5 things

5 Channel Partner Updates: 14 October 2016

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Good morning, channel partners. Here are five technology news updates, insights, chatter, and plenty more to start your day for Friday, October 14, 2016.

Actually, there are nine entries 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…

9. What's Next for Datadog?: Some clues are here. But we'll go digging for deeper answers in the days ahead. We'll seek to better understand how Datadog is extending from information management to application performance monitoring (APM) -- and what that all means for IT services providers... Stay tuned.

8. Intel Disruption?: Nine major technology companies -- including HP Enterprise, IBM and Google -- are working on a new standard called OpenCAPI. In theory, the standard will vastly improve bandwidth while driving down latency issues in data centers. The effort could disrupt some of Intel's own data center efforts -- though we've been hearing claims like that for more than a decade... The OpenCAPI specification should surface later this year. Related servers and other data center gear will arrive in late 2017, the consortium says.

7. IT Consulting Slowdown?: Infosys has cut its annual sales forecast for the second time in three months, Bloomberg reported. The IT consulting firm blamed weakness in the banking and financial services sectors. Wall Street is wondering if the issues are Infosys-specific, or if there's an overall IT consulting spending slowdown. On the other hand: Rivals like Accenture seem to be navigating market transitions more effectively. Accenture reported stronger-than-expected revenues in September, led by the company's growing SaaS consulting services (item 19, Sept. 29). Eager to build on that momentum, Accenture acquired a Workday cloud consulting company a few weeks ago.

6. IoT Services Market:  The IoT services market will enjoy a 24 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) from 2016 through 2021, according to TechSci Research. Hmmm... But what exactly does the research cover? Here a clue... The researchers say, "Growing Internet and smartphone user base, coupled with rising need for analytics for exponentially growing volumes of data to drive global IoT services market through 2021." Ah, so the figures seem tied to big data's role in IoT...

5. Shadow IT Still Looms Large: Roughly 80 percent of IT professionals say their end-users have gone behind their back to activate unapproved cloud services, according to Spiceworks survey results. Ahem: Are you really an IT "pro" if you allow shadow IT to run rampant in your organization?

4. MSP-led Cloud Migrations: Softchoice has launched Keystone Essential Managed Services for public cloud. The service helps customers with hybrid IT models, and  eases the adoption of public cloud platforms Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services (AWS), the company says. Dozens of MSPs and IT consulting firms now offer migration services for AWS and Azure.

3. Partner Programs: Recent moves include...

2. Dell EMC World 2016: The conference kicks off Tuesday, Oct. 18 in Austin, Texas. We'll be on-hand to analyze the latest Dell Technologies partner program moves. If you're at the conference and want to potentially meet please email me ([email protected]).

1. Search for Channel Partner Programs: Visit the ChannelE2E Partner Programs Database to search partner programs within specific categories (networking, security, cloud, managed services, storage, etc.). Want to list your partner program in the database? Submit it for consideration here. The listing is free (imagine that).

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.