5 things

5 Channel Partner Updates: 19 June 2017

Good morning, channel partners. Here are five technology news updates, insights, chatter, and plenty more to start your day for Monday, June 19, 2017.

Actually, there are 15 updates 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…

15. Trump and Tech: President Donald Trump will meet with the CEOs of technology companies including Apple and Amazon.com on Monday as the White House looks to the private sector for help in cutting government waste and improving services, according to Reuters.

14. Consumer, Home WiFi Certification: So you want a professionally installed WiFi solution in your home. Perhaps the WiFi Alliance's new certification can help you to meet your needs.

13. Cisco One Software Updates: Find details here. We may take a closer look soon...

12. Internet of Things & Field Service: GE Predix and ServiceMax are blending Industrial IoT solutions and field service performance management solutions. GE acquired ServiceMax in November 2016. We'll share more details about the latest moves soon...

11. Data Centers: H5 Data Centers, a national colocation and wholesale data center provider, is building out additional 65 colocation cabinets at its Cleveland data center. This expansion, set to be completed by September 2017, is part of a large commitment H5 Data Centers has made to its Cleveland customers and the surrounding community. the company asserts.

10. Managed Cloud Services: Virtustream is offering a managed cloud service for customers that deploy Pivotal in Virtustream's cloud. It's the latest way Virtustream, owned by Dell Technologies, is striving to differentiate from Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure.

9. Amazon AWS vs Microsoft Azure: It looks like Microsoft Azure is applying new pressure on Amazon's IaaS business... Hmmm...

8. Government Clouds: Amazon has named 19 government agencies and schools as winners of its "City in a Cloud" challenge, according to this report. We'll take a closer look soon at partners involved in those cloud projects.

7. Channel Talent: Skuid, a cloud design-and-deploy platform for accelerating sales, has hired Chris Archibald as senior director of channel development. Archibald will seek to expand Skuid partnerships with consultants, independent software vendors (ISVs) and resellers. Archibald previously was senior director of strategic technology alliances at ServiceNow.

6. Financial Services: Sapient, has launched a cloud-based regulatory compliance solution for financial services customers. Sapient was a web Integrator and Wall Street darling during the dot-com craze, and ultimately survived the market implosion.

5. M&A - SAP Partners: SOA People, a Belgium-based Platinum SAP partner, has acquired Cormeta, an SAP partner in Germany.  SOA now ranks among SAP's top five partners in Europe, the company claims. We'll share more details soon.

4. M&A - IT Service Management: EasyVista has acquired Knowesia, a self-help modeling and guided support software company based in France with operations in the US and customers around the world. EasyVista specializes in ITSM software.

3. Investment - Cloud Services: Wipro is investing $5 million in Drivestream Inc., an Oracle cloud applications systems integrator. We'll share more details soon.

2. Employee Stock Ownership Plans: Following in the footsteps of states that already have passed pro-ESOP legislation—including Pennsylvania, Iowa, New Jersey, Virginia, and Nebraska—the states of Colorado, Texas, and Missouri are now moving forward with pro-ESOP initiatives, according to Morgan Lewis.

1. Small Business Valuations: How much is your business worth? Apparently, most small business owners are cheating themselves because they fail to tackle the business valuation question. The typical small business should have a third-party firm conduct a valuation every two years for these eight reasons, according to Gary Miller, CEO of GEM Strategy Management Inc., an M&A consultancy.

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.