5 things

5 Channel Partner Updates: 3 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 Friday, February 3, 2017. Actually, there are 21 finely crafted entries 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… 21. Tracking Oracle Customers: Whether you partner or compete with Oracle, check out the new Oracle Applications User Group blog. The OAUG blog, which is independent of Oracle, could emerge as a great way to track trends and discussions across the Oracle customer ecosystem... 20. $3.2 Million HIPAA Fine -- The Details: Sure, it's easy write a headline that mentions a huge HIPAA fine. But what about the nitty-gritty details -- explaining the missteps that triggered the fine? For that type of analysis, check out Government InfoSecurity's analysis of a massive $3.2 million HIPAA fine that just surfaced. Hats off to journalist Marianne Kolbasuk McGee, one of my former peers at InformationWeek more years ago than I'd care to disclose. 19. M&A: Cloud Direct has acquired communications specialist AlwaysOn Group (AOG) as it embarks on an “exciting time of high growth," Business Sale Report says. We'll share more thoughts shortly. 18. ESOP Light?: Perhaps you're thinking about selling your company to your employees. One potential option is an ESOP (Employee Stock Ownership Plan). But have you ever heard about an ESOP Light? Neither had I until I spotted an article about the so-called ESOP Light approach. 17. Avaya Bonuses vs. Bankruptcy: Amid the recent Avaya chapter 11 bankruptcy filing, a trustee is questioning Avaya's $50 million bonus and severance plan. Meanwhile, Avaya pension plan participants continue to watch the bankruptcy closely, hoping their pensions aren't impacted.
Jay Wampold
Jay Wampold
16. Talent, Part 1: Qumulo has hired AWS and Chef veteran Jay Wampold as VP of marketing. The move follows Qumulo's recent appointments of Bill Richter as CEO and Eric Scollard as VP of worldwide sales. More than 100 enterprise customers leverage Qumulo with their mission-critical workflows, the company says. 15. PSA-RMM Integration: ComputicatePSA has integrated with Panorama9, a remote monitoring and management (RMM) platform provider. The integration between Panorama9 and ComputicatePSA takes MSPs just five minutes to configure, the companies claim. 14. Talent, Part II: TierPoint, a national provider of hybrid IT solutions with 39 data centers in 20 US markets serving 5000 customers, has named Terry Morrison as its CTO. 13. SnapChat IPO?: Just how fast is ShapChat growing ahead of its potential IPO? Recode has the details.
Justin Noller Justin Noller
12. Talent, Part III: Intelisys, a ScanSource company, has hired Justin Noller as channel manager for its Northeast Region. He'll support partners in New York and New Jersey. Noller reports to Justin Marano, director of partner sales for the northeast region. Noller's previous positions included partner- and service-provider centric rolls at Comcast, inContact and Kingcom, one of Verizon’s largest platinum partners, as Enterprise Channel Manager. ScanSource acquired Intelisys in August 2016. 11. Microsoft's Request to President Trump: Microsoft has proposed a program to U.S. President Donald Trump's administration allowing people from seven predominantly Muslim nations to enter and leave the United States on business or family emergency travel if they hold valid work or student visas and have not committed any crimes, Reuters reported. But wait. More content awaits you on page 2. Proceed to page two now and sip up the remaining items... Welcome to page two. Enjoy a second serving of channel content -- items 10 to 1 -- here. 10. Software Acquisitions and President Trump: The software industry went on a shopping spree in 2016, and this year could be even busier, bolstered by the new president’s policies and what one analyst suggests could be a major deal by Google, according to Bloomberg. Hmmm... let's just be careful of the hype. Amid lots of M&A activity involving VARs, MSPs and CSPs last year, the overall M&A market involving Technology, Media and Telco companies actually declined from 2015's record, according to Mergermarkets. 9. Apple Watch Sales: Apple sold 5.2 million Apple Watches in Q4 2016, according to Strategy Analytics. Although Apple doesn't disclose smartwatch sales figures, CEO Tim Cook recently told analysts that Q4 2016 was the best quarter yet for the smartwatch. Still, investors have mixed views on the overall smartwatch market, according to Barron's. 8. Barracuda Backup: Barracuda has refreshed the Barracuda Backup appliance platform, with updated units available immediately to customers at no increase in the list price. Memo to Barracuda: Next time mention potential synergies with the Intronis MSP Solutions division... 7. IT Certification: Military veterans can now use their GI Bill (and other veteran's benefits) to cover their tuition costs for online I.T. Certification training courses from MyComputerCareer.edu. 6. Cloud Services Management: Unigma has added support for Microsoft CSP partners as well as Azure EA agreements. The company offers a unified cloud management platform that supports Azure, Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud Platform.
Mike Gold Mike Gold
5. Intermedia Acquisition Finalized: Madison Dearborn's buyout of Intermedia, announced in 2016, is now official. Intermedia CEO Mike Gold is quick to describe the deal's potential benefits to channel partners. “Our partnership with Madison Dearborn further strengthens our channel ecosystem and capabilities," he said. "In this next chapter, Intermedia plans to increase investments across nearly every sales function – from inbound and field sales to sales enablement and engineering, and business and partner development.” Gold previewed Intermedia's 2017 strategy in this ChannelE2E interview. 4. Big Data Partners: Pitney Bowes is deploy geospatial processing and data quality solutions to end users on top of Cloudera Enterprise. The move comes as Cloudera and its rivals broaden their footprints beyond the Hadoop big data software platform.

 3. Security Integration: ProtectWise, a network security company, and Phantom, which develops a community-powered security automation and orchestration platform, have inked an integration partnership. With the ProtectWise-Phantom solution, customers will get streamlined and automated end-to-end incident management, along with full-fidelity forensics to fill the knowledge gap in incident response, the companies assert.

2. Grade Your Channel Partner Program: Allbound, which develops a Partner Sales Acceleration solution, has launched myChannelScore, a free online assessment for CEOs, sales executives, and channel leaders to establish a baseline for channel program performance, and to help channel operators set priorities for accelerating recurring revenue through partner programs, the company says. 1. Channel Partner Program Database: Metadata Technologies (CRM for real estate professionals) and RISC Networks (infrastructure analytics) are the newest additions to ChannelE2E's Partner Program Database. More than 100 channel-centric companies are listed in the database. Is yours? If not, submit here. 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.