5 Channel Partner Updates: 05 March 2018

Good morning, channel partners. Here are five technology news updates, insights, chatter, and plenty more to start your day for Monday, March 5, 2018. Actually, there are 17 timely updates designed for VARs, managed services providers (MSPs), cloud services providers (CSPs), independent software vendors (ISVs), telco master agents and telco agents to sip on. Take a look… 17. AWS Cloud Outage: Amid major storms in multiple U.S. regions, Amazon Web Services on Friday suffered a major cloud outage that affected more than 240 online services, including major cloud customers such as Atlassian, Twilio and Slack, Silicon Angle notes. Portions of the U.S. are now bracing for another potential blizzard later this week... 16. More Dell-VMware Reverse Merger Talk: Chatter about a potential Dell-VMware reverse merger continues to spook investors. Barron's insists the potential deal would be bad for VMware stakeholders. And GBH Insights says a reverse merger would be a horror show. Still, some pundits see potential scenarios where a Dell-VMware combo could deliver a win-win for shareholders. Michael Dell and his advisors have been considering a reverse merger as a way to reduce Dell's debt and return the company to public markets. VMware offered no comment about the rumors during an earnings call last week, but the company nonetheless repeatedly praised the existing Dell-VMware partnership.

15. Oracle CEO & Trump Administration: Oracle CEO Safra Catz is on the short list to replace Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster as National Security Adviser to President Donald Trump, according to Business Insider. Catz was a member of Trump's transition team in 2016, and it had been reported in 2017 that she was under consideration for a position in the Trump administration, the report notes. Other candidates on the list include former UN ambassador John Bolton and Ford VP Stephen Biegun, the report says. 14. Oracle Partner Evolution: Centroid, a cloud services technology company and Oracle platinum-level partner, recently celebrated 20 years in business. The company expects to hire about 30 people this year, bringing headcount to about 180 employees. Centroid expects new hires to heavily focus on consulting while a smaller subset is engineering -- especially for the company's growing cloud services practices. Centroid is headquartered in Troy, Michigan, with offices in Plano, Texas and Hyderabad, India. 13. Talent and Diversity: Sales leaders across the globe report sourcing quality sales professionals as a top challenge and priority for 2018, according to CEB, now Gartner. However, the same research shows that women hold just one in five sales leadership positions and only one in four midlevel sales manager roles. Moreover, the percentage of women in frontline sales management has remained flat for more than 10 years. 12. Partners - Healthcare BDR: Commvault and Mercy Technology Services have partnered to deliver cloud-based backup and disaster recovery service in the healthcare market. 11. Momentum - Lenovo Servers: Although Lenovo continues to struggle overall, the company's server business gained momentum in Q4 2017. Indeed, Lenovo server sales jumped 15 percent in the quarter -- marking the third consecutive quarter of growth, IDC says. Continue to page two for items 10 to 1. Welcome to page two for items 10 to 1. 10. Global Outsourcing Top 100 List: It's here. 9. Container Monitoring: The container monitoring market will reach $702.2 million by 2022, up from $169.6 million in 2017. That's a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 33 percent, according to MarketsandMarkets. 8.  Funding - Salesforce Partner: Silverline, a New York City-based Salesforce Platinum Consulting Partner, has received a growth equity investment from Pamlico Capital. Funding terms were not disclosed. 7. Funding - Bug Hunting: Bugcrowd, a San Francisco-based crowdsourced security platform, secured $26 million in Series C funding. 6. Private Equity Risks: Private Equity firms are taking on more risk, emboldened by the benign economic backdrop, favorable tax conditions in the US and investors desperate to deploy their cash, according to Financial Times. But this more aggressive behavior is leading to firms paying record prices for assets and taking on debt at levels close to the peaks of a decade ago, the report notes. The chatter comes two days after Channel2E warned that Private Equity firms are increasingly desperate to find viable "platform" MSPs around which they can build even larger companies... 5. M&A Digestion: GTT Communications President and CEO Rick Calder says that Interoute will be the company's last large-scale M&A for a while, according to Capacity. 4. MSP Investments: TPx sold its fiber assets to Uniti for $95 million to pay down debt and bolster its managed services investments, FierceTelecom notes. 3. MSP Services: World Wide Technology (WWT) has launched an SD-WAN managed service leveraging Cisco Meraki. The service, called Branch of the Future, blankets deployments, configuration, management and monitoring of WiFi, routing, and security appliances in branch office locations. 2. Momentum - MSP Security: Webroot's cybersecurity platforms added nearly 1,000 MSPs in Q2, bringing its total number of MSP partners to over 11,200, the company says. Webroot now protects more than 260,000 businesses worldwide, the company adds. 1. MSP Disaster Recovery Plans: Keep a close eye on PlanITDR, a startup that helps MSPs create and deliver disaster recovery documentation for their customers. The company will officially unveil its business strategy today. Key backers include CEO Paul Franks and President Kevin Fuller, owners of ThinkGard -- a Pelham Alabama- based MSP that works closely with Datto. PlanITDR's launch team also includes Chris Jones. We'll share more details later today.