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5 Channel Partner and MSP Updates: Tuesday 24 November 2020

Here are five (actually, more) technology news updates, insights, chatter, and plenty more to start your day for Tuesday, November 24, 2020. Sip up.

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A. What’s Happening Today

1. MSP Market Forecast: The global managed services market will reach $350 billion by 2026, a 10 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) from 2020, Global Market Insights predicts. Growing demand for outsourced network monitoring, cybersecurity, and network maintenance by major industry players is expected to contribute significantly to market growth, the research says.

2. M&A - Robotic Process Automation (RPA): QA Mentor has acquired Step One Step Ahead, a privately held software consulting firm focused on Robotic Process Automation (RPA).

3. M&A - Information Management: Access, which positions itself as the world’s largest privately-held integrated information management services provider, has completed six U.S. acquisitions, including Hansen Records Management (Milwaukee, Wisconsin); SafeGuard Destruction (Boston, Massachusetts); the records storage business of DataSafe, Inc. (Portland, Oregon); PRIMCO (Beaumont, Texas); Insight Storage Solutions (Minneapolis, MN); and the records storage business of Beverly Hills Transfer & Storage (Los Angeles, CA).

4. Cloud Data Protection - Hiring Mode: Druva plans to expand its headcount in Pune, India by 15 percent to 20 percent over the next few months. The company already has a local workforce of nearly 500 employees.

5. Vulnerability Assessments: Acronis True Image 2021 features a "professional-grade" vulnerability assessment tool that allows users to scan their operating systems and applications for exploitable vulnerabilities and get recommendations on effectively closing those security gaps, the company says.

6. Research - Supply Chain Management: Fully 60 percent of organizations say the COVID-19 pandemic has fast-tracked plans to upgrade and automate sourcing and supplier management, according to research from Workday and Harvard Business Review Analytic Services. An overwhelming 95 percent of surveyed executives report disruption to their company’s sourcing and supplier management process as a result of the pandemic and 92 percent classified the digital maturity of this process as less than best-in-class going into the global crisis.

B. Channel Chiefs, Partner Programs and Strategic Alliances

1. Global Partners of the Year: Here are 500 of the most honored channel partners of 2020, according aggregated ChannelE2E data from dozens of technology companies.

2. Palo Alto Networks Partners of the Year: The honorees -- including MSSPs, IT consulting firms, distributors and more -- are listed here.

Jon Brinton, CRO, Crexendo
Jon Brinton, CRO, Crexendo

3. Talent - UCaaS Channel Chief: Crexendo, a provider of Unified Communications as a Service has hired Avaya and Mitel veteran Jon Brinton as chief revenue officer. Brinton will oversee revenue operations, direct sales and channel sales, including Value-Added Resellers (VARs) and Agents.

4. Talent - Distribution: Avnet has named 37-year company veteran Phil Gallagher as its chief executive officer, effective immediately. Gallagher had been interim CEO since August 2020.

5. Integration - MSP Software and Security: AlertOps has integrated its major incident management platform with ConnectWise Manage, a professional services automation (PSA) software platform for MSPs. The integration empowers end-users to forward ConnectWise Manage tickets to AlertOps as alerts and increase visibility across the ticket lifecycle, the companies say.

6. Partnership - Video Communications: Lumen Technologies and Zoom have expanded their partnership with Zoom delivered by Lumen. This solution provides an "enhanced collaboration experience for businesses around the world, combining the speed and reliability of the Lumen platform with Zoom's world-class collaboration solutions," the companies say.

7. Partnership - Cloud Storage: Sidepath, an IT solutions provider and technology integrator, now offers Wasabi hot cloud storage to its clientele.

8. Partnership - Data Security: Latbc, a technology consulting firm in Mexico City, has agreed to offer Protegrity Data Protection Platform to enterprises in the Latin American (LATAM) market across banking, financial services, retail, healthcare, and other industries.

C. Channel Partner Summits, MSP Conferences and Virtual Event Calendar

  1. Amazon AWS re:Invent 2020 Virtual (November 30-December 18)
  2. SAP TechEd 2020 (December 8-10)
  3. Citrix Summit 2021 (January 12-14)
  4. Subsurface Live Winter 2021 Data Lake Conference (January 27-28)
  5. Avaya Engage 2021 (February 7-10, Orlando)
  6. BonusChannelE2E’s complete event calendar
  7. Add Your Event To Our Calendar: Submit it here
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.