5 Channel Partner Program and MSP News Updates: Thursday 25 March 2021

Here are five (actually, more) technology news updates, insights, chatter, and plenty more to start your day for Thursday, March 25, 2021. Sip up.

What’s In Our Daily Brew?

A. What’s Brewing Today: Technology News

1. Talent - MSP: Kraft Technology Group of Tennessee has been promoted to president.

2. Talent - Telecom MSP: Velocity has hired Unacast veteran Betty Ong as CFO. She succeeds Ron Ranallo, who has announced his intention to retire. Ranallo will stay on until the end of May to ensure an orderly transition.

3. Salesforce Update: Details about the Sales Cloud 360 platform and strategy are here.

4. Technology SPACs List: A look at 75 blank-check companies that are seeking M&A deals with technology businesses.

B. Channel Chiefs, Partner Programs and Strategic Alliances

1. Channel Chief - Unified Communications: Access4 has hired Datto channel veteran Peter Eldon as head of sales and marketing for Australia and New Zealand. Also, Access4 hired Acendre and Mimecast veteran Jane Bilsborough as a channel marketing manager.

2. MSP Partner Program Leader - Cisco Systems: Alexandra Zagury has described Cisco's MSP partner strategy in this blog. Deeper details about Cisco's overall managed services capabilities for partners are here.

3. Microsoft Azure Expert MSPs: Infopulse is the latest service provider to earn the Microsoft Azure Expert MSP designation. Only about 100 MSPs worldwide have earned the designation.

4. Partner Program - Cybersecurity Awareness Training: Curricula has launched a channel partner program that lets MSPs, MSSPs and value-added resellers (VARs) offer security awareness training to their customers.

5. Partner Program - Voice and Messaging: Coolwave Communications has launched a global partner program to "enable service providers to "rapidly monetize voice, messaging and cloud-based communications."

6. Partnership - Document Processing: KnowledgeLake, a provider of content automation solutions, has inked a strategic partnership with Covenant Technology Partners, an IT consulting firm. KnowledgeLake and Covenant will provide their clients with an "end-to-end intelligent document processing platform that will help maximize the value of their clients’ investment in Microsoft solutions," the companies say.

7. Partner Program - Project Management: Deltek has launched the Deltek Partner Network partner program.

8. Partnership - Red Hat on AWS: Red Hat and Amazon Web Services have announced Red Hat OpenShift Service on AWS (ROSA), a new managed service available via the AWS Console. The service "makes it easier for Red Hat OpenShift customers to build, scale, and manage containerized applications on AWS," the two companies say.

9. Partnership - LTE and 5G Wireless WANs: Cradlepoint and Palo Alto Networks are partnering to provide Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) functionality for enterprise Wireless WANs.

10. Partnership - Cloud Storage: Unitrends partners and customers can now automatically move infrequently accessed data to Wasabi’s cloud to free up primary storage capacity, shrink their backup footprint, and better align storage costs with data value, the two companies say. Unitrends is a Kaseya company.

11. Expanded Partnership - SASE & SD-WANs: Apcela has expanded a partnership with Versa Networks and now offers SASE & Secure SD-WAN solutions within its portfolio of managed networking services.

12. Distribution - Analytics: Tech Data and its partners now have access to the Alteryx unified platform -- which simplifies analytics, data science and process automation, the companies say.

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