Good morning, channel partners. Here are five technology news updates, insights, chatter, and plenty more to start your day for Thursday, July 27, 2017.
Actually, there are 11 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:
11. Finally Getting Married: Mitel is finally acquiring ShoreTel after years of on again/off again discussions...
10. Distribution Deal: Ingram Micro has agreed to distribute 8x8's cloud communications and contact center solutions.
9. Seagate Layoffs: Seagate is cutting staff and shifting to a new CEO amid lagging storage sales -- particularly in the enterprise market segment.
8. Calling All Bug Hunters: Microsoft has launched a Windows Bounty Program, offering awards of up to $250,000 for bug hunters that find issues with the company's operating system.
7. Cloud Cost Management: RightScale has launched Optima, a cloud cost management solution for Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform and IBM. It sounds like RightScale will compete with Kaseya Unigma and Microsoft Cloudyn in the crowded market for tools that bring cloud costs under control.
6. Office 365 Alternative?: Zoho has combined all of its SaaS applications into a new suite for SMBs called Zoho One. It's designed to disrupt Office 365, Google G Suite, Salesforce and more. We'll share more details soon.
5. Office 365 Partner: Logicalis US, the major MSP, has expanded its Microsoft CSP program.
4. Amazon Earnings: Amazon is set to announce its most recent quarterly earnings sometime today. Will Amazon Web Services continue its winning streak? We'll be watching.
3. Remote Monitoring Giant?: Quick. Name the biggest company in the remote monitoring and performance monitoring market. Instead of naming a vendor, perhaps you should have mentioned a private equity firm. After all, Thoma Bravo's portfolio in performance monitoring includes Compuware, Continuum, Dynatrace, Empirix, Infogix, Riverbed and Solarwinds. Hmmm...
2. Big PSA Investments: FinancialForce, which develops a PSA and cloud ERP platform for Salesforce, plans to rapidly expand its software development teams... FinancialForce has caught our attention multiple times -- particularly in the midmarket, where IT consulting firms have been standardizing on the company's business management software.
1. Today's Black Hat Meetings: MSSP Alert, our sister site, is set to meet with Armis (IoT security), Cylance, eSentire (managed detection and response), Sophos and Webroot. Track all of MSSP Alert's Black Hat conference coverage here.
