Good morning, channel partners. Here are five technology news updates, insights, chatter, and plenty more to start your day for Friday, August 19 2016.
Actually, there are 15 entries for VARs, managed services providers (MSPs), cloud services providers (CSPs) and independent software vendors (ISVs) and telco master agents and telco agents to sip on. Take a look…
15. Internet Startups in Cuba: And so it begins...
14. Dell-EMC Deal: China has approved Dell's pending buyout of EMC, essentially paving the way for the deal to be finalized, according to The New York Post. An official announcement about China'a approval could come next week, the newspaper reported. Once combined, the companies will be known as Dell Technologies.
13. NetApp Partner Momentum: Anybody else notice that NetApp's channel sales were surprisingly strong in the storage company's most recent quarter? Stay tuned for more insights on this one soon...
12. Microsoft Said What?: You may have heard that Microsoft has open sourced PowerShell. But that's not all. Look at the opening line to Microsoft's announcement about open sourcing PowerShell: "Today's customers live in a multi-platform, multi-cloud, multi-OS world -- that's just reality." Clearly, this isn't the Microsoft we knew under Steve Ballmer or Bill Gates...
11. Google's Free Cloud Offer: Google Cloud Platform is now available for free to college students during the 2016-2017 academic year. Of course there are certain qualifiers, but this is the latest step in Google's effort to attract the next generation of software developers before Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services potentially run away with the public cloud market...
10. ARCserve Rebound?: Two years after CA Technologies sold ARCserve to investors, the backup platform apparently is enjoying a renaissance. ARCserve's worldwide sales have surged 41 percent over the past year. It's a safe bet the channel and MSPs played key roles in that momentum. ARCserve competes with a range of cloud- and on-premises backup and business continuity services. The platform dominated the 1990s as a NetWare backup solution, but lost focus in the early 2000s under CA's ownership.
9. Disaster Recovery for All: Peak 10 has introduced a limited-time offer to help companies of all sizes implement an effective disaster recovery (DR) solution. Business can sign up for DR protection now and pay in 2017 -- allowing them to receive four free months of continuous data protection services with a 24-month commitment, the company says. To take advantage of this one-time offer, partners can call Peak 10 at 866-473-2510 or visit www.peak10.com/contact-us and mention the DRaaS offer, which ends on September 30, 2016.
8. Help Desk Hacks: ReadyDesk version 9.1 and possibly others contain multiple vulnerabilities, the CERT team at Carnegie Mellon University is warning. ReadyDesk is a help desk ticketing web application designed to facilitate business internal or business to customer interactions.
7. Invading Cisco UCS: Nutanix's hyperconverged infrastructure software now supports Cisco UCS -- a major move that didn't require Cisco's help. Nutanix also is working closely with Lenovo's channel partners to push deeper into the midmarket data center market.
6. Oracle Cloud Monitoring: Circonus, an Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN) member, is making a deeper push into the cloud monitoring market. Indeed, the company's analytics and monitoring platform is now available in the Oracle Cloud Marketplace. The application enables Oracle Cloud customers to monitor their entire infrastructure, from individual instances to enterprise-grade services, then use the Circonus platform's analytics tools to detect anomalies, predict failures, and understand business trends.
5. Cloud Monitoring Acquisition: ScienceLogic, one of the top 50 cloud monitoring and management tools we've been tracking, has acquired AppFirst. The deal will allow IT admins to gain deeper visibility what apps and services run across a company’s servers, virtual machines and cloud instances, TechCrunch reported. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
4. RMM for Vertical Markets: Telemisis, a provider of remote monitoring and control solutions for industrial and telecommunications applications, has launched SitePro V5 and SiteNode 3G. SitePro V5 is designed to meet the day-to-day challenges faced by fleet operators, utilities, carriers, tower operating companies, and industrial process operators when managing their estate of remote assets, the company says. SiteNode 3G, meanwhile, is the "heart" of SitePro. SiteNode 3G is a "remote telemetry unit" that expands control and monitoring options at the remote asset, the company says.
3. PSA Deployment Expert: TOP Step, which specializes in professional services automation (PSA) platforms like NetSuite OpenAir and FinancialForce PSA, has once again landed on the Inc. 5000 list of America's fastest-growing privately held companies. We recently mentioned OpenAir and FinancialForce within our list of 20 PSA platforms that VARs and MSPs are evaluating and/or embracing.
2. Partner Programs: The latest moves include...
- Imperva has launched an "entirely revamped" Imperva PartnerSphere Channel Program to help more than 250 global channel partners build their cyber security businesses with Imperva products.
- Sophos, which launched an MSP partner program earlier this year, has now launched a formalized partner program for 1,000 VARs and solutions providers in India. The move comes as Sophos connects the dots between network and end-point security, which VP Scott Barlow explained in this ChannelE2E Podcast.
1. Your Sales Compensation Plan: Need to overhaul -- or polish -- your company's sales team compensation plan for 2017? Then register now for our Sept. 22 webcast -- Compensation Strategies that Work, where we'll reveal example plans designed to help VARs, MSPs and CSPs drive recurring revenue sales.
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