Good morning, channel partners. Here are five technology news updates, insights, chatter, and plenty more to start your day for Friday, March 31, 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 chew on.
15. Dell EMC Earnings: Dell Technologies had a $1.7 billion loss operating loss in Q4, amid rising PC component prices and pressure from public cloud services. Still, CFO Tom Sweet says Dell is "generally on track" with where the company thought it would be at this point. Dell acquired EMC for $67 billion last year, creating a hardware-centric data center giant. What about OpEx, recurring revenue and financing opportunities for partners? Actually, we're working on that story right now. Stay tuned for more details in a few days...
14. Security Win: Cylance and cStor have won an endpoint protection and cybersecurity deal with the state of Arizona. The initial phase is expected to be completed in the spring of 2017.
13. European Compliance: Panda Security has developed a preparation guide for GDPR -- the General Data Protection Regulation. GDPR regulations, approved by the European Parliament and Council, will begin to be enforced May 25, 2018.
12. IoT Partnership: Fujitsu and VMware are partnering to develop and promote Internet of Things (IoT) solutions for connected cars and autonomous driving.
11. Microsoft IoT Europe: Microsoft is launching an IoT lab in Munich. The company already has IoT labs in Redmond, Washington and Shenzhen, China. The move comes amid reports that European executives are outpacing their American counterparts on IoT investments.
10. M&A - IoT: Progress has completed the DataRPM buyout. Progress gains cognitive predictive maintenance technology for the industrial IoT (IIoT) market.
9. IoT Funding: Pepper, an IoT platform and service provider, has raised $8.5 million in Series B funding.
8. Acronis Growth: Acronis Backup Cloud bookings are growing more than 100 percent year over year, and more than 15,000 devices were added to the system in the past 30 days, the company asserts.
7 . Distribution: Westcon-Comstor has agreed to distribute Embrava’s Blynclight and Lumena product lines. The status light and headset offerings automatically sync to Skype for Business, Cisco Jabber, Ring Central, Cisco Finesse, Skype and CounterPath Bria.
6. Oracle Cloud Compliance: Oracle Cloud has achieved certifications and attestations for ISO 27001, HIPAA, SOC1 and SOC2 for a number of core services. Administered by Schellman & Co., these certifications address such areas as security, availability, processing integrity and privacy. Oracle's SaaS and PaaS platforms have been growing rapidly, but the company's IaaS offering remains a distant player behind Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure.
5. Oracle Partner Program: Infosys has achieved Cloud Elite status in the Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN). The designation arrives as Infosys and other India-based IT outsourcing firms attempt to navigate outsourcing pushback from the Trump administration.
4. ESOP Conference: So, you're trying to transition your business to an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP). Need tips? Check out next week's NCEO 2017 -- the employee ownership conference. It's hosted by the National Center for Employee Ownership. We'll be sure to track conference highlights...
3. Dropbox IPO?: Dropbox Inc. is opening a $600 million credit facility from six banks led by JPMorgan Chase & Co., said people familiar with the plans, as the cloud file-sharing startup pushes toward an IPO as soon as this year, Bloomberg reported. Rival Box is already public. And channel-centric offerings like Autotask Workplace, Datto Drive and eFolder Anchor continue to pursue MSPs.
2. A Channel Giant Retires: Steve Raymond, CEO of Tech Data from 1986 to 2006, is retiring from the distributor's board of directors. Current CEO Bob Dutkowsky will succeed Raymond as chairman.
1. Last Call: There's still time to complete our Top 100 Vertical Market MSPs survey. But the survey closes today at 23:59:59 eastern... or just before April 1 arrives in New York. Participate now and your MSP could be ranked and honored when we unveil results and research on April 27.
Bonus: Thanks for your readership. Our site traffic set yet another record during March. ChannelE2E is still the fastest-growing IT media site we've ever built. We can't make that claim without your constant feedback and daily visits.
