Good morning, channel partners. Here are five technology news updates, insights, chatter, and plenty more to start your day for Monday, July 10, 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. SEC Charges IT Service Provider: The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged Quadrant 4 System Corp. (QFOR), an IT services firm in Chicago, with an accounting fraud scheme that that misled investors and allowed two former executives to siphon millions from the firm for their personal benefit.
11. AT&T VC Strategy: AT&T will pump up to $200 million into Coral Group's Communications Industry Platforms (CIP) efforts. Coral is the fifth largest venture capital firm in Minnesota, according to a ranking by the Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Journal.
10. AT&T Partner Program: Sandler Partners, which claims to be America’s fastest growing distributor of connectivity and cloud services, has been selected to participate in a new pilot with the AT&T Alliance Program. Under the terms of the program, Sandler Partners’ sales partner base of more than 5,400 telecom agents, IT consultants, VARs and MSPs will receive enhanced earnings opportunities for selling AT&T business services nationwide, the company says.
9. FinancialForce Evangelizes CRM, PSA Integration: FinancialForce says tight integration between PSA and CRM is a required combination for success in the "new services economy." The statement is hardly surprising, considering FinancialForce's PSA platform integrates directly with Salesforce's CRM offering. Within the IT services provider sector, ConnectWise has aggressively promoted its PSA-CRM capabilities for several years.
8. Vertical Market MSPs: The Dental Integrators Association (DIA) will exhibit at CompTIA's ChannelCon 2017 conference later this month in Texas. The move reinforces CompTIA's continued evolution beyond traditional mainstream IT audiences.
7. Hot or Hype?: More than 70 percent of CEOs say cognitive computing will play a key role in their organizations future, according to an IBM survey. The problem: Associated cognitive computing and IBM Watson revenues haven't been growing fast enough to offset weakness in IBM's traditional businesses. Still, pundits predicts IBM's overall revenues will finally stabilize within the next couple of quarters...
6. Caribbean Cloud Services: Cloud Carib Limited, a managed cloud service provider, has announced service extensions into Barbados and Jamaica. Additional regional sites are planned in Trinidad, Cayman, and other locations before the end of 2017.
5. Office 365 Analytics: What if there was a way for IT service providers and business owners to more effectively track how users consumed Office 365? Perhaps the new Microsoft Workplace Analytics can assist...
4. Microsoft Partner Acquisition: DXC (the former CSC) has acquired Tribridge, a Microsoft Dynamics 365 partner with 740 employees. Financial terms have not been disclosed. We'll share more thoughts soon.
3. FastTrack for Microsoft Azure: Microsoft is expanding its FastTrack partner perks from Office 365 to Azure sometime in August. The move surfaced just ahead of this week's Microsoft Inspire partner conference in Washington, D.C. We'll share more thoughts soon.
2. Microsoft Partner Conference: Microsoft Inspire 2017, the company's rebranded worldwide partner conference, kicks into high gear today in Washington, D.C. Visit ChannelE2E's Microsoft Inspire Center for ongoing coverage of the conference.
1. Autotask & President Clinton: The rumors were true. Former U.S. President Bill Clinton will keynote Autotask Community Live 2017 in September...
