5 things

5 Channel Partner Updates: 11 Dec 2015

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Good morning, channel partners. Here are five technology news updates, insights and chatter to start your day for Friday, December 11, 2015.

Actually, today's update involves nine items for VARs, managed services providers (MSPs), channel services providers (CSPs) and independent software vendors (ISVs) to sip on.

Alex Pinchev
Alex Pinchev

9. Rackspace's Big Channel Influencer: The managed cloud services company hired Red Hat and Acronis veteran Alex Pinchev as executive vice president and president of global sales and marketing, effective January 1, 2016. While at  Red hat (2003-2012), he launched the company's global partner network.

8. New IT Security Conference: Keep an eye on USENIX Enigma, a new security conference sponsored by Google. The content approach is quite simple: A single track containing 30-minute presentations, curated by local experts in San Francisco. Instead of tracking mainstream threats, the event will pinpoint emerging threats and potential solutions.

7. Big Data Online Community: Hortonworks, one of the top providers of Hadoop for big data applications, has launched the Hortonworks Community Connection (HCC) to link partners and customers with the technical info they need. The move comes as rival MapR continues to build out its channel partner program for a growing portfolio of solutions -- including MapR Streams.

6. Managed Unified Communications: TeamLogic IT will standardize on Unified Office's Total Connect Now -- a managed communications service --as the firms preferred platform choice for 100 IT service provider franchises across the U.S.

5. Fresh Funding: Technology companies raising money in recent days include...

  • Gradle, a software development platform, raised $4.2 million led by True Ventures and Data Collective. Keep an extremely close eye on this company. The Gradle open source build automation system project generates more than 1 million downloads per month. The next step, obviously: Monetizing that momentum...
  • Oncam, a mobile group video calling app, raised $7 million led by Tonn Investments. The company's tagline is "Life is Live." Hmmm... Is ChannelEyes CEO Jay McBain and early adopter?
  • SnapLogic, which specializes in "enterprise" class integration platform as a service (iPaaS), raised $37.5 million in funding.
  • TinyPulse, an employee engagement platform provider, raised $6 million led by Arthur Ventures.

4. Cloud Services M&A: Cloud Services provider Fusion has acquired Fidelity Voice and Data, which offers cloud voice, security and other IT services to roughly 2,000 SMBs across the Midwest. ChannelE2E is pursuing more information about the deal.

3. Google Data Loss Prevention: Google has added Data Loss Prevention (DLP) capabilities to gmail. It's designed for Google Apps Unlimited customers that want to keep their Google for Work systems more secure.

Ian Trump

2. ChannelE2E Podcasts: Our conversations with IT entrepreneurs, investors and channel leaders continue. Among the latest ChannelE2E podcasts:

1. Technology Predictions for 2016: Each day this month, ChannelE2E continues to roll out a new Top 10 Technology Predictions list for 2016. Our three most recent lists track predictions across networking, PSA software and the Internet of Things. Check back each business day this month for a new list. Send predictions for consideration to [email protected]. If we run some or all of your predictions, we'll be sure to credit you accordingly and link to your site.

More: Read all of our daily 5 Channel Partner UpdatesPlusSubscribe to our daily enewsletter. Thanks to those who already have. 

Joe Panettieri

Joe Panettieri is co-founder & editorial director of MSSP Alert and ChannelE2E, the two leading news & analysis sites for managed service providers in the cybersecurity market.