5 Channel Observations: 13 Oct 2015

Good morning, channel partners. Here are five technology news insights, updates, perspectives, rumors and plenty more to start your day for Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2015. Actually, today's update involves 14 items for VARs, managed services providers (MSPs) and cloud services providers (CSPs) to sip on. 14. Dell-EMC Wildcard: How much infrastructure from Dell and EMC will Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) really require? ChannelE2E asked that question yesterday. CIOs are asking that same question -- "will CSPs purchase Dell-EMC hardware?" -- in a Wall Street Journal article. PS: In case you somehow missed the news, Dell is buying EMC for $67 billion. 13. Dell World Conference: When the Dell World 2015 kicks off (Oct. 20-22, Austin, Texas), plenty of folks will lean in to hear about Dell's plans for EMC. But ironically, Michael Dell likely won't be able to say much about the deal. Remember: Dell does not officially own EMC yet. The deal isn't expected to close until May 2016 at the earliest. Still, you can likely get a good feel for how Dell and VMware currently partner. VMware, which EMC essentially owns, is a gold sponsor for the event. 12. Lenovo Left Out?: Let's assume Dell's buyout of EMC proceeds as expected and the deal closes by May 2016. What does that mean for the Lenovo-EMC storage partnership? Hmmm... A joint Lenovo-EMC website already appears dark, though I don't know when the sun set on that site.

11.  MSP and VAR Marketing: Quite a few companies now assist channel partners with their marketing initiatives. One example involves Presstacular, which automates MSP marketing. The person behind the platform, Raj Khera, first built MailerMailer (an email marketing company) before introducing the system's Presstacular service. To attract MSP attention, Khera offers up a free 12-month IT marketing plan template. 10. Mixed Venture Capital News: On the downside, venture capital deals in Q3 2015 represented their lowest levels since 2010, according to Pitchbook. But on the upside, venture capital invested in women-founded firms has increased 81 percent since 2011, notes the St. Louis Business Journal. Still, there's plenty of room for more improvement. Only 14 percent of VC dollars invested this year involved women-owned or women-led firms, Pitchbook found. As I've said before, Golden Seeds is a leader in this area. The angel investor group only funds women-led startups. 9. Salesforce Heads to Europe: The cloud company has put aside roughly $100 million to buy technology startups across the European landscape. Only about 10 percent of Saleforce's 150 investments so far involve European startups. It's a safe bet that figure is about to change. Dramatically.

Amy Luby

8. Familiar Name, New Role: MSP veteran Amy Luby is now senior VP of operations at ETS -- aligning the solution provider's services and sales teams to drive growth. More: See Items 7 through 1 — including an MSP consulting veteran launching a cloud services provider; Asigra's next move; the latest MSP buyout; and more. Page 2 of 2: Today's top channel partner updates, continued:

7. Identity Management M&A: LogMeIn acquired LastPass, a password and identity management company, for $110 million.... How will the IT channel respond? I suspect a PSA or RMM provider will eventually acquire PassPortal...

6. SDN Distribution: Global Convergence Inc. has agreed to distribute Nuage Networks' software-defined networking (SDN) solutions worldwide. Nuage is owned by Alcatel-Lucent. 5. Managed Storage Services: Asigra is promoting its data protection appliance for managed services providers (MSPs) during NetApp Insight 2015 (Oct. 12-15, Las Vegas). The appliance reinforces the on-going need for on-premises IT management even as cloud services demand continues to accelerate.

Cloudroute's Todd Hussey

4. New CSP: Todd Hussey, a partner and co-founder at CSBexcellence (formerly MSPexcellence), is launching CloudRoute -- a cloud service provider that's backed by non-VC investors. It sounds like the company is working closely with Microsoft while also preparing a range of cloud offerings -- including VDC, DaaS, UCaaS and more... Instead of selling direct, CloudRoute will offer its services to MSPs, VARs and other channel partners. 3. From Cash Registers to Managed Services: NCR and Alcatel-Lucent are partnering up on managed services. Under terms of the deal, NCR will provide services including site surveys, deployment and maintenance projects for Alcatel-Lucent gear -- though I'm not sure what recurring revenue opportunities will emerge.

2. MSP Buys Business Intelligence Expertise: Denovo -- which offers enterprise cloud hosting, consulting, outsourcing and managed services -- has acquired the assets of BizTech, which focuses on Oracle Cloud Applications, Business Intelligence, Hyperion and E-Business Suite (EBS). It's the latest sign that MSPs and VARs are ramping up in the areas of business intelligence, analytics and big data.

1. Lunch Wednesday: Amy Katz and I look forward to lunch in Manhattan on Wednesday. With whom? Those details remain under wraps for now. But it should be a lively, timely conversation... Read Them All: Did you miss one of our 5 Channel Partner Observations? Find the archive here here. Subscribe: Receive ChannelE2E’s blog headlines, insights and updates in your inbox daily. Subscribe to our enewsletter. Thanks to those who already have.