5 things

5 Channel Partner Updates: 5 December 2016

Good morning, channel partners. Here are five technology news updates, insights, chatter, and plenty more to start your day for Monday, December 5, 2016. Actually, there are 20 timely 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… 20. Countering Online Hate Speech: U.S. tech giants including Facebook, Twitter, Google's YouTube and Microsoft will have to act faster to tackle online hate speech or face laws forcing them to do so, the European Commission said on Sunday, according to Reuters. 19. U.S. Government & Cybersecurity: A U.S. presidential commission has issued recommendations on cybersecurity. The 100-page document calls for the eventual transition away from passwords, and potential regulations that resemble nutrition labels -- describing the security posture of specific products. The Obama administration has asked the commission to brief President-elect Donald Trump's transition team at their earliest convenience. Ironically, former CIA Director Michael Hayden a few days ago said the U.S. government will always be late to the cybersecurity scene. 18. Bank Hack: Hackers stole more than US$31 million from the Russian central bank, the latest example of an escalation of cyber attacks on financial institutions around the globe. Separately, Russia said on Friday that it had uncovered a plot by foreign spy agencies to sow chaos in the country's banking system via a coordinated wave of cyber attacks and fake social media reports about banks going bust, Reuters reported. 17. Salesforce Moves to AWS: Portions of Salesforce.com's sales, marketing and CRM software will begin running on Amazon Web Services (AWS) in early 2017. The move, confirmed Friday, reinforces a Salesforce-to-Amazon strategy that the CRM giant announced back in May 2016. 16. Cloud vs. Corporate IT Security: Almost two thirds (60%) of UK business leaders believe the management of technology is shifting away from IT to other departments as more cloud services are adopted—resulting in some significant security trade-offs, according to VMware research analyzed by Infosecurity Magazine. Um... Exactly how is the cloud less secure than on-premises IT? 15. Cloud Security Management Tool: The Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) has launched the STARWatch application. The SaaS application is designed to help organizations manage compliance with CSA requirements. On the one hand, it sounds like a self-serving tool designed to drive up the CSA compliance's value. But on the other hand, service providers and end-customers certainly need help with their cloud security posture... 14. Wireless LAN Market: The combined consumer and enterprise worldwide wireless local area network (WLAN) market segments increased 1.8% year over year in the third quarter of 2016 (3Q16), and increased 6.7% on a sequential basis to finish at $2.47 billion, according to IDC. The enterprise WLAN segment grew 8.4% year over year in 3Q16 to finish at $1.45 billion, the second consecutive quarter of strong growth, IDC asserts. 13. Hello Again, Vembu: Our team covered Vembu quite a bit during the early days of managed services. More recently, the backup provider apparently has partnered up with Opex IT Group a "next-generation" distributor in the United Kingdom... 12. Microsoft Office 365 Backup: StorageCraft is the latest backup and disaster recovery (BDR) company to launch Office 365 protection services. Other key players focused on that opportunity include Datto Backupify, and Intronis MSP Solutions by Barracuda. 11. Cloud Storage Limits Squeeze Small Businesses: Dropbox, Google G Suite, Microsoft OneDrive and Apple iCloud each have pricing and service policies that allegedly "close the door on tiny businesses." ZDnet explains why...

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10. Data Center Managed Services: Zensar Technologies has launched some sort of managed services platform for corporate data centers -- though we're not quite clear on what it includes. But as the old saying goes: Where there's mystery there's margin... 9. Managed Services and Cisco Unified Communications: Stack8 plans to demonstrate new managed services for Cisco Unified Communications (UC) at Cisco Connect Montreal 2016 on December 7. 8. IT Monitoring for Sale: Ixia, a U.S. provider of equipment and applications that help maintain computer networks, is exploring a potential sale, Reuters says. Q3 revenue was $123.9 million, down from $125.9 million in Q3 last year, according to the most recent Ixia earnings report. 7. IT Services Acquisition: Information Services Group is acquiring Alsbridge for $74 million in cash, stock and debt. The deal pushes ISG deeper into IT vendor management services -- helping customers, for instance, to get their recurring OpEx spending under control. 6. Microsoft Channel Partner Acquisition: Columbus Global has acquired yet another Microsoft Dynamics 365 partner. Here are the details... 5. Top Tech Jobs 2017: What are the top 10 technology jobs for 2017? The list, from Robert Half, surfaced on Forbes. 4. ESOPs and Tax Breaks: So, you're exploring a potential Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) at your company. What are the potential tax advantages? Here are 10 of them. 3. Estate Valuation Tax Concerns: We told you in November 2016 that family owed businesses could face new estate planning challenges. Fast forward to present day, and you'll notice more pushback against the so-called estate tax valuation rules that some family-owned businesses may face. 2. Ingram Micro - Done Deal?: Ingram Micro's $6 billion sale to a Chinese logistics giant is expected to become official as soon as today, according to an SEC filing. 1. Help Wanted: Check the ChannelE2E Job Board for new positions across the IT channel and within VARs, MSPs and CSPs. Post a position to the job board and we'll promote it via ChannelE2E's social media challenges. 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.