Good mid-morning, channel partners. Here are five technology news updates, insights, chatter, and plenty more to sip on for Thursday, May 5, 2016.
Actually, there are 17 entries for VARs, managed services providers (MSPs), cloud services providers (CSPs) and independent software vendors (ISVs) to sip on. Take a look...
Mergers, Acquisitions, Funding...
17. MSP M&A: Endurance IT Services has acquired the IT division of Doran Consulting Technology Group. Endurance IT specializes in managed services and IT infrastructure. The acquisition adds web, data and SharePoint expertise to Endurance's IT services portfolio.
16. Retail Technology M&A: Veras Retail has acquired JDA Store Point of Sale, JDA Win/DSS Point-of-Sale and JDA CRM solutions. The moves allow Veras Retail to "help retailers maximize profitability and provide a meaningful shopping experience to consumers. JDA's technology supports intelligent store logistics, among other capabilities. Financial terms were not disclosed.
15. SMB Marketing Gets Funded: OutboundEngine, an automated marketing platform that helps small business owners uncover the best sales opportunities in their networks, has raised $16 million in Series C funding led by Austin-based S3 Ventures.
MSP Developments...
14. MSP Suites: Intronis MSP Solutions, owned by Barracuda Networks, has pushed beyond cloud backup. The company now offers Barracuda Essentials for Office 365, a suite of cloud services that combines email security, archiving, and backup in a single solution. And as ChannelE2E reported, Intronis will soon offer network security subscription services to MSPs...
13. MSP Security Services, Part I: Continuum has launched a Cybersecurity Sales Success Kit for its MSP partners. The kit helps MSPs to promote managed security services, increasingly in demand for SMBs with ransomware being a pressing concern, the company asserts.
12. MSP Security Services, Part II: BlackStratus, which develops CYBERShark security and compliance technology for SMBs and large enterprises, now integrates with Autotask, and will attend Autotask Community Live 2016 in September.
11. RMM for IoT: In a big win with a U.S. manufacturer, HMS Networks AB will provide remote monitoring and control of diesel powered generators as part of a contract with $1.5 million for 2016. HSM specializes in communications technology for industrial automation.
Cloud Services...
10. Amazon vs Microsoft Cloud Revenues: Microsoft's cloud revenues are growing fast, but not fast enough to close the gap vs. Amazon Web Services, according to Barron's. And as we've pointed out: Microsoft's cloud margins are falling even as the company's cloud revenues rise...
9. Falling Cloud Revenues: CenturyLink's cloud services and hosting revenues fell during the company's most recent quarter, according to financial results released yesterday. Plus, CenturyLink continues to evaluate whether to sell its co-location business, company officials said during an earnings call. We'll share more details later today.
8. Unique SMB Cloud Strategy: GoDaddy described more of its SMB cloud strategy during an earnings call yesterday. The effort involves an emerging category of software developers. We've got the details and we'll share them sometime today.
7. Regional Cloud Services: Consolidated Communications, a Cisco Gold Partner, has launched cloud services offerings in Sacramento, California; Dallas, Texas; Houston, Texas; Kansas City, Missouri; Mattoon, Illinois; and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Consolidated's Cloud Services include Unified Communications, Cloud Compute, Data Protection and Cloud WiFi, the company said.
Even More...
6. IT Service Management: Zendesk has hired VMware veteran Bryan Cox as its first chief revenue officer. The company also recruited Gap veteran Tom Keiser as its CIO. . Zendesk has more than 75,000 paid customer accounts across 150 countries and territories, the company says.
5. VMware NSX Pricing: VMware continues to make major moves with its NSX network virtualization product lineup. The latest push involves entry-level pricing that could entice more customers onto the platform, though there are also some price hikes. NSX sales played a big role in VMware's better-than-expected Q1 results. New partner program initiatives set for later this year will further highlight NSX, Channel Chief Ross Brown told ChannelE2E in April.
4. Hyperconverged Data Centers: The market for hyperconverged integrated systems (HCIS) will grow 79 percent to reach almost $2 billion in 2016, propelling it toward mainstream use in the next five years, according to Gartner. In a jargon-filled description of the trend, Gartner said: "Ultimately, the underlying infrastructure will disappear to become a malleable utility under the control of software intelligence and automated to enable IT as a service (ITaaS) to business, consumer, developer and enterprise operations." Um... good to hear "malleable utility" technology is on the way. CIOs are begging for it...
3. Quote of the Day: "Ransomware is about backups." In other words, managed backup services can help customers to remain online even if ransomware infects production systems...
2. Next Stop: ChannelE2E will attend Lenovo Accelerate 2016, the company's partner summit, next week in Orlando. Want to potentially meet? Send Joe Panettieri an email ([email protected]).
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