Good morning, channel partners. Here are five technology news updates, insights, chatter, and plenty more to sip on for Wednesday, May 25, 2016.
Actually, there are 14 entries for VARs, managed services providers (MSPs), cloud services providers (CSPs) and independent software vendors (ISVs) to sip on. Take a look…
14. HP Enterprise Attacks Cisco: During Hewlett Packard Enterprise's earnings call yesterday, CEO Meg Whitman couldn't resist the temptation to take a few shots at Cisco Systems. Among the sound bites she offered up:
"In networking, we are seeing an acceleration of our business, particularly since our acquisition of Aruba and our game changing partnership with Unisplendour, a subsidiary of Tsinghua in China. And our results are in stark contrast with the results Cisco reported last week. In switching, HPE grew 18% year-over-year versus Cisco that was down 3%. And we are getting credit from the industry for our innovation, capturing the leading position in Gartner’s most recent Magic Quadrant for Wired and Wireless offsetting Cisco’s long standing run in the top five. That is an addition to our leading positions in servers, storage and integrated systems, and we are not taking our foot off the pedal."
Hmmm... Cisco actually reported strong financial results earlier this month. The company's core switching and routing businesses dipped a bit, but Cisco's security, software and subscription-related services continue to gain momentum.
13. More Microsoft Smartphone Layoffs: Microsoft is cutting another 1,850 employees from its smartphone business -- on top of the 7,800 cuts from last summer. The lesson? Don't chase markets where standards (Apple iOS, Android) are already set...
12. Just Make Money: When it comes to top business priorities, 63 percent of CEOs want their CIOs to focus on IT projects that generate revenue. The other 37 percent of CIOs want their CIOs to focus mainly on cost cutting, according to a Harvey Nash and KPMG LLC survey. The message for MSPs? You've spent a decade telling customers how to deliver predictable IT costs. Now, change your message and figure out how to help customers make money. More on this later today.
11. Citrix to AWS Migrations: Keep an eye on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Accelerator Program for Citrix Systems. Connectria Hosting, for one, has joined the program to help customers move on-premises Citrix workloads into the AWS cloud.
10. Citrix to Microsoft Azure: Now here's an ironic twist to the Citrix-AWS item above... Citrix has selected Microsoft Azure for its preferred and strategic cloud for its future product roadmap, it was announced Tuesday at the Citrix Synergy event in Las Vegas. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella offered up this perfective:
Video link9. Cloud Monitoring: Datadog, which develops a SaaS-based monitoring platform for cloud applications, has expanded to support Hadoop. That includes integrations with HDFS, MapReduce, YARN, and Spark.
8. Mobile IT Management: LogicNow has extended its MAX Service Desk application to Android. The offering already supports Apple iOS. The Service Desk portal allows MSPs to stay connected with their customers from their Android and iOS devices when on-the-go.
7. Application Performance Management KPIs: When it comes to effective application performance management (APM), Logicalis is pointing CIOs to these four APM KPIs. We'll share more thoughts soon.
6. Disaster Recovery and DevOps: The vast majority of successful MSPs offer disaster recovery and business continuity services. But where does the disaster recovery opportunity potentially intersect with DevOps? The answer emerged in this CIO article.
5. Lenovo Earnings: The PC and mobile giant is expected to release earnings on Thursday but Wall Street isn't optimistic. Although Lenovo is taking share in the PC market, the overall industry is shrinking and the company's own stock is down more than 60 percent in the last 12 months, the worst performer in the benchmark Hang Seng index, according to Bloomberg. Pundits point to weakness in Lenovo's mobile business. For channel partners, the biggest Lenovo opportunities likely involve the company's continued push into hyperconverged data centers with Nutanix, Red Hat, SAP and Juniper.
4. Hyperconvereged Data Centers: Speaking of Lenovo, the company has unveiled a new offering in its Converged HX Series portfolio tailored specifically for SMB customers. The Converged HX 2000 integrates leading edge Nutanix Xpress software to help ease infrastructure management.
3. New Intronis Leadership: Brian Babineau is now GM of Intronis MSP Solutions by Barracuda, succeeding Rick Faulk. Meanwhile, Faulk has moved into the robotics industry, according to a LinkedIn profile update. Barracuda Networks acquired Intronis in 2015 and has accelerated the MSP-centric business since that time, according to an April earnings call.
2. Enjoying Every Sip: I recently switched my morning latte from "flavored with skim milk" to "unflavored with regular milk." Mmmm...
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