5 things

5 Channel Partner Updates: 17 Dec 2015

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Good morning, channel partners. Here are five technology news updates, insights, chatter, awakenings and so much more to start your day for Thursday, December 17, 2015.

Actually, today's update involves 10 items for VARs, managed services providers (MSPs), cloud services providers (CSPs) and independent software vendors (ISVs) to sip on.

Oracle CEO Safra Catz
Safra Catz

10. Oracle Hardware vs Cloud: Oracle's Q2 revenues fell 6 percent, but cloud revenues jumped 26 percent to $649 million. Hardware revenues dropped 16 percent to $1.1 billion. CEO Safra Catz says cloud revenues will likely grow 50 percent in Q3 and perhaps even faster beyond that...

9. Closing the Big Data Disconnect: First, the good news. Customers crave big data guidance from channel partners. Indeed, roughly 75 percent of businesses say their companies would be stronger if they knew how to harness all of their data, according to CompTIA research. But 45 percent say a high degree of their data is fragmented -- spread across multiple silos, the research adds. Sounds like a great opportunity for channel partners to assist. However, most of ChannelE2E's experience suggests that the vast majority of channel partners are late to the big data discussion, though things are improving...

8. Cloud Monitoring: Datadog has extended its cloud monitoring service to support OpenStack. Datadog's cloud-based system gathers data from servers, databases, applications, tools, and services to present a unified view of the applications that run at scale in the cloud, the company claims.

7. OpenStack Integration: Palo Alto Networks' security technology is now available as a virtual network function (VNF) within Mirantis OpenStack. Mirantis is both a consulting company and a well-known provider of OpenStack.

Alex Rogers

6. HaaS Sales Training: GreatAmerica Financial Services, Collabrance and CharTec's Alex Rogers are set to hit the road, educating VARs about everything as a service business models. GreatAmerica has had success promoting Hardware as a Rental, a small twist on the Hardware as a Service concept.

5. Partner Program: Flowroute, an IP carrier focused on calling and messaging services, has launched the Flowroute Reseller Partner Program. Flowroute touts itself as the world's first pure SIP carrier. Hmmm... who arrived second?

4. HIPAA Fines, Settlements: Lahey Hospital and Medical Center will pay an $850,000 HIPAA fine to settle a laptop theft issue. Data on the laptop was not encrypted. Separately, the University of Washing Medicine (UWM) will pay a $750,000 fine related to an alleged HIPAA violation. We'll share some more key learnings about this soon...

3. VAR Convicted: Cao Dang has been convicted of selling $37 million worth of stolen products from Cisco Systems. Dang ran Network Genesis as part of the scheme, which allegedly involved seven other people. Charges against the other seven people are still pending, according to AP.

2. Fresh Funding:

  • Datavail (Broomfield, Colo.), which develops remote database administration services, raised $47 million led by Catalyst Investors.
  • Digital Guardian (Waltham, Mass.), which develops a data protection platform, grabbed $66 million in funding led by GE Pension Trust.
  • Faction (Denver, Colo.), an enterprise-focused IaaS provider, raised $6 million in debt and equity funding from multiple backers.
  • Janrain (Portland, Ore.), focused on customer identity management, raised $27 million in Series D funding led by HighBar Partners.
  • McCarthy Capital pumped private equity into Seven10 Storage Software (Lawrence, Mass.), which develops software-defined storage for automated file migrations.
  • Trustlook (San Jose, Calif.), which develops mobile security for Android, raised $17 million in Series A funding led by Trustbridge Partners.

1. Top 100 Entrepreneurs: A heads up to channel-friendly IT businesses. Participate in our ChannelE2E 100 survey and your company could be honored as one of the top startups or exits of 2015.

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.