5 Channel Partner Program and MSP News Updates: 12 October 2021

Here are five (actually, more) technology news updates, insights, chatter, and plenty more to start your day for Tuesday, October 12, 2021. Sip up.

What’s In Our Daily Brew?

A. What’s Brewing Today: Technology News

1. MSP Data Protection - Fixed-Fee Cloud-based Backups: MSP360 has launched a flat-rate pricing structure for backups with MSP360’s Managed Backup Service (MBS), powered by AWS. The result: Customers can now pay a single single fixed monthly fee when using MSP360’s MBS, powered by AWS. There are no additional charges for retrieving or accessing backup data.

2. Integration - UCaaS and MSP Software: Viirtue, a Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) provider, now integrates with ConnectWise Manage and QuickBooks Online.

3. Data Protection - Ransomware Recovery Warranty: Rubrik has launched a $5 million ransomware recovery warranty for Rubrik Enterprise Edition. The warranty is designed to further "assure customers that their data will be available to keep their business running." The warranty will be available for Rubrik customers running Rubrik Enterprise Edition and working with a Rubrik Customer Experience Manager (CEM) to ensure industry data security best practices are in place. We don't know what fine print, if any, the warranty includes.

4. M&A - Consumer Electronics & Health IT Technology: Best Buy is acquiring Current Health, a care-at-home technology platform that spans remote patient monitoring, telehealth, and patient engagement into a single solution for healthcare organizations, Best Buy indicated.

5. M&A - SD-WANs: Comcast Business has completed the Masergy acquisition. The deal involves software-defined networking (SDN), SD-WAN and cloud platforms for global enterprises. The bolsters Comcast's overall channel distribution strategy, the buyer said.

6. Funding - Multi-Cloud Governance Services: Cloudtamer.io, an automated multi-cloud governance and management solution provider, has raised $9.5 million Series A funding. Blue Heron Capital and TDF Ventures led the round, with participation from Blu Venture Investors, Early Light Ventures and Gaingels.

7. Funding - Multi-Cloud Security: Wiz has raised $250 million in Series C funding, led by Insight Partners and Greenoaks Capital. Wiz technology allows partners and customers to safeguard workloads across Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform (GCP).

8. Funding - Smart Home Communication Services: Plume has received a $300 million minority equity investment led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2. This round brings the company’s valuation to $2.6 billion, with $697 million raised to date, Plume said. Existing Plume investors include Insight Partners.

9. Funding - Data Privacy and Compliance Regulations: CYTRIO has raised $3.5 million in seed funding to address mid-sized companies’ challenges of meeting increasing data privacy regulations, the company said. Early backers include Dreamit Ventures, Food Retail Ventures, and Rockwood Group.

10. Lenovo Stock Plummets: Lenovo Group's stock fell more than 17% on October 11, 2021 --  its biggest intraday decline in over a decade, after the Chinese technology giant withdrew its application for a 10 billion yuan ($1.55 billion) share listing in Shanghai, according to Reuters.

B. Channel Partner Summits, MSP Conferences and Virtual Events Calendar