Good morning, channel partners. Here are five technology news updates, insights, chatter, and plenty more to start your day for Thursday, October 19, 2017.
Actually, there are nine 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:
9. Microsoft Azure for Banks: Microsoft is aggressively pushing Azure cloud services for the banking vertical. CEO Satya Nadella and Corporate VP Toni Townes next week are set to address Sibos, a major financial services industry event in Toronto.
8. SAP Profit Miss: SAP's delivered weaker-than-expected profits in the company's latest quarterly results. The reason? SAP faces growing costs to fund the shift toward cloud services, the company said. The earnings miss comes less than two days after IBM delivered stronger-than-expected cloud services revenue, and a few weeks after Oracle unveiled strong cloud momentum. Still, SAP investors aren't panicking. The company's shares are down only about 1.3 percent this morning -- perhaps a nod to the fact that SAP's cloud business is massive.
7. Apple & GE IoT Partnership: GE is extending Predix Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) applications to Apple's iPhone and iPad platforms. The Apple-GE IIoT partnership comes amid major changes at GE, which has seen executive transitions and a more focused Predix strategy emerge in recent months. Predix was once hyped as a do-all IIoT platform for all verticals and emerging markets. But GE has scaled back those ambitions and now focused Predix on the company's core verticals, such as manufacturing.
6. European Expansion: Fusion Risk Management, a provider of business continuity risk management software and services, is expanding its European footprint to reach more enterprise customers. Richard Cooper will lead the charge as managing director of Europe. He previously was CEO of Arbor Continuity, an advisory consulting firm serving enterprise clients in Europe and North America. The company will host a U.K. Regional Users Group gathering on November 6.
5. Vertical Market MSP: Jones & Frank, a fuel handling specialist with some MSP expertise, has embraced Cybera as its preferred managed, software-defined cloud platform for petroleum retail customers.
4. M&A - Data Centers: CyrusOne, the Dallas-based data center and co-location provider, has acquired a stake in GDS Holdings, one of China's largest data center companies. We're poking around for financial terms.
3. MSP Market Forecast: MSPs by 2021 are expected to deliver 25 percent of the $4 Trillion that SMBs and large enterprises will spend on IT products and services globally, up from 18 percent today, according to AMI Partners. We'll share more thoughts soon.
2. Breaking: MSouth Equity Partners has acquired Onepath from Trivest Partners. Onepath is a 900-person MSP and cloud specialist in Atlanta, Georgia. The shift from one private equity owner (Trivest) to another (MSouth) positions Onepath for more growth, the companies say. Harris Williams & Co advised Onepath on the deal. You may recall that Onepath itself has been in M&A mode -- acquiring Internet & Telephone earlier this year.
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