Good morning, channel partners. Here are five technology news updates, insights, chatter, and plenty more to start your day for Wednesday, April 12, 2017.
Actually, there are 16 updates for VARs, managed services providers (MSPs), cloud services providers (CSPs), independent software vendors (ISVs), telco master agents and telco agents to sip on.
16. Breaking: VMware acquires Wavefront for multi-cloud management. Is this a potential Cisco AppDynamics rival? Hmmm...
15. PC Sales Stabilize: PC shipments notched their first quarterly growth in five years, researcher IDC said, though the gain of less than 1 percent from a year earlier underscored persistent weakness in demand, especially from consumers, Bloomberg said. Related Partner Summit: Lenovo Accelerate 2017 is later this month.
14. SD-WANs: Windstream, which acquired EarthLink earlier this year, is making a major SD-WAN push at this week's Channel Partners Conference & Expo. Then again, just about everyone is making an SD-WAN push at the conference...
13. AWS Contact Center Tools: Serenova is demonstrating its AWS-based Contact Center at Channel Partners Conference & Expo 2017. I believe the system is built on Amazon Web Services' Connect platform -- which could redefine call center software.
12. Partner Program: OutSystems has launched a new Global Partner Program, which connects systems integrators, technology consultants, and resellers with the company's low-code development platform. In the past 12 months, OutSystems saw a 51 percent increase in contributing partners and a 78 percent increase in revenue generated from partners, the company says.
11. DRaaS: UKCloud has launched Disaster Recovery to the Cloud, a self-service replication and recovery solution, powered by Zerto. Related Partner Summit: ZertoCon 2017 is set for May.
10. IT Spending Estimate: Overall IT spending will rise only 1.4 percent in 2017, down from a previous estimate of 2.7 percent, Gartner estimates. Among the markets facing continued pressure: Server sales, which are getting squeezed by cloud services.
9. WiFi Managed Services: Aerohive has launched a range of new WiFi networking products specifically designed for MSPs and recurring revenue models.
8. Talent - Hyperconverged Infrastructure: Plexxi, which focuses on hyperconverged networking (HCN), has named Mitch Breen as its SVP of enterprise sales, and Mark Wright as VP of sales operations. Breen is a veteran of SimpliVity (recently acquired by HP Enterprise), and Wright is an EMC and Verizon veteran.
7. Talent - MSP: Strategic Products and Services (SPS), a multi-vendor systems integrator and managed services provider for communications and networking, has named Ed Nalbandian as its CEO, Michael Lucciola as president and Amit Basu as CIO. Nalbandian joined SPS in 2016 as COO. He previous was president of Enabling Managed Services (EMS), a managed services consulting firm. SPS works closely with Avaya, Cisco and Microsoft.
6. MSPs & Microsoft Azure: First National Technology Solutions (FNTS) has added Microsoft Azure to its list of cloud computing services.
5. Microsoft Pricing and Brexit: The UK government has inked a deal with Microsoft to prevent Whitehall from paying an extra £15m in license fees due to a post-Brexit price hike, according to The Register. That move may not sit well with other Microsoft customers across the UK. The software and cloud giant vowed to raise on-premises software prices by 13 percent and cloud-oriented pricing by 22 percent after Britain confirmed plans to exit the European Union.
4. IT Services and Taxes: Keep a close eye on the State of Pennsylvania's tax code, and its implications for software-related services -- including IT help desk services. We'll share more details soon.
3. IT Services & H-1B Visa Fraud: Argentine information technology firm Sistemas Globales S.A. and its U.S. affiliate, Globant LLC, agreed to pay the government $1 million to settle allegations it had committed visa fraud in hiring foreign workers, Law360 reported.
2. M&A - MSPs: Irish IT services firm EMIT Solutions has acquired the managed services business of rival Softech for an undisclosed sum, the Irish Times reported. We'll share more detail soon.
1. Partner Summits: Ingram Micro Cloud Summit 2017 is set for next week in Phoenix. It's safe to expect SVP Rene Bergeron to share key business milestones for Ingram Micro Cloud Marketplace. (Here are the data points Bergeron shared last year). Also, DockerCon 2017 will surface in Austin, Texas, next week. We'll track both events, and their implications for channel partners. All Partner Summit Dates: Track all partner conference dates and locations here.
