Good morning, channel partners. Here are five technology news updates, insights, chatter, and plenty more to start your day for Friday, April 13, 2018.
Actually, there are 11 timely updates designed for VARs, managed services providers (MSPs), cloud services providers (CSPs), independent software vendors (ISVs), telco master agents and telco agents to sip on. Take a look…
11. Software Piracy Investigation: Microsoft is investigating the methods partner KPMG uses to crack down on the illegal use of its software in India, after a complaint from a senior member of the country’s ruling political party, according to Reuters.
10. Google vs. Regulators: The European Union’s top antitrust regulator, Margrethe Vestager, has made it her mission to stem alleged anti-competitive abuses by big American tech companies, threatening as recently as last month to break up Alphabet Inc’s Google, Reuters notes. But a decision in the most important of three antitrust cases against Google -- this one aimed at loosening its stranglehold over Android-powered smartphones -- is likely to show just how difficult it is, even for a committed trust-buster like Vestager, to dent the power of the U.S. giants, the report says.
9. SMB Owners vs. Minimum Wage: Massachusetts small business owners grappling with proposals to raise the minimum wage and mandate paid leave expressed their frustrations to business leaders and state lawmakers this week — in loud and often heated terms — repeatedly stressing how the increased costs could force them to cut workers, raise prices, or close their doors for good, according to The Boston Globe. At issue are bills to raise the state minimum wage from $11 to $15 an hour, and the tipped minimum wage from $3.75 to $9, by 2022, and require businesses to give employees up to 16 weeks of paid family leave for the birth or adoption of a child and up to 26 weeks of paid medical leave for serious injuries or illnesses. If lawmakers fail to act, the measures will go before voters in the fall, the Globe noted.
8. Talent: Managed IT services provider Apogee has made several key hires. They include two new employees in Boston: Dori Spade, VP services and Albert Mowatt, vCIO. Also, the company's Pittsburgh office has three new hires: Deb Moran, human resources director, Laurie Arnott, service transition, and Patsy Pollice, lead engineer.
7. Pentagon Cloud Services Contract: Rivals remain worried that Amazon Web Services could win 100 percent of a lucrative cloud services contract with the U.S. Defense Department, according to The Wall Street Journal. The department will release a revised list of requirements in the coming days for a hotly contested, multibillion-dollar contract to move the Pentagon’s data into the cloud, and it says it won’t give in on a central demand: awarding the business to a single winner.
6. Subscription Management Software: Zuora, which develops software that allows companies to launch, manage, and transform into a subscription business, launched a very successful IPO earlier this week.
5. M&A - MSPs: A well-known MSP in the SMB ecosystem is about to be acquired. The rumored valuation is somewhere between 7.5 to 8.5 times EBITDA. Third-party financing firms might be getting involved. We'll share details as soon as the ink is (nearly) dry on this west coast deal.
4. Datto Desktop as a Service?: Chatter about a potential Datto DaaS or virtual desktop integration (VDI) offering started at DattoCon 2017. Will the DaaS conversation kick back up at DattonCon 2018 in June? Hmmm...
3. ConnectWise: Keep a close eye on the IT business management software provider. Key moves may emerge next week at up to three different conferences. The lineup includes ConnectWise IT Nation Europe 2018 plus RSA Conference along with... stay tuned.
2. Private Equity: Insight Venture Partners now owns major stakes in at least three backup and disaster recovery firms -- OwnBackup, Unitrends and Spanning Cloud. That's certainly interesting. Plus, the PE firm owns Kaseya. Hmmm... More thoughts soon.
1. RSA Conference: Our sister site, MSSP Alert, will blog live from RSA Conference throughout next week. In fact, that live blog has already started...
