Good morning, channel partners. Here are five technology news updates, insights, chatter, and plenty more to start your day for Friday, July 28, 2017.
Actually, there are 10 timely updates 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:
10. Content Sharing and Security: CTERA has launched version 6.0 of its secure content access platform, which is designed for corporate users and branch office environments. The new release enables workers to securely access, share and protect an unlimited number of files in the cloud as if they were stored locally on their desktop or on shared network drives, the company claims.
9. M&A - Hyperconverged Infrastructure (HCI): Hive-IO has acquired some software-defined storage technology from Atlantis Computing. Our spin? It sounds like a fire sale in the hyperconverged technology market. We're certainly not knocking the deal. Fire sales can be a great place to find tuck-tin technology at low valuations.
8. M&A - Smart Homes: Struggling smart home platform Wink has been acquired by lifestyle and technology company, i.am+, The Verge reported.
7. Amazon Earnings: Alas, Amazon's quarterly profits were way short of Wall Street's expectations, according to results announced yesterday. But don't weep for Jeff Bezos and company. After all, Amazon Web Services revenue grew 42 percent to $4.1 billion. Yowzers. Also, Amazon has a habit of dialing up -- or down -- its marketing spend based on company mood swings from quarter to quarter, and that can greatly impact profitability....
6. Intel Earnings: Intel's latest quarterly earnings were better than expected as PC sales actually improved a bit. Overall, according to Baron's, Intel's division selling chips for PCs, "Client computing," saw sales rise 12% from the prior-year period to $8.2 billion. Server-chip sales were up 9% at $4.4 billion, the Internet of Things group was up 26% any $720 million, the memory-chip business was up 58% at $874 million, and "programmable solutions" was down 5%.
5. DRaaS: PhoenixNAP, a global IT services provider and VMware partner, has added DoubleTake replication to its portfolio of Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) solutions. We're checking to see if that's the DoubleTake technology now owned by Carbonite.
4. Distribution - IoT: Arrow has agreed to distribute Intwine Connect's broadband backup and Internet of Things (IoT) products and services.
3. Autotask RMM Upgrade: Autotask has upgraded its RMM (remote monitoring and management) software for MSPs and IT service providers (ITSPs). We'll share more thoughts soon.
2. IT Service Desks: Milestone AV Technologies, a provider of mounting and display solutions for various audiovisual technologies, has selected TOPdesk’s cloud-based service management (ITSM) software for the company's information service desk procedures, internal operations and change management sequences, the companies say.
1. Join Microsoft, CompTIA and ChannelE2E: Attending ChannelCon? Join CompTIA CEO Todd Thibodeaux and me for a main-stage luncheon interview with Alyssa Fitzpatrick, general manager of worldwide channel sales at Microsoft. The session, set for 11:45 a.m. on Tuesday, will explore Microsoft's partner program evolution and next moves for ChannelCon attendees.
