Good morning, channel partners. Here are five technology news updates, insights, gossip, chatter and more to start your day for Thursday, Sept. 24, 2015.
Actually, today's update involves 10 items for VARs, managed services providers (MSPs), cloud services providers (CSPs) and total service providers (TSPs).
10. Apple on Wheels: What might the long-alleged Apple Car look like? Here's one car industry expert's view.
9. Ten Recurring Revenue Metrics: As IT channel partners shift to recurring revenue models, they also need to adjust their KPIs (key performance indicators). Here are 10 recurring revenue metrics to keep in mind.
8. IT Support Court Case: Oracle's court case against Rimini Street -- which provides discounted IT support for Oracle and SAP products -- has finally started. The case could influence the market for discounted third-party software maintenance deals.
7. Tracking Small Business Optimism: When it comes to U.S. small business optimism, is the glass half full or half empty? The answer, according to the National Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB), appears to be both. Overall small business optimism improved last month. But entrepreneurs are criticizing politicians for policy decisions -- and indecisions -- that have led to anemic economic growth...
6. Aerohive and Juniper - A Closer Look: ChannelE2E earlier this week mentioned that Aerohive and Juniper are partnering to integrate and promote their networking solutions to the channel. We openly wondered if the effort included joint partner training. Now, the vendors have responded with this update, "Aerohive and Juniper will be jointly training partner sales engineers and sales teams on how to position the solution. They will be independently training partners on implementation for their respective parts of the solution." The duo won't disclose how many partners are already trained across Aerohive and Juniper solutions, but they say the figure represents "a large number of joint partners with the largest concentration in the US."
5. Two to Watch: Keep a close eye on BlueData, which continues to enhance a software platform that eases enterprise Hadoop deployments on Spark and Hadoop. Here again, I'd expect partner and customer news at Strata+Hadoop World. Google, Too: Still, cloud-based deployments also are getting easier. A case in point: Google just launched Cloud Dataproc, which offers both Hadoop and Spark as a service to partners and customers.
4. More Fallout: When hackers broke into the U.S. Government's Office of Personnel Management network, the digital heist made headlines. And now, it's making headlines again. The reason? Hackers apparently obtained fingerprint records for 5.6 million people... and more than 20 million people lost records as part of the breach, according to The Wall Street Journal. Want to get really depressed? A former FBI cyber sleuth says there's not much the U.S. can do to stop alleged hacks by China...
3. MSP Training: Scores of established and aspiring MSPs are attending this week's CharTec Academy training in California. Also worth watching at the gathering: New milestones from Relyenz, a startup value-added distributor focused on IT security solutions for the channel.
2. Channel Partner Funding: Ingram Micro Inc. has unveiled three financial services programs to help U.S. channel partners drive growth. They include (1) Ingram Micro Lending Club: Available exclusively from Ingram Micro and Lending Club, the new program offers channel partners access to an unsecured line of credit with flexible payment terms and term business loans up to $300,000. (2) Ingram Micro NOWaccount: A capital access program that helps channel partners generate more sales, increase inventory, be more competitive, go after bigger clients and offer customers extended payment terms, the distributor asserts. (3) Ingram Micro Lease- IT!: A completely refreshed Ingram Micro-branded leasing program, the distributor adds. Partners can email [email protected] or contact their dedicated Financial Services Representative for more details.
1. Cisco and Big Data: Anybody else notice Cisco Systems getting even cozier with Hadoop providers (Cloudera, Hortonworks, MapR)? The networking giant formalized relations with each of those big data software companies earlier this year. We expect some more news during Strata+Hadoop World in New York next week.
Read Them All: ChannelE2E publishes its 5 Channel Partner Observations blog daily. Find all of the archived entries here. Subscribe: Want to receive ChannelE2E’s blog headlines, insights and updates in your inbox each business day? Then subscribe to our enewsletter. Thanks to those who already have.
