Good morning, channel partners. Here are five technology news updates, insights, chatter, and plenty more to start your day for Tuesday, March 13, 2018.
Actually, there are 11 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…
11. Trump Blocks Broadcom: U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday blocked Broadcom's proposed takeover of Qualcomm on national security grounds, ending what would have been the technology industry’s biggest deal ever amid concerns that it would give China the upper hand in mobile communications, Reuters says.
10. Stock Sale - Tata Consultancy Services: Tata Sons, the holding company for India’s biggest business group, is selling about $1.25 billion of its stake in software services provider Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), according to Times of India. Tata Sons will use the proceeds to pay creditors of its wireless division, according to the report.
9. Temporary IT Spending Boom: CIOs attending a recent Microsoft gathering suggest that enterprise technology buyers have embarked on a three-year "super cycle," according to a Deutsche Bank analyst. Why's that? Two key reasons. First, IT spending was sluggish during the the great recession. Second, businesses are now playing catchup while trying to ride next-generation waves involving cloud and digital services.
8. Distribution - IoT: Ingram Micro has launched an Internet of Things business unit in The Middl East, Turkey and Africa.
7. Google Cloud Monitoring: Google is launching simplified pricing for Stackdriver Monitoring and Logging, the company's monitoring tools for Google Cloud Platform. The new pricing model starts June 30, 2018. Users will "get the advanced alerting and notification options you need to monitor your cloud applications, as well as the flexibility to create monitoring dashboards and alerting policies—without having to opt-in to premium pricing," Google claims in a blog post.
6. Office 365 Monitoring: Co-Mergent has launched AlertPro365, which enables MSPs to offer monitoring and alerting from the desktop to cloud-based Skype for Business and Microsoft Teams, the company says. Co-Mergent leverages Nectar's technology for the service.
5. M&A - Network Services Provider: AMP Capital is acquiring Everstream Solutions LLC from M/C Partners. Everstream is a regional network service provider that offers fiber-based Ethernet, Internet and data center solutions to businesses throughout the Midwest. Financial terms were not disclosed.
4. M&A - Network Analytics: Battery Ventures has acquired Plixer, which develops network traffic analytics software. More than 3,000 customers leverage Plixer's Scrutinizer and related products to improve network security and application performance. Co-founders Michael Patterson and Marc Bilodeau will remain active with the business, though their titles and roles were not disclosed in the M&A announcement. Brocade veteran Jeff Lindholm joins Plixer as CEO. Employees—almost all of whom work out of an office on Main Street in Kennebunk, Maine—will remain in their current locations, Battery Ventures indicated.
3. SMB Employee Raises?: Despite the Trump Administration's recent federal tax cuts, seven in 10 small business owners say they won't hire new employees as a result of the new tax law. Moreover, six in 10 small business owners said they would not be giving their employees raises, according to survey results from Businesses for Responsible Tax Reform. Still, critics say it's too soon to predict how the tax changes will impact SMBs, since many entrepreneurs don't yet fully understand the tax changes and their potential business impact.
2. More Private Equity Concerns: Sources within the private equity sector are increasingly concerned about a PE market bubble. Among the potential warning signs: Increasingly larger buyout loans, and leveraged buyout valuations -- which hit 11.2 times EBITDA in 2017 vs. 10 times EBITDA in 2016, according to Bain & Co. Moreover, some PE firms may try to aggressively exit companies that they don't want to carry through the next recession, according to a Reuters report. Meanwhile, potential European Commission regulations could pressure 25 percent of companies seeking PE funding, according to Private Equity Wire. Amid that backdrop, PE money has aggressively flowed into the MSP software and partner sector over the past five years... We wonder if the party is nearing its peak.
1. Salesforce for Small Businesses: Salesforce has launched Essentials, a small business version of the company's cloud-based platform. It includes Sales Cloud Essentials (CRM) and Service Cloud Essentials (help desk) capabilities. The platform costs $25 per user per month. We'll be watching to see if or how MSPs & small business IT service providers embrace the platform.
