Good morning, channel partners. Here are five technology news updates, insights, chatter, and plenty more to sip on for Friday, April 8, 2016.
Actually, there are 14 entries for VARs, managed services providers (MSPs), cloud services providers (CSPs) and independent software vendors (ISVs) to sip on.
14. Is Managed Services Killing DevOps?: That's the thesis from Andrey Akselrod CTO and co-founder of Smartling. I'm not sure I agree. But it's an interesting read.
13. IoT Coke Machines: Keep an eye on U-Select-It. The company's Greenlite technology allows vending machine owners and operators to remotely change product pricing in real-time. U-Select-It has also been promoting remote monitoring and management of vending machines, working closely with technology companies like Cantaloupe Systems. The technology ties back to recent comments from CompTIA President Todd Thibodeaux, who described retail IoT trends in ChannelE2E Podcast Episode 065.
12. SMB Managed Services In India: The market for SMB managed services in India will reach $1.6 billion in 2016, and will grow 34 percent annually for the next three years, according to AMI-Partners. Also of interest: Roughly 30 percent of India's SMB IT services spending pie involves remote managed services, and that figure will likely grow, the research firm said. Reality Check: Still, breaking into the India market can be difficult. Kaseya attempted to do it several years ago, partnering with Tata Consultancy Services in 2009 (Hmmm... I think I know the guy who broke that story all those years ago...). But I don't think the partnership ever gained critical mass.
11. Nokia Networking Layoffs: As part of a plan to cut $1 billion in costs, Nokia seems poised to make big layoffs in its networking business (aka Alcatel-Lucent). Anybody else remember when Lucent was an R&D powerhouse that led the optical networking hype curve? Up to 15,000 of Nokia's 104,000 workers could be cut, Bloomberg estimates.
10. Amazon Cloud CEO: Amazon has promoted Andy Jassy to CEO of Amazon Web Services (AWS). Jassy's name and leadership are synonymous with AWS's 10-year march from an internal startup to a $10 billion cloud business. Some pundits think Jassy is on the short list of potential successors for Jeff Bezos -- though Bezos has no near-term plans to retire.
9. Adobe Flash and Ransomware: Adobe has issued an emergency fix for Flash, after a security hole led to some cases of ransomware on Windows 10 computers.
8. Healthcare and Ransomware: As much as 75 percent of U.S. hospitals responding to a poll this week could have been hit with ransomware in the last year, according to the new Healthcare IT News and HIMSS Analytics Quick HIT Survey. Hmmm... The figure sounds inflated to me. But there's no doubt ransomware could become an epidemic if left unchecked...
7. Bidding Countdown: Yahoo has given potential suitors until April 18 to submit bids for the Internet company. Funny, but I wasn't sure how to describe Yahoo -- a search company? Media company? Content aggregator? Hmmm... Perhaps that lack of definition is exactly the problem.
6. Startup Funding Sinks: Startup funding deals have fallen to their lowest levels in four years. Venture capitalists made fewer bets in Q1 2016, down 12 percent from Q4 2015 -- when funding began to slow, according to Pitchbook.
5. Ricoh and Microsoft Azure: Ricoh Australia is working more and more closely with Microsoft Azure, introducing a range of IT services tied to Microsoft's cloud service. My question: Does Ricoh have similar plans for its mindSHIFT business in the United States?
4. Help Wanted Part I: New job openings at ChannelEyes and Wolf Consulting are now listed on the ChannelE2E Job Board. (Thanks to Jay McBain and Lloyd Wolf for their respective career entries.) Check those and dozens of additional listings out. Or post your company's job openings. The ChannelE2E Job Board is free for channel-friendly companies.
3. Help Wanted Part II: Aspiring blogger with awesome work ethic. Slackers need not apply. Send your pitch to [email protected].
2. Hello Again: What do Elliot Markowitz and Kendra Lee have in common? Hmmm... We'll roll out the answers in the hours and days ahead.
1. See You There: A reminder. ChannelE2E is attending Ingram Micro Cloud Summit (April 11-13, Phoenix, Arizona). Send me email if you'd like to potentially catch up at the show ([email protected]).
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