019, an increase of more than 50% over the five-year forecast period, according to IDC. No doubt the market is growing -- but forecasts can be misleading, especially when they contain generic underlying hardware and software for running those BI and big data apps...
3. Speaking of Data: Roughly 51 percent of enterprises intend to invest more in big data, according to DNV GL Business Assurance and GFK Eurisko. What about the other 49 percent of businesses? Hmmm... Chances are they're still mulling a data-driven decision on big data investments...
2. Channel Partner Events: ChannelE2E in June is set to attend HP Enterprise Discover, TruMethods Schnizzfest, ConnectWise's LabTech Automation Nation and DattoCon16. If you're attending one or more of those events and would like to potentially meet just send me an email ([email protected]). And check the ChannelE2E Technology Event Calendar for hundreds of partner summits set for 2016, 2017 and beyond...
1. Top 100 Vertical Market MSPs: ChannelE2E will unveil a list of the Top 100 Vertical Market MSPs -- and associated research -- during our June 16 webcast. Register now to join us.
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