Content, 5 things

5 Channel Partner Updates: Monday 18 September 2017

Good morning, channel partners. Here are five technology news updates, insights, chatter, and plenty more to start your day for Monday, September 18, 2017.

Actually, there are 12 timely updates designed 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.

12. Milestone: Milnsbridge Managed IT Services, which supports customers in Western Sydney, Australia, is celebrating its 15th anniversary with a new website and a range of gifts and prizes. Clients can receive free double pass movie tickets as part of the company's new referral program, and followers can win a new Google Home as part of their Facebook promotion. For a limited time only, new clients can also receive a free mini Samsung tablet. Founder and Director Adrian Weir, started the company 15 years ago from the corner of his sunroom, the company says. His vision has always been about delivering professional IT Support, enjoyed by larger companies, but deploying the same corporate skills, knowledge, discipline and support practices to help smaller businesses who embrace technology.

11. Hurricane Harvey Recovery: IS&T, an MSP that manages more than 700 customer endpoints in the Houston area, has been working closely with Continuum to maintain IT services and customer support before, during and after the storm. Indeed, IS&T leveraged Continuum’s Help Desk service to handle basic service requests, allowing the IS&T team to focus on critical, complex issues for their clients such as virtualizing, setting up VPNs, and restoring data, the companies say. We'll potentially share more detail soon.

10. Honored: Managed Sales Pros, which provides sales acceleration services in the IT channel, is ranked on the Startup 50 -- a list of Canada's top new growth companies.

9. Field Service Software: Coresystems has launched Coresystems Now, a mobile self-service portal designed to streamline field service processes. With Coresystems Now, organizations and their customers can reduce the time and costs associated with traditionally manual field service processes, resulting in improved customer retention rates.  

8. Managed IoT Services: Nitel, a nationwide managed telecom service provider, has upgraded its network infrastructure to support next-generation technologies including IoT, cloud and mobility solutions, the company asserts.

7. Microsoft vs. City of Louisville: The City of Louisville is locked in a software usage dispute with Microsoft. The software giant claims the city has been using lots of Microsoft software without properly licensing and paying for the products. Amid the controversy, a city IT leader resigned in recent weeks -- though no reason for his departure was given.

6. SMB Accounting Errors: What are the most common accounting errors in small business? Intuit's small business accountant survey providers these answers...

5. M&A - MSPs: Vertical Solutions (VSI), a Microsoft Gold Certified Cloud and MSP, has acquired Warp 8 Inc., an IT technology consulting company based in Arvada, Colorado. The deal allows Vertical Solutions to expand its reach into Denver.

4. M&A - Data Centers: Digital Realty and DuPont Fabros have completed their $7.8 billion data center business merger. Digital Realty supports the data center, colocation and interconnection strategies of more than 2,300 throughout North AmericaEuropeAsia and Australia. 

SonicWall CEO Bill Conner
SonicWall CEO Bill Conner

3. SonicWall Mulling Acquisitions: SonicWall's expansion plan includes scenarios in which the company can build, partner or acquire its way into new markets, CEO Bill Conner tells ChannelE2E. So what else are SonicWall and Conner up to? We'll share more details soon...

2. Small Business Ownership Gap: What if thousands of Baby Boomer business owners want to sell their companies... but Millennials don't want to buy? Forbes looks at the potential ownership crisis here.

1. Autotask Community Live: Our live blogs from the conference are here.

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.