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5 Channel Partner Updates: Thursday 08 March 2018

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Good morning, channel partners. Here are five technology news updates, insights, chatter, and plenty more to start your day for Thursday, March 8, 2018.

Actually, there are 17 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…

17. Apple Investigation: Apple has found a higher number of serious violations of its labor and environmental policies for suppliers, such as falsifying work hours data, as it expanded the scope of its annual audit of conditions of workers making its iPhones and other products, Reuters says.

16. SAP Investigation: SAP found compliance breaches and “indications of misconduct” in $50 million of public sector deals in South Africa involving the Guptas, friends of former president Jacob Zuma accused of corruption, Reuters reports.

15. SnapChat Layoffs: Snapchat parent Snap Inc is laying off nearly 10 percent of its engineering team, or about 100 people, CNBC reports

14. Distribution - Earnings: Tech Data's net sales were $11.1 billion in Q4 2018, up 49 percent compared to the prior-year quarter. At first glance, the huge jump is a bit misleading, since much of the gain involves revenue from the Avnet Technology Solutions acquisition. But take a closer look and you'll notice that revenues were $520 million higher than Wall Street expected, according to SeekingAlpha. We'll likely share more thoughts later today.

13. Log Management: Datadog Log Management is now generally available. Customers and MSPs can now enrich, monitor, and analyze logs from all their systems for troubleshooting, auditing, visualization, and alerting, the company says. Datadog, a fast-growing startup, also offers cloud-scale application performance monitoring (APM) and infrastructure monitoring.

12. Cloud, Software Market Analysis: The NPD Group has launched a U.S. B2B Software and Cloud Tracking Service. The new service includes distributor and reseller sales information for B2B software, which covers business applications sold on a standalone basis, as a service, or sold with hardware; as well as cloud platform services, which encompass the delivery of cloud computing resources and the associated applications used to integrate into cloud environments. Categories covered in this service include, security, storage & data protection, business applications, database & app development, IT operations & networking, and cloud services. We'll be watching for updates...

11. M&A - Document Management: Conga, which specializes in Intelligent Document Automation, has acquired Octiv, a provider of web-based document solutions.

Continue to page two of two for today's items 10 to 1.

Welcome to page two of two. Here are today's items 10 to 1.

10. Cisco SD-WANs: Cisco today introduced two SD-WAN enhancements:

  • Cisco SD-WAN vAnalytics provide IT with visibility, forecasting for applications and bandwidth planning, “what-if” scenarios, and actionable recommendations, the company says.
  • Cisco Meraki Insight helps IT administrators optimize the end user experience by providing valuable understanding into WAN and SaaS application performance, significantly reducing the time it takes to isolate and resolve issues, the company asserts.

9. VMware Cloud on AWS Certification: AHEAD, a provider IT consulting and enterprise cloud solutions, has achieved the VMware Cloud on AWS Solution Competency. VMware announced the competency yesterday. Presidio, a midmarket IT solutions provider, has also earned the competency. 

8. Data Protection for WaaS: Druva has introduced a data management services for Wipro’s LiVE Workspace suite of offerings.

7. Momentum: Unitrends DRaaS now protects 10X more machines compared to this tim this year, CEO Paul Brady says. Sounds impressive, but we don't have the actual figures, so we can't put the momentum in context. In addition to an enterprise business continuity push, Unitrends has been building out an MSP-focused partner program. That includes a recent integration with Kaseya. We'll share more details soon.

6. MSP Automation: Nerdio, an IT automation specialist, unveiled new features to help MSPs drive even greater operational efficiency -- allowing technical leads to hand off lower value/simpler tasks without risking access to critical settings. MSPs can now assign up to 4 different roles for managing complete customer IT environments:

  • Admin: Full access to all modules
  • Tier 2 Support: Full access to manage other IT admin users & customer accounts; no access to billing information, no ability to buy additional users, storage, or vRAM for customers
  • Tier 1 Support: Limited access to customer accounts to manage Users, Groups, and Shared Mailboxes
  • Billing: Access to view invoices and manage payment details.

5. MSP Momentum: RigNet, a Top 100 Vertical Market MSP for 2018, says Q4 2018 revenue was $56.8 million, up $4.1 million from the corresponding quarter last year. The growth is impressive considering RigNet's core managed services market -- offshore oil rigs and the energy sector -- has been under intense pressure.

4. SMB Financing: -Veem, a global payments platform that leverages blockchain, has partnered with BlueVine. The deal will allow Veem’s U.S.-based clients to finance their cross-border and domestic payments, and get access to working capital for everyday business expenses, the companies assert.

3. MSP Sales Training: GreatAmerica Financial Services and Collabrance are launching a Sales Simplicity Seminar series for MSPs and office technology dealers that are moving into managed IT services. CharTec CEO Alex Rogers will lead the training seminars.

2. Skills Training: TeamLogic IT has embraced IT-Ready, a charitable training and career placement programs. The move seeks to narrow the U.S. IT skills gap. IT-Ready is administered by Creating IT Futures, the tech workforce charity of CompTIA.org.

1. Succession Planning: Principal Financial Group is striving to help small business owners develop succession plans. Much of the focus involves ESOP (Employee Stock Ownership Plan) guidance.

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.