5 things

5 Channel Partner Updates: 24 Nov 2015

Good morning, channel partners. Here are five technology updates, insights, news tips, rumors, gossip and plenty more to start your day for Tuesday, November 24, 2015.

Actually, today's update involves 11 items for VARs, managed services providers (MSPs) and cloud service providers (CSPs) to sip on.

11. New RMM Guru: Continuum Managed Services has named Swami Nathan as its new VP of engineering. He's based in Mumbai and will lead Continuum's RMM engineering staff. Nathan previously was VP of V2Solutions. He reports to John Mandel, senior VP of engineering. Continuum is expected to grow nearly 40 percent this year, sources estimate, as more MSPs consume a broader range of the company's RMM, NOC and data protection services.

Usula Burns
Ursula Burns

10. Xerox Under Pressure: Shareholder activist Carl Icahn has acquired a 7.1 stake in Xerox and may seek a boardroom seat at the struggling printer maker. Following a quarterly loss, CEO Ursula Burns back on Oct. 26 said the company was conducting a strategic review of its business. On the channel front, Xerox has been trying empower MSPs with managed print services, while also trying to transform copier dealers into MSPs. There are anecdotal success stories, but the managed print movement never quite became a channel tidal wave.

9. Central Services Pros and Cons: Is Google (um, Alphabet) becoming a bureaucracy? Here's one potential warning sign. Each arm of Alphabet (Google Fiber, Google Life Sciences, etc.) will be charged for using corporate services such as computing, recruiting and marketing, The Wall Street Journal reported. On the upside, Alphabet will be able to scale more quickly and will keep costs in check because it won't have to build and repeat mini-departments (i.e., marketing) across every business unit. On the downside, we've all seen big companies use this model -- and in some cases the business units could have sourced lower cost, higher quality services from outside providers...

8. Merging IoT Standards: In some ways, vendors like Apple, Cisco, Google and GE are expected to set their own Internet of Things (IoT) standards. In other ways, the world will lean on vendor-neutral standards bodies to define IoT interoperability. But... even the standards bodies, it seems, are set for a shake out. A case in point. The Open Interconnect Consortium (OIC) is acquiring UPnP Forum. Long live open standards... but not all the standard groups...

Dean Darwin

7. Dean Darwin Exits: Channel veteran Dean Darwin has resigned as senior VP of worldwide marketing at F5 Networks. It sounds like Darwin is taking a breather from the industry... but may emerge in early 2016 with something new...

6. Microsoft Bing Partner Program: Microsoft is launching a Big Ads Elite SMB Partner Program. The offering is mostly for digital ad agencies and marketing/advertising managers in small business. But we wonder: Will MSP-centric marketing agencies give the program a try? Memo to Managed Marketer, MindMatrix and Ulistic: Any interest in the Bing SMB Partner Program?

5. Rallying Around Encryption: Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Samsung and Twitter are rejecting calls for technology companies to weaken their encryption practices. The encryption debate arose again following the recent Paris terror attacks. Many government leaders allege that terror organizations are gaining the upper hand by using widely available encryption technologies. But technology companies say creating back doors to encryption services would actually give the bad guys more opportunities to exploit IT systems. Source: The Guardian.

4. Oracle Cloud Partner Exams: Want to sell and support Oracle Sales Cloud products? Oracle has launched two new exams to certify partner specialists in those areas...

3. On the Road Again: The LogicNow team is rallying MSPs this week at the Max 2015 UK Conference in Manchester. Director of Partner Community Dave Sobel, Service Leadership CEO Paul Dippell and Morris Management Principal Ryan Morris are educating MSPs about sales, marketing and business strategy for the year ahead...

2. Top 2016 Channel Events: Is your channel partner conference or summit listed on our ChannelE2E Events Calendar? More than 100 partner events are listed for 2016, 2017 and beyond. Visit the calendar do see current listings... and then submit yours for consideration.

1. Top 100 Technology Entrepreneurs: Our call for nominations continues. The ChannelE2E 100 will profile the top entrepreneurs, startups and exits across the IT channel for 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.