5 Channel Partner Updates: Wednesday 23 August 2017

Good morning, channel partners. Here are five technology news updates, insights, chatter, and plenty more to start your day for Wednesday, August 23, 2017. Actually, there are 17 (oh my) 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. Talent: ConvergeOne has hired Eric Walter as VP, cloud operations. In this newly created position, Walter oversees ConvergeOne's cloud operations and delivery and will focus on driving efficiencies through automation, process and technology, the company says. He reports to CEO John A. McKenna Jr. Walter previously held a similar position at Genesys/Interactive. The career move comes just as ConvergeOne acquires Strategic Products and Services (SPS), a Cisco and Avaya partner in New Jersey. 16. HP Enterprise Penalty?: HP Enterprise's deal to sell portions of its software business to Micro Focus will "likely to run into penalties under 2016 inversion regulations," according to Bloomberg's Bureau of National Affairs. What does that mean? The short answer: Potential tax headaches... 15. Google, WalMart vs. Amazon: Google and WalMart are partnering to promote voice-enabled shopping. The relationship aggressively counters Amazon's dominance in the market... 14. GoDaddy Leadership: GoDaddy COO Scott Wagner will succeed CEO Blake Irving, who plans to retire at year's end. The GoDaddy leadership team has largely avoided head-on competition against Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure, shedding assets in those areas and focusing instead on SMB-centric applications and ISV ecosystems that Microsoft and Amazon haven't aggressively targeted. 13. Data Centers: HyperGrid and Westin Building Exchange (WBX) are partnering. Watching for HyperGrid's technology to surface in WBX's colocation, hosting and telecommunications interconnection facilities. 12. Chromebook Managements: VMware says it will become the first unified endpoint management (UEM) provider with full Chrome device management capabilities. The news involves VMware Workspace ONE, a digital workspace platform powered by VMware AirWatch UEM technology. The platform will enable customers to unify management of Chrome devices alongside all other endpoints from a single console, VMware claims. Management of Chrome devices with Workspace ONE will be available in September 2017. Related Conference: VMworld 2017 is next week. 11. Distribution, Part One: APX Net, a communications service provider, has partnered with Intelisys, a distributor of business communications services. Intelisys’ nationwide network of agents, IT solutions providers, VARs, MSPs and integrators now have access to APX Net's services -- including multicarrier fiber-optic network solutions. Go to Page two for the heart-stopping, spine-tingling conclusion to this blog... Welcome to page two of today's morning update. Here's the conclusion you've been waiting for... 10. Distribution, Part Two: Ingram Micro has agreed to distribute Axway Syncplicity, a platform that allows customers to "simplify data security and expand their digital enterprise with powerful file access, sharing and mobile capabilities that reduce costs and consolidate IT tools," Axway asserts. Related Conference: Ingram Micro One is set for November 2017. 9. Managed Services Carrier: TPx, formerly TelePacific, has realigned its service provisioning organization to create an exclusive team dedicated to processing service orders, installations and escalations for TPx’s agent partners and their clients nationwide, the company announced today. TPx currently manages about 1,000 orders per month, with nearly half of those orders coming from its agent channel, the company says. 8. Application Performance Management:  SolarWinds has unveiled "significant updates" to its Orion platform and systems management software portfolio. The improvements span SolarWinds Storage Resource Monitor, SolarWinds Virtualization Manager, SolarWinds Web Performance Monitor, and SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor, the company says. The net results: SolarWinds says IT pros can "better manage application-centric performance across hybrid IT infrastructures." So far, SolarWinds hasn't specifically promoted the products to the SolarWinds MSP partner community. Competition in the APM market has been intensifying. Key players include AppDynamics (now owned by Cisco), BMC, CA Technologies, Datadog, Dynatrace and New Relic, among others. Related Conferences: SolarWinds' Empower MSP Conferences are set for Orlando (October) and London (November), respectively. 7. MSP Automation: NinjaRMM and Webroot have expanded their partnership and MSP software integration. Specifically, Ninja is integrating Webroot's SecureAnywhere DNS Protection web-filtering capabilities into the NinjaRMM platform for MSPs. We'll share some more details about Ninja's recent market momentum soon. 6. Cloud Backup Shakeout: CrashPlan is abandoning the consumer backup market and telling customers to migrate to Carbonite's consumer cloud services. But Backblaze, another consumer backup company, is seeking to crash the party with a special offer for CrashPlan customers. Meanwhile, the corporate cloud backup market is undergoing a shakeout, too. Recent deals have involved Carbonite buying Data Castle; eFolder acquiring Axcient; and Arcserve acquiring Zetta. All three deals involved privately held, venture-backed sellers that weren't healthy enough to pursue IPOs. 5. Veeam Market Saturation?: Under terms of a new deal, all Cisco partners will be able to resell Veeam's business continuity and data protection software. It begs the question: As Veeam attempts to march from $800 million in revenues today toward $1.5 billion in 2020, will the company's partner ecosystem get saturated? 4. M&A, Part One: Avnet has acquired Dragon Innovation, which helps hardware customers move from design to prototype to volume production. The deal is the latest in a growing list of moves to help transform Avnet from a classic distributor into a total product lifecycle specialist. The company sold its technology solutions business to Tech Data and started acquiring assets. Recent buyouts include Premier Farnell (which included its element14 community) and Hackster.io, which expanded the company’s reach to more than 2 million customers and an active community of more than 750,000 entrepreneurs, makers and engineers, Avnet says. In May, Avnet, through a collaboration with Dragon Innovation and Kickstarter, announced Hardware Studio, which gives creators access to expertise, tools and resources to supply, design, build and deliver their ideas to market, Avnet says. 3. M&A, Part Two: - CXtec has acquired Atlantix Global Systems, a reseller of new, reconfigured and refurbished IT equipment located in Norcross, Georgia. We'll share more details soon. 2. M&A, Part Three: ANEXIO, a "Desktop to Data Center" infrastructure-as-a-service company, has acquired the assets of Net Data Centers, which is based in Los Angeles and delivers tailored, enterprise-grade cloud and data center solutions for businesses around the world, the companies say. We'll share more details soon. 1. Global MSP Platform?: Keep a close eye on Invarosoft, a global SaaS platform for MSPs that integrates with Autotask and ConnectWise. Australian IT services company eNerds is behind the launch. We'll share more details soon...