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5 Channel Partner Updates: 30 November, 2016

Good morning, channel partners. Here are five technology news updates, insights, chatter, and plenty more to start your day for Wednesday, November 30, 2016. Actually, there are 21 entries (oh my!) 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.  HPE Punts on OpenStack: HP Enterprise has sold its OpenStack and Cloud Foundry assets to SUSE Linux. Not by coincidence, HPE has an investment in Micro Focus -- which also owns SUSE. The OpenStack cloud software market faces serious questions amid growing momentum for Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure. Mirantis -- the OpenStack company -- recently repositioned around additional  focus areas. And Rackspace stumbled badly with its Open Cloud (i.e., OpenStack) effort before moving on to managed services for AWS and Azure... 20. GoPro Layoffs: The wearable action camera company is cutting 15 percent of its staff and closing an entertainment unit. Feels like the Cisco Flip implosion all over again... 19. NAS Talent: Qumulo, which focuses on scale-out NAS, has named EMC Isilon veteran Bill Richter as its new CEO... Hmmm... 18. Distribution: Lifeboat Distribution has agreed to offer packaged DataCore and Supermicro hyperconverged solutions to its network of VARs and MSPs in North America. 17. One Million Android Malware Infections: Malicious software disguised as legitimate apps for Android smartphones and tablets has seized control of more than one million Google accounts since August, according to Check Point and The Wall Street Journal... 16. Splunk Momentum: Splunk delivered stronger-than-expected quarterly results yesterday and raised its long-term profit guidance. What's driving the momentum? Surely, the Splunk Channel Team deserves some credit. 15. Nutanix Growth: Nutanix, the hyperconverged and software defined technology specialist, continues to enjoy strong growth -- though Wall Street wants even faster growth... 14. Telecom M&A:Zayo Group is buying Electric Lightwave for $1.42 billion in cash to expand its fiber network. 13. Federal Cloud & Big Data Spending: Spending on federal cloud and big data initiatives is set to double between 2016 and 2021, according to DelTek. Hmmm... No doubt, the federal government's "cloud first" mandate continues to lift as-a-service spending. But can anybody truly predict how the federal IT budget will arrive once President-elect Donald Trump takes the oath of office? 12. Docker Channel Momentum: Avnet has agreed to distribute Docker in EMEA, the latest sign of growing channel momentum for the storage container technology. Docker launched a formalized partner program earlier this year and also has momentum with Synnex CloudSolv.

11. IoT at HPE Aruba: Aruba, an HP Enterprise company, has launched new security solutions, ecosystem partnerships, and wired infrastructure products to accelerate the Internet of Things market, the company said today.

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10. M&A: Syncsort is buying Trillium Software from Harte Hanks (from $112 million. Trillium’s data quality solutions and Syncsort’s data integration technology will "let enterprises harness all their data by applying high-performance and scalable data movement, transformation, profiling and quality across traditional data management tech stacks and emerging Hadoop and cloud environments," the companies assert.

9. IT Service Management 100: Here' the list. It's heavy on IT vendors. But if you're looking to further automate your business (who isn't?) then there might be some key names worth investigating... 8. Surface Phone Rumors: They're back, and the buzz around a rumored Microsoft Surface Phone is getting really loud. 7. Office 365 Service Level Agreements: Microsoft Office 365 achieved 99.99 percent availability in Q3 2016. That's about 53 minutes of unplanned downtime per year. Still think you can build and manage on-premises Exchange Servers match the cloud's reliability? 6. NaviSite and Office 365: NaviSite has won a major Office 365 migration and management deal, the latest sign that the midmarket MSP continues to embrace third-party SaaS management opportunities. 5. SMB IT Spending: Small businesses will spend a lot of money on IT over the next few years, according to new research. How's that for a vague description designed to make you click through to see the forecast numbers...? 4. Time to Certify "Valuation Experts"?: Plenty of coaches, pundits and media sites (ahem...) offer business valuation information. But over time, it sounds like valuation experts may need to get certified. In the meantime, you can visit our FAQ for MSP, VAR and CSP valuation information... 3. Equinix Partner Momentum: Equinix is quietly emerging as a hybrid cloud highway for midmarket and enterprise customers. MSPs and several major vendors are plugging into the Equinix strategy. We'll share more details soon... 2. Live Coverage: We continue to blog live from both Ingram Micro ONE and Amazon AWS re:Invent today in Las Vegas. Check both of those links for continued updates. 1. Thank You: Thanks to your readership, ChannelE2E achieved record monthly readership in November. The site continues to grow about 100 percent faster than any IT media site our team has previously launched. The credit, of course, goes to you. Thanks for visiting us daily amid your journey from Entrepreneur to Exit (E2E). 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.