5 things

5 Channel Partner Updates: 23 February 2017

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Good morning, channel partners. Here are five technology news updates, insights, chatter, and plenty more to start your day for Thursday, February 23, 2017.

Actually, there are 10 updates (a double-shot, if you will) 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…

10. IoT Security Lawsuit: D-Link Corp. has doubled down on its bid to shake the Federal Trade Commission's claims that it put consumers' privacy at risk by failing to properly secure its products, arguing that the commission couldn't use press reports about generalized security vulnerabilities and harm to fill "gaping holes" in its complaint, Law360 reported. The FTC filed suit against D-Link in January, alleging the company's network products left consumers at risk for major damages. D-Link has repeatedly denied the charges.

9. M&A - Financial Services: SourceHOV and Novitex have entered a $2.8 billion merger to create Exela Technologies. The new company will focus on the financial technology and business services industries. But there's a bigger story here... Stay tuned for more details.

8. HP Flexes Muscle: HP Inc. reported better-than-expected Q1 2017 profits and revenues yesterday. In fact, PC revenues rose 10 percent in the quarter vs. Q1 2016. During an earnings call, HP leaders described strength within the IT channel ecosystem as well. We'll share more thoughts soon.

7. CenturyLink, VMware Partnership:  CenturyLink has expanded its global strategic collaboration with VMware to deepen the level of software-defined data center (SDDC) technologies available to enterprise customers, the two companies said. The CenturyLink Cloud is one of the largest VMware vSphere-based multi-tenant cloud environments in the world, the telco claims. The ironic twist? Both CenturyLink and VMware have sold off assets and updated their partner engagements in order to avoid head-on competition against public clouds like Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure...

Aptean’s Chief Revenue Officer Bob Kocis
Bob Kocis

6. MSPs in Australia: Continuum is set to host its First Annual Australian Partner Day on Thursday, March 16 in Sydney. The event arrives roughly one week after Continuum's European Partner Day (March 8, London). Chief Revenue Officer Bob Kocis has focused on Continuum's global MSP engagements since arriving at the company last year. Continuum's global conference, Navigate 2017, is set for September in Las Vegas.

5. Profiting From DDoS Mitigation: Kentik, which specializes in network traffic intelligence for performance management and DDoS protection, says its annual recurring revenues grew 6x in 2016 vs. 2015. The company did not disclose actual revenue or profit figures, however. The company's flagship product is Kentik Detect, which offers network anomaly detection, performance monitoring and end-to-end DDoS defenses, Kentik claims.

4. Identity and Access Management Market: The identity and access management market (IAM) will be worth $14.82 billion by 2021. That's a 12.9 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) from 2016, according to Markets and Markets.

3. Dimension Data Manages Microsoft Cloud: Dimension Data has launched Managed Cloud Services for Microsoft. The offering provides cloud-based managed service for Microsoft Exchange, SharePoint, Skype for Business, and Office 365, whether deployed in the public cloud, on premises, in a private cloud or as a hybrid model., Dimension Data indicated. What's missing from that list? Microsoft Azure, of course. We wonder when the massive IT consulting firm will extend into IaaS management for customers...

2. Dell EMC CSP Partners: The next move in Dell EMC's partner program involves cloud services providers (CSPs). Stay tuned for more details today...

1. Top 50 MSPs for Amazon AWS: They're listed right here. Whom did we miss?

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.