Good morning, channel partners. Here are five technology news updates, insights, chatter, and plenty more to sip on for Thursday, February 18, 2016.
Actually, there are a hefty 18 items for VARs, managed services providers (MSPs), cloud services providers (CSPs) and independent software vendors (ISVs) to sip on…
19. Ingram Micro Acquired: You can find all of our coverage about the $6 billion Ingram Micro buyout right here.
18. Decryption vs Privacy: As the U.S. government pushes for Apple's help to unlock an iPhone allegedly used by a terrorist, Google supports Apple's decision to maintain user privacy and respectfully decline the U.S. government's request for help. Up next: A fierce nationwide debate on user privacy -- even if it means protecting the privacy of an alleged terrorist involved in murder.
17. NetApp Layoffs: The storage provider reported lower-than-expected quarterly revenue and said it would cut about 12 percent of its workforce. The company's quarterly revenue fell a painful 10.6 percent to $1.39 billion.
16. Office 365 Managed Services: Datapipe has launched the Datapipe Managed Cloud for Office 365. It's designed to "enable and manage secure, reliable, enterprise-class productivity tools for businesses of all sizes." We're checking to see what makes this Office 365 managed service unique in an increasingly crowded market for such services.
15. Business Continuity: Buffalo Americas and StorageCraft have unveiled the TeraStation StorageCraft Recovery Center 25 -- a NAS-based disaster recovery appliance for small businesses with up to roughly 25 users. Separately, StorageCraft has shipped Granular Recovery for Exchange 8.1, a software tool that allows IT and email administrators to extract offline data from Microsoft Exchange Server backups (.EDB database files).
14. Partner Program: Cohesity, which focuses on hyperconverged secondary storage, has launched the Revolution Partner Network and hired EMC veteran Joe Barnes as head of worldwide channel strategy. The channel program kicks off with more than 30 partners that have strong relationships with enterprise clients, the company said.
13. IT Monitoring Acquisition: Fox Technologies has acquired GroundWork Open Source Inc., which provides unified monitoring solutions for IT operations management, performance analysis, and cloud monitoring. We'll share more details soon.
12. Google Apps for Government: Agosto Inc., a Google Tier 1 Premier Partner and cloud product development firm, says it can now provide cloud computing and storage with Google for Work and Google App Engine accounts to all U.S. federal agencies. The announcement comes on the heels of Google's recent Authorization to Operate from the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP).
11. Heavy Fiber Diet: Great Plains Communications, the largest privately owned Nebraska telecommunications company, has acquired Pinpoint Network Solutions and the Pinpoint Broadband business units of its regional fiber company, Pinpoint Holdings. The deal adds 1,200 fiber miles to the current 6,000-plus mile Great Plains Communications fiber optic network that encompasses the state of Nebraska, extending into Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, South Dakota and Wyoming.
10. Monetizing Data as a Service: Allot Communications Ltd., a provider of security and monetization solutions for service providers, has partnered to support Oracle's new Oracle Communications Analytics suite of products. The partnership allows communication service providers (CSPs) to leverage and monetize their data by correlating network, service and customer information, Allot claims.
9. Network Monitoring Growth: Paessler AG, the network monitoring specialist, says it generated a 36 percent increase in North American channel sales for 2015.
8. Saw That Coming: Roughly a year ago, I openly wondered how long Yahoo would continue spending big money to produce digital magazines (see Number 7 here). Fast forward to the present and Yahoo is finally shutting down several digital magazines as the company seeks, yet again, to find its future.
7. Application Performance Management: Hewlett Packard Enterprise has launched HPE AppPulse Trace, a new module in HPE's Application Performance Monitoring (APM) software suite. The module allows service providers and developers to find and fix code errors, regardless of their server location. Without specifically endorsing HPE, we keep hyping APM as a next natural move for MSPs, though I'm sure our loyal readers already knew that.
6. Avnet, IBM and IoT: Avnet and IBM are partnering on a range of IoT (Internet of Things) efforts. Plus, the distributor and technology giant will work more closely to address IT security in the government market. We'll share more details soon.
5. Linux on Azure: Red Hat Enterprise Linux is finally available on the Microsoft Azure cloud, completing an important move that former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer failed to get done. Under Ballmer, the Azure cloud originally was known as Windows Azure -- but current CEO Satya Nadella has pushed hard to make Microsoft's cloud a far more cross-platform system.
4. Hosting Hits and Misses: GoDaddy's latest quarterly revenue reached $425.4 million, up sharply from $371.7 million a year earlier. But the hosting and domain management company's revenue forecast missed Wall Street's expectations and shares have dropped a bit on the news.
3. Should Have Listened to Arlin (Again): Spending on agriculture technology (AgTech) investments doubled in 2015 despite a U.S. farm slump. HTG Peer Groups CEO Arlin Sorensen gave me a crash course in the "Precision Ag" market about two years ago. He made some bold predictions about the AgTech sector. They seem to be coming true...
2. Uncle Sam Embraces Windows 10: The U.S. Government has agreed to deploy Windows 10 on four million computers -- a solid sign that the Microsoft operating system continues to gain momentum seven months after its launch.
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