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5 Channel Partner Updates: Thursday 12 July 2018

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Good morning, channel partners. Here are five technology news updates, insights, chatter, and plenty more to start your day for Thursday, July 12, 2018.

Actually, there are 15 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:

15. Microsoft Layoffs: Microsoft has cut a small percentage of its sales team...

14. Talent - Software: Informatica has named Eric Brown as CFO and Tracey Newell as president, global field operations. Brown joins Informatica from Machine Zone (MZ), a private real-time gaming, data and analytics company. He previously held key roles at McAfee, Polycom and Tanium, Electronic Arts and MicroStrategy. Meanwhile, Newell most recently served as executive VP of global field operations and customer success at Proofpoint. She's also held key posts at Polycom Juniper Networks and Cisco Systems. Brown and Newell report to Informatica CEO Anil Chakravarthy.

13. Talent - Partner Engagement: PlanetOne has hired Lanny Gray as VP of business development.Gray is responsible for leading PlanetOne’s national partner recruitment efforts. Additionally,TPx Communications veteran Tanya Palmateer has joined as inside sales manager for key strategic accounts.

Elizabeth “Bets” Strohl

12. Talent - IT Services: IT consulting firm Entisys360 says co-founder and CFO Elizabeth “Bets” Strohl is set to retire. Strohl has served as Entisys360’s CFO since 1988, when she founded the company with her late husband, George Strohl. Following this leadership transition, Michael Strohl will retain his current responsibilities as CEO of Entisys360. Also, Matt General, who is transitioning from CTO to COO, will be responsible for overseeing Entisys360’s finance and operations teams from the company’s Northern California headquarters office.

11. Multi Cloud Management: Nearly 90 percent of enterprises are pursuing multi-cloud strategies, according to a Forrester Consulting research report funded by Virtustream (a cloud arm of Dell Technologies). In addition, the study finds that 60 percent of enterprises are now moving or have already moved mission-critical applications to the public cloud.

10. Distribution:  Tech Data Government Solutions is set to become the first global distributor for the WiCis Defense and WiCis Health set of cloud-based solutions. WiCis is a real-time biometrics platform and clinical care solution for the healthcare sector. WiCis allows customers to monitor, locate and support personnel in the field.

9. Distribution: Maverick AV Solutions, a specialized solution business of Tech Data, has agreed to distribute Zoom Video Communications in North America and Europe. The deal involves Zoom Rooms, a workplace collaboration solution.

8. Distribution: D&H Distributing has launched a new “Solutions & Services” program, a series of initiatives that deliver end-to-end enablement resources to VARs, the company says. The initiatives include:

  • a new D&H Integration Center;
  • such professional services as WiFi surveys, and security and vulnerability assessments that D&H Solutions Specialists conduct in partnership with VARs at the end-user’s location.
  • Solution Pillars such as Cloud/DaaS, collaboration, and new solution areas like Pro AV & Digital Signage.
ChannelEyes CEO Dave Geoghegan

7. Sales Leads: ChannelEyes has launched Day2Leads, a SaaS platform that allows businesses to analyze their existing customer bases for additional sales opportunities. Day2Leads leverages predictive analytics and machine learning to pinpoint the lead opportunities for customers, the company says. This is one of the first major ChannelEyes announcements since the company's CEO post transitioned from Jay McBain (now at Forrester Research) to Dave Geoghegan.

6. Business Automation Software: Tigerpaw One now integrates with Esticom, empowering mutual users to build sales quotes and manage engagements for structured cabling and associated construction work that many telecom, MSP, audio-visual and security installers now offer, Tigerpaw and Esticom assert.

5. IT Management: Ivanti has unviled Ivanti Unified Endpoint Manager. The offering features  Ivanti Endpoint Manager (powered by Landesk) and Ivanti Environment Manager Policy (powered by AppSense). The new solution enables IT professionals to control every aspect of user devices at a highly granular, contextual level, the company asserts.

4. Service Management Bots: Salesforce has unveiled "the next generation of Service Cloud Einstein." The net result: Salesforce CRM customers can leverage "Einstein Bots for Service" to automate routine service requests and enable agent handoffs, the company asserts.

3. Dell Question Marks: Dell's plan to go public through a buyback of tracking stock faces big questions from investors, according to both Barron's and The Wall Street Journal. On the one hand, many VMware investors are pleased that Dell won't pursue a reverse merger with the virtualization software provider. But on the other hand, some critics think Michael Dell's planned financial offer to tracking stock owners isn't lucrative enough...

2.  M&A Questions - Broadcom & CA Technologies: Broadcom's planed $18.9 billion buyout of CA Technologies, announced yesterday, is raising question marks from the financial media and Broadcom shareholders -- many of whom don't understand how the chip specialist will find synergies with CA's enterprise software business. We'll be watching for the potential implications, especially for midmarket MSPs that work closely with CA.

1. M&A Trends: In-depth M&A data for the first half of 2018 is here. We'll share some analysis soon.

Joe Panettieri

Joe Panettieri is co-founder & editorial director of MSSP Alert and ChannelE2E, the two leading news & analysis sites for managed service providers in the cybersecurity market.