5 Channel Partner Updates: Thursday 03 October 2019

Here are five (actually, far more…) technology news updates, insights, chatter, and plenty more to start your day for Thursday, October 3, 2019.

Our Daily Brew

A. What's Hot Today

1. Talent - MSP Leadership: Thrive, a Top 100 Vertical Market MSP and Top 200 MSSP for 2019, has hired Craig Guice as VP of business development in the Mid-Atlantic. Guice will expand Thrive's managed services footprint down the East Coast from the company's established Northeast hubs in Massachusetts and New York. Guice is a well-known MSP entrepreneur who helped to pioneer recurring revenue business models.

2. Talent - SaaS Backup: OwnBackup has hired Salesforce veteran Rich Kline as VP of solution engineering. Among his key focus areas: OwnBackup is expanding its professional service business to ensure all customers can have a disaster recovery plan in place.

3. Re-organization - NTT: The latest steps in NTT’s global reorganization surfaced on October 1. The moves involve Dimension Data Americas, NTT America and NTT Security rebranding as NTT and formally join 28 other companies and brands from 70+ countries and regions worldwide. Also, the Americas region of NTT Ltd. will operate 51 offices. NTT is a Top 200 MSSP for 2019.

4. Consulting - High Performance Computing: Flux7, an IT services provider, has launched a consulting practice dedicated to helping organizations take advantage of cloud-based High Performance Computing (HPC).

B. Help Wanted - ChannelE2E Industry Job Board

C. Partnerships and Strategic Alliances

1. MSPs - Asia-Pacific: Kaseya is striving to grow its MSP-oriented business in the Asia-Pacific region about 100 percent per year, CEO Fred Voccola told CRN Australia. The company honored multiple MSPs during the Kaseya Connect IT APAC conference this week in Sydney, Australia.

2. MSPs - Google Cloud: Maven Wave has joined the Managed Services Provider (MSP) Initiative in the Google Cloud Partner Advantage Program. Maven Wave is one of roughly 22 MSPs in the program.

3. Service Providers - Data Protection: Acronis is making a $10 million investment in the company’s service provider incentive program -- though some of the financial figure seems to involve free offers and partner perks rather than hard dollars spent. For instance, partners that sign up for a cloud service provider contract at the Acronis Cyber Summit (October 13-16, Miami) will get six months of free usage. Any other new cloud service provider who signs up to be a partner between October 7 and December 31, 2019 will get three months of free usage. On the education front, Acronis is launching a Q4 program that will help partners transform into MSPs. In the R&D area, the company is fast-tracking development of the Acronis Cyber Platform. The moves surface only a few weeks after Goldman Sachs confirmed a $147 million investment in Acronis.

4. Talent - Desktop as a Service: CloudJumper has hired IGEL Technology veteran Paul Finn to lead enterprise and Solution Integrator (SI) sales globally.

5. Partner Program - Work Automation: Smartsheet, a work automation platform provider, has launched the Smartsheet aligned partner program. Key names to know include Chief Revenue Officer Mike Arntz and Head of Global Channels Steve Stewart.

6. Partner Program - Corporate Learning: Skillsoft, a provider of corporate learning solutions, has expanded its partner network across learning management, HR consulting, cloud computing services, systems integration, learning content and learning services. Key members include SumTotal, SAP SuccessFactors, Amazon Web Services, Korn Ferry, Cornerstone, Saba, IBM and Tata Consultancy Services.

7. Resellers - SD-WANs: Global Convergence Inc. (GCI), a global managed IT Lifecycle services and solutions company, now offers Aryaka’s SD-WAN solutions within the US, EMEA, APAC and LATAM.

8. Distribution - Google Glass 2: The Synnex Stellr program has expanded its relationship with Google to promote Glass Enterprise Edition 2 to partners. The wearable device enables employees to work smarter in such fields as manufacturing, logistics, field services and healthcare. Present use cases include remote field service, compliance assessment, training and guided workflows, the companies say. Synnex Stellr is a rebrand of the company's former cloud and mobility business unit.

9. Distribution - Microsoft Cloud Management: Pax8's cloud distribution platform now offers the Nuvolex ManageX platform to MSPs. Nuvolex is a multi-tenant platform that allows MSPs to more effectively manage the Microsoft cloud stack, including Office 365, Intune, AD, AzureAD and Azure, the company says.

10. All Partner Programs: Search the comprehensive ChannelE2E Partner Program Database here. Also, submit your company information here and your partner program can be listed in the database.

D. Next Five Technology Conferences

Got news to share for our morning update? Email me: [email protected].