5 things

5 Channel Partner Updates: 7 February 2017

Good morning, channel partners. Here are five technology news updates, insights, chatter, and plenty more to start your day for Tuesday, February 7, 2017. Actually, there are 19 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… 19. David & Goliath Partnership?: Are AMD and Intel partnering on some key intellectual property? It sure sounds that way, according to HardOCP Editor Kyle Bennet. The alleged AMD-Intel partnership details are here. 18. Big Slice of Fujitsu for Sale: A major Fujitsu shareholder is looking to sell a $1 billion stake in the company. Here's why. 17. Amazon IaaS Market Share: Amazon apparently is running away with the IaaS market, according to recent analysis from Canalys.
Meg Whitman HPE CEO
Meg Whitman
Ginni Rometty Ginni Rometty
16. HPE, IBM CEO Bonuses: IBM and HP Enterprise are paying CEO bonuses to Ginni Rometty and Meg Whitman, respectively. IBM stock rose 21 percent in 2016, the first annual gain in four years, Bloomberg notes. HPE shares rose 53 percent in the past fiscal year following the Hewlett-Packard breakup, Bloomberg reports. Both IBM and HPE had layoffs in 2016. 15. Data Center Acquisition: CyrusOne Inc., a real estate investment trust (REIT) targeting data centers, has acquired two data centers from Sentinel Data Centers LLC for $490 million. The is expected to close in the first quarter of 2017. Track all M&A deals involving VARs, MSPs, CSPs and data center providers here. 14. Active Directory Security: One Identity, a former Dell company, has launched a new Active Roles version for hybrid Microsoft Active Directory (AD) environments. We're pursue more details from One Identity during the RSA Conference 2017 next week in San Francisco. 13. Microsoft Azure Price Cuts: Microsoft has slashed prices for Azure virtual machines and blob storage by up to 51 percent. Microsoft, Google and Amazon tend to slash pricing in response to each other... so stay tuned for more potential cuts...
Mark Weisman Mark Weisman
Julie Tolan Julie Tolan
12. Need a Virtual CFO?: You know about virtual CIO services as described by TruMethods and others. But what about virtual CFO services? Among the key players in the market: Mark Weisman and Julie Tolan have acquired LauberCFOs, which offers companies financial counsel through full-time interim assignments, full-time project work and search and placement for financial executives. The fractional CFO services help companies who need financial assistance but can’t afford or don’t need a full-time employee, BizTimes reports. 11. Oracle Cloud ISV: Qubole has launched its big data service in the Oracle Cloud, an important ISV win for Oracle's overall cloud strategy. 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. Cloud Partnership: NTT Communications has launched a strategic partnership with Virtustream and Dell Technologies. The trio plans to build multi-tenant cloud platforms for mission-critical applications, including large-scale SAP systems in Japan. Not by coincidence, Dell sold its IT services arm to NTT in 2016, and Dell acquired Virtustream as part of the EMC buyout. Virtusteam is an early SAP cloud leader, but Amazon has been giving chase.
stephen-difranco Stephen DiFranco
9. IoT Acquisition Expert: Former AMD, Lenovo and HP Channel Chief Stephen DiFranco is now principal at IoT Advisory Group. The company provides advisory, strategy and M&A services to companies planning a digital business model, identifying IoT acquisitions or creating a new go-to-market plan based on the internet of things. DiFranco spent plenty of time navigating the IoT market, most recently at Cypress and Broadcom. 8. Hillary Clinton's Email Server Revisited (Yet Again): Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group, is seeking Hillary Clinton emails and texts that the FBI apparently discovered on a backup system. As you'll recall, Platte River Networks (an MSP) leveraged Datto's backup technology to safeguard Clinton's email... 7. Should You Outsource Sales?: Before you answer check out this perspective. 6. Informatica Partner Program: Informatica, which specializes in data management solutions, has launched the Informatica Partner Program. The company is striving to work with value added distributors (VADs) and value added reseller (VAR) channel partners. 5. Epicor Partner Program:  Epicor Software Corp., a provider of industry-specific enterprise software, has updated its channel program in the Americas. 4. ClearDB Partner Program: ClearDB has launched its Cloud 1st Premier Partner Program. The program is tailored for Microsoft Cloud Service Providers (CSPs).I It offers partners the opportunity to grow consumption directly through a CSP’s Azure subscription and drive end-to-end customer engagement, the company asserts. 3. Walmoo Partner Program: Walmoo has launched a Partner Program for reseller channel partners worldwide. The Walmoo loyalty Partner Program helps resellers, systems integrators and service providers to market and deliver services for SMB retail businesses. 2. Hubspot Partner Program: HubSpot has launched the HubSpot Sales Referral Program, a new partnership opportunity for CRM implementation companies and sales consultants.
Ryan Hesske Ryan Hesske
1. Join Us: Want to monetize BDR (backup and disaster recovery) services without actually managing the BDR services on your own? Ryan Hesske, senior partner development manager at Continuum, will describe how you can do so during our March 16 webcast. Register now. 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.