5 Channel Partner Programs: 3 June 2016 -

Good morning, channel partners. Here are five technology news updates, insights, chatter, and plenty more to sip on for Friday, June 3, 2016.

Actually, there are 17 entries for VARs, managed services providers (MSPs), cloud services providers (CSPs) and independent software vendors (ISVs) to sip on. Take a look…

17. Everybody Needs Succession Planning: Facebook's board of directors is seeking to curb Mark Zuckerberg's control of the company in the event that he leaves the business, Reuters reported. As part of a shareholder proposal, new management terms seek to "ensure that will not remain a founder-controlled company after we cease to be a founder-led company," according to an SEC filing. It's a timely reminder that every company needs a succession plan.

16. Congratulations. You Failed: What does a failed business look like -- from the inside? Several executives with stints at General Magic, NeXT and other spectacular failures shared their thoughts during a Code Conference panel. Here's what IT entrepreneurs can learn from failure.

15. IPO Standstill Impacts VARs, IT Consulting Firms: Several major VARs and systems integrators are seeking to go public -- but they're not quite ready to make the official move. Like airplanes circling above an airport, the VARs are in a holding pattern -- waiting and wondering which company will find the nerve to proceed with an IPO amid uncertainty on Wall Street. If I had to guess, I suspect the following VAR will IPO first: Um... actually, I can't say because that may give away my sources.

14. More Tech IPO Concerns: Nutanix, the hyperconverged data center company, just took a $75 million loan from its IPO banker -- Goldman Sachs, according to an SEC filing. The loan is raising concerns ahead of Nutanix's IPO pursuit -- which apparently was set for February but then delayed because of financial market turbulence. Several key IT vendors -- particularly Lenovo -- work closely with Nutanix in the hyperconverged SMB data center market.

13. Analytics Acquisition: Thoma Bravo, the private equity firm, has acquired Qlik for $3 billion. Qlik specializes in self-serve analytics. The company has a fast-growing channel partner program led by former VMware channel chief Toni Adams.

12. Data Centers & BDR: Watch for a closer working relationship to emerge between ViaWest (co-location and data center services) and Zerto (a fast-growing provider of disaster recovery and business continuity services.

11. Workspace as a Service, Part I: CSC, the massive IT consulting company, has expanded its MyWorkStyle platform to include VMware Horizon Air and VMware AirWatch. The MyWorkStyle portfolio features virtual desktop applications (VDA), device and mobility management (DMM) solutions. After several false starts, WaaS (the successor to desktop as a service, DaaS) seems to be gaining momentum. Next up, CSC is set to merge with HP Enterprise's IT service business (which is being spun off from HPE as part of the deal).

10. Workspace as a Service, Part II: IndependenceIT has hired Microsoft veteran Donald Deshaies to drive sales -- which surely involves channel engagements. Other recent hires include COO Mark Prestipino and Executive VP of Product and Engineering Michael Walsh.

9. IT Service Management Forecast: The cloud-based IT Service Management market will grow to $8.78 billion by 2021, up from $4.41 billion in 2016, according to MarketsandMarkets. If I had to pick a big winner in that potential market growth, I'd point to ServiceNow...

8. IoT Government Spending: The U.S. federal government spent $8.8 billion on the Internet of Things in 2015, up 20 percent from 2014, according to Govini research. Hmmm... I don't completely trust IoT spending reports since it's difficult to pin down exactly what the numbers include -- and don't include. A case in point: This particular research includes cloud storage for the data that IoT sensors are gathering. But were those cloud storage systems truly built purely for the IoT applications?

7. Is IoT Dead?: Proving that no single IoT definition fits the entire market, some pundits claim the consumer IoT market is already dead -- even as industrial IoT application deployments and sensors continue to accelerate... Our spin? We certainly don't think consumer IoT is dead. But the Trough of Disillusionment -- a Gartner term for hype cycles that reach a serious downturn -- has arrived for Google NEST and other consumer IoT efforts.

6. State-Sponsored Hackers: Hackers are increasingly targeting industrial facilities, from oil refineries to nuclear power plants, with sophisticated attacks aimed at capturing data and remotely controlling the sites, according to a Honeywell executive interviewed by Bloomberg. Hmmm... Kaspersky Lab CEO Eugene Kaspersky warned of this very scenario several years ago -- multiple times...

5. Big Data's Next Channel Moves: A growing number of channel partners and IT consulting firms now focus on Hadoop, the grid storage platform. But the next major big data wave may involve Spark, another open source platform that's gaining major momentum. IBM and the major Hadoop players (Cloudera, Hortonworks, MapR) each have specific Spark strategies. But the main company to know is Databricks. Similar to Red Hat's position in the Linux market, Databricks sits at the center of the commercial Spark universe. Why do I mention all this now? Keep an eye on the Spark Summit West 2016 conference, which starts June 6 in San Francisco. Major developments are coming...

4. Life After Printers: Epson is developing robot technology that will allow the printer maker to move into new markets. The sensor-based technology actually comes from the company's inkjet business, and will be applied to robotics, Reuters says. The printer market overall has been tanking, including falling sales at HP Inc. and a pending breakup at Xerox. Amid that market reality, solutions providers like A&A Office Systems have expanded beyond copiers into the data center services market.

3. HP Enterprise Cloud Channel Strategy: Hewlett Packard Enterprise recently invited more than 200 channel partners to attend a Cloud 28+ event in Amsterdam. Take a closer look and you'll discover that Cloud 28+ is HPE's European partner alliance, featuring more than 225 members and over 1,000 services, notes LightReading. We're checking to see if or how similar channel partner programs are moving forward in the United States. We'll search for those answers during the HP Enterprise Discover 2016 conference next week in Las Vegas.

2. Google Apps for Work Marketplace: Finally. Google has launched a "New & Notable" section in the Google Apps Marketplace. Many of the apps are business related -- including key contributions from Asana, Hubspot, Xero, Zendesk and Zoho. Nice. And long overdue.

1. After The Exit: Memo to an old friend. Never look back. Faith, family and friends will carry you forward. Onward. Upward.

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