Content, 5 things

5 Channel Partner Updates: Monday 17 December 2018

Here are five technology news updates, insights, chatter, and plenty more to start your day for Monday, December 17, 2018.

Actually, there are 14 timely updates designed for managed services providers (MSPs), cloud services providers (CSPs), IT consulting firms, systems integrators, VARs, independent software vendors (ISVs), telco master agents, and telco agents to sip on. Take a look:

14. McAfee for Sale?: Private equity firm Thoma Bravo may acquire McAfee from TPG Capital and Intel Corp, multiple sources have said in recent days.

13. GE Exits Pivotal: A General Electrics investment arm has sold its $98 million state in Pivotal Software, the cloud software development company with close ties to Dell Technologies. Pivotal is growing, but GE needs to raise cash and strengthen its balance sheet to offset business missteps over the past decade or more. The Pivotal exit came the same week that GE announced plans to sell its ServiceMax business and spin off certain IoT assets.

12. Internet2 & Cloud Services: Internet2 and National Science Foundation(NSF) are partnering to coordinate the use of Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google Cloud Platform for scientific computing research, AP reports.

11. Partner Relationship Management: TeamViewer, the remote support and remote access software company, has standardized on Impartner's Partner Relationship Management (PRM) platform. Impartner's software now supports more than 2,000 channel partners and 60 distributors for TeamViewer.

10. Distribution - SD-WANs: Westcon-Comstor has agreed to distribute Infovista's SD-WAN solutions.

9. Oracle Multi-Cloud Management: Explorer and Equinix have launched an architecture and managed service for Oracle hybrid cloud customers in the UK. The effort, called OCEAN, stands for Oracle Cloud, Enterprise Architecture & Networking. Explorer is an Oracle Platinum partner. And Equinix is a data center and interconnection provider.

8. Earnings: Oracle and Red Hat each are expected to announce earnings results today (Monday, December 17). Wall Street will closely study Oracle's cloud revenues -- which are growing but have struggled to keep pace against Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure. Also, investors want to measure Red Hat's performance as IBM prepares to finalize the Red Hat buyout.

7. Box and Google Docs: Google Docs, Sheets and Slides are now deeply integrated into Box, the file sync and sharing service.

6. Business Continuity: Databarracks, a UK-based business continuity and IT disaster recovery provider, has embraced Rubrik for various data protection services.

5. Managed Services - Container Software: Mirantis has added a managed Kubernetes service to its portfolio specifically designed for on-premises IT environments with a slight twist, Container Journal reports.

4. Small Business GDPR Challenges: Small business owners still clueless about GDPR (general data protection regulation), and at risk of huge fines, according to this report.

3 . SMB Loans - Warning Sign?: Approvals of loan applications from small business owners reached post-recession high mark (26.9%) at big banks (assets of $10 billion+), while small banks granted more than half of the small business funding requests they received in November 2018, according to the latest Biz2Credit Small Business Lending Index, Forbes reports...

2. M&A - Data Centers: Carter Validus REIT Management has acquired a data center in Hartford, Connecticut for $5.2 million, Data Center Dynamics reports

1. How Much Is Your Business Worth?: Find out during our next ChannelE2E webcast

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.