5 things

5 Channel Partner Updates: 16 November 2016

Good morning, channel partners. Here are five technology news updates, insights, chatter, and plenty more to start your day for Wednesday, November 16, 2016. Actually, there are 19 (yowzers) 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… 19. Partner Program Updates: 
  • Jabra, a manufacturer of intelligent audio solutions, has named Barb Huelskamp as vice president, channel sales. She's responsible for channel growth across North America. Huelskamp previously held channel chief positions at MobileIron and Polycom.
  • Cyberbit has launched a Channel Program for North American Partners: MSSPs, VARs, distributors and consultants...
18. AWS Workspace as a Service: Amazon has made some moves with its Workspace as a Service platform. 17. AWS Cuts Compute Prices: Um, is this still news? Much like Moore's Law on processing power, Amazon's ongoing price cuts are quite predictable. And yes, Microsoft and Google typically respond in kind with their own price cuts. 16. AWS Managed Services Providers: Teradata says it has bolstered its managed services for Amazon Web Services (AWS). That market is getting quite crowded. You can track 50 MSPs that were first-movers in AWS here... 15. Avnet Managed Security Services: Avnet has launched Recon, a managed security service program for channel partners. VARs and MSPs can leverage 24x7x365 security monitoring and management for their end-customers. I believe this service will be part of the pending Avnet Technology Solutions sale to Tech Data... 14. Corporate IT Budget Trends: Enterprises currently spend 28% of their total enterprise IT budgets on hosting and cloud services. Next year, that figure is expected to climb to 34%, indicating a growing reliance on external sources of infrastructure, application, management and security services, 451 Research asserts.

13. Innovating Again: SonicWall has launched "significant enhancements" to its Secure Mobile Access (SMA) solution. This is SonicWall’s first product enhancement since beginning independent operations earlier this month. The new SonicWall SMA 1000 Series OS 12.0 provides policy enforced secure access to authorized remote and mobile users for all data types across any device, the company claims.

12. Office 365 Monitoring, Security: Another day, another Office 365 and Exchange monitoring service. This one comes from GSX Solutions. Meanwhile, Kaseya has bolstered its Authanvil security platform to help MSPs safeguard Office 365 customers. 11. Cloud-based Network Monitoring: IDC has named four vendors as IDC Innovators for 2016 within the cloud-hosted network monitoring and visibility market. They are 7Signal, Kentik, Nyansa and ThousandEyes. Hmmm... That's it for items 19 to 11. Jump to page two for items 10 to 1. Welcome to page two of today's updates. Here are items 10 to 1. 10. Network Monitoring M&A: Virtual Instruments has acquired Xangati for its networking and virtualization monitoring expertise, TechTarget notes. The company plans to integrate the new technology into the VirtualWisdom platform, the site reported. 9. IoT Security Guidance: The National Institute of Standards and Technology on Tuesday released guidance that presses the makers of IoT devices to build robust security protections into their products from the outset in order to help them better withstand a wide range of potential disruptions and threats, Law360 reported. The move comes only a few weeks after IoT cameras were hijacked for a massive DDoS attack. 8. Ransomware Mitigation: Infrascale is launched a Ransomware Antidote Program for partners. It's designed to help educate their clients and equip them with solutions and early warning systems to quickly recover their data, databases, and mission-critical applications from ransomware attacks. Teaser alert: Stay tuned for an associated anti-ransomware website, which is expected to launch on Thursday. Infrascale which competes in the Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) market, launched a formalized channel partner program earlier this year. Multiple BDR (backup and disaster recovery) companies have introduced ransomware education initiatives. Additional examples include Datto's Business Guide to Ransomware and Intronis MSP Solutions' Smarter MSP Guide to Ransomware. Infrascale also has an Ultimate Ransomware Guide ebook. 7. Top Three Cloud Security Concerns: The top three cloud security concerns in 2016 are unauthorized access (69%), malware (37%) and denial of service (DoS) attacks (34%), according to a Netwrix survey of IT security pros...

6. Rise of the Azure Bots: Still skeptical about bot computing for IT service desks? Check out Microsoft's new cloud bot as a service offering -- built atop Azure. Microsoft expects plenty of businesses to embed the bot service into help desks, chat services and more...

5. HIPAA Fraud Triggers Big Penalties: Hey, we all know most HIPAA violations involve relaxed processes or poor business procedures. But sometimes the violations allegedly involve alleged healthcare fraud. The penalties for such behavior can be steep... 4. Google Shakes Off Brexit: Despite Britain's decision to exit the European Union, Google continues to make heavy investments in the UK. So do most other major cloud companies. Still, big names like Apple and Microsoft are raising prices in Britain amid the challenging British Pound exchange rate... 3. MSP Acquisition and Valuation: Fusion has acquired Apptix for about $28 million -- or roughly 1.1 times revenues or 3.5 times EBITDA. Not exactly a huge valuation. Why's that? We'll share more details later today. 2. Managed Cloud Acquisition: DataStax, a provider of database software for cloud applications based on Apache Cassandra, has acquired DataScale, a provider of cloud-based management services for data infrastructure. What's next? The DataStax Managed Cloud, a fully-managed database service that will arrive in 2017. AWS support will arrive first. I assume Azure and Google Cloud Platform support will arrive sometime thereafter. 1. Here We Go: ChannelE2E is heading over to the New Relic FutureStack 16 conference today in San Francisco. Meanwhile, rival AppDynamics is hosting its AppSphere 2016 conference in Las Vegas. Both companies specialize in application performance monitoring, which is gaining more and more interest from MSPs. Stay tuned for updates from both events. 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.