Good morning, channel partners. Here are five technology news updates, insights, chatter, and plenty more to start your day for Monday, June 5, 2017.
Actually, there are 12 updates 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…
12. IBM Cloud Outage: Athletic apparel maker Lululemon CEO Laurent Potdevin blamed IBM for an outage of the company's website last month during an interview with CNBC on Thursday. The situation escalated all the way to IBM CEO Ginni Rometty. Lululemon is mulling their options... though the company stopped short of saying it will change cloud services providers.
11. 5G Wireless: ZTE Corp. and Telenet have inked a 5G Wireless and IoT (Internet of Things) partnership. Telenet is the largest cable broadband service provider in Belgium. Together with ZTE, Telenet is exploring technology solutions for IoT services and high capacity solutions using LTE Massive MIMO and LTE Broadcast solutions, the companies said.
10. IT Outsourcing - Potential Exit?: Deutsche Telekom AG may sell part of its T-Systems unit in a move that could see the German phone company shed a legacy IT business, according to Bloomberg. The potential sale would likely involve T-Systems’ IT outsourcing division, which services computer systems for corporate clients, the report suggested.
9. What To Outsource?: A new audit program from ISACA helps decision-makers to optimize their outsourcing relationships, including vendor selection, onboarding and ensuring that appropriate controls are in place, the association asserts.
8. Apple Innovations?: The company is set to host Apple Worldwide Developers Conference 2017 this week in San Jose. My Macbook Air, while reliable, is starting to feel long in the tooth. And my iPhone 6 Plus? I'm not quite ready to give it up but the bloatware is starting to weigh on me. Memo to Apple: Can you remember how to give me more -- and less? Here's how to stream Apple's event for all the answers.
7. HP Enterprise Innovations?: HP Enterprise CEO Meg Whitman and her lieutenants will rally customers and partners this week at Discover 2017 -- a major conference in Las Vegas. The conference arrives amid continued challenges for HPE's hardware business. Public clouds like Microsoft Azure, in particular, are squeezing HPE's hardware margins. However, the Whitman and her team are rallying the company around hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) and All Flash Array (ARA) storage. Those moves involve such recent acquisitions as SimpliVity and Nimble.
6. Microsoft Azure and IoT Apps: Cloud Academy and Microsoft are creating online training content to help get developers up to speed developing apps on the Microsoft Azure Internet of Things (IoT) platform. www.CloudAcademy.com.
5. Microsoft Partners of the Year: Microsoft has unveiled its Partners of the Year -- including winners and finalists from across the globe. We'll share more thoughts soon. Not only about the winners but also about the market segments they serve. Microsoft will put a bright spotlight on the honorees during the Inspire conference (formerly Worldwide Partner Conference, WWPC), which is set for July.
4. M&A - Software: GTCR, a private equity firm, has acquired Sage Group's North American payment business for about $260 million.
3. M&A - Data Center Services: Telstra has acquired Company85, a UK-based technology services business that provides of data center, workspace, cloud, security and network services. We'll share more details soon.
2. M&A - IT Services: Accenture has acquired SolutionsIQ, a provider of Agile transformation services for business and technology, the companies said. Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. We'll share more details soon.
1. DattoCon Live Blog: We'll be blogging live from DattoCon17 starting Tuesday, June 6, during CEO Austin McChord's keynote. Roughly 1,000 MSPs are expected to be on hand. Thanks to multiple sources who have booked meetings with us during the conference.
