Good morning, channel partners. Here are five technology news updates, insights, chatter, and plenty more to start your day for Thursday, September 28, 2017.
Actually, there are 13 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.
13. IBM Watson Concerns: IBM CEO Ginny Rometty describes the company's cognitive computing strategy and addresses questions about Watson in this interview with BusinessWeek.
12. Alleged Theft From Ingram Micro: Police have arrested a man who allegedly stole $38,000 worth of smartphones from his employer, Ingram Micro, according to WDRB, a media site in Louisville, Ky. The man allegedly sold the stolen goods on OfferUp.com, a modern day Craigslist site.
11. SAP Managed Services: Rackspace has launched managed cloud services for SAP software solutions. Rackspace will offer the SAP-focused services in its private hosted cloud. It's an intriguing move... but crowded market. Most of the major public cloud providers now have managed services for hosted SAP services.
10. Managed SMB WiFi Services: CenturyLink plans to promote managed WiFi services to SMB customers. It's a safe bet the company will also promote managed security services to those SMBs. Heads Up: CenturyLink is a Top 100 MSSP for 2017, according to MSSP Alert research that will surface later today.
9. GDPR Compliance: M-Files Corp. and IT Governance, have partnered to deliver a framework that helps organizations comply with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Roughly 75 percent of cloud services are not ready for the GDPR deadline, which kicks in May 25, 2018, according to Netskope.
8. Office 365 Managed Services: Arkadin, an NTT Communications company, has rolled out managed services for Microsoft’s cloud-based unified communications suite. Arkadin Managed Services (AMS) for O365 provides real time support for Microsoft cloud voice, online meetings, Meeting Broadcast and advanced voice requirements (in both Skype for Business and Microsoft Teams), the company claims.
7. Google Cloud and MSPs: Scale Computing and Google have developed a hybrid cloud solution that makes it easy for MSPS to move application workloads freely in the cloud or on-premises, the two companies assert. We'll share more details soon.
6. Google Cloud Distribution: AppDirect is now a two-tier distribution partner with Google Cloud. In other words, AppDirect channel partners now have the ability to resell Google's suite of cloud service products without having to sign a direct contract with Google.
5. Running Windows on Google Cloud: IndependenceIT has announced AppServices for Google Cloud Platform. The platform claims to be the first and only Microsoft Windows App Service for Google's cloud platform. IndependenceIT, by the way, is a pure channel company that works closely with MSPs.
4. Funding - AWS Backup: CloudRanger, which develops a simple backup solution for Amazon Web Services (AWS), has completed a $1.1 million seed round, with investments from Enterprise Ireland and several private investors in both the United States and Ireland.
3. Beyond Office 365 & G-Suite Consulting: SADA Systems, a major Google G-Suite and Microsoft Office 365 partner, has introduced training and services packages for Facebook Workplace, the enterprise collaboration platform.
2. M&A: 365 Data Centers has acquired Broadband One (aka Host.net), a data center services provider in two southeast Florida markets. The seller was Novacap, a private equity firm in Canada. We'll share more details soon.
1. Top 100 MSSPs: Today’s the day. We’ll unveil the Top 100 Managed Security Services Providers list and research report today (Thursday) during our webcast at 2:00 p.m. ET. Register now and join us.
