Good morning, channel partners. Here are five technology news updates, insights, chatter, and plenty more to start your day for Thursday, January 25, 2018.
Actually, there are seven 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…
14. Leadership: HP Enterprise CEO Meg Whitman will become CEO of NewTV, a mobile media firm launched by DreamWorks co-founder Jeffrey Katzenberg. PS: NewTV is not the company's official name. That detail is still pending. Whitman had announced her pending departure from HPE in November 2017.
13. Profit Margins: Within the hot technology market here's a potential warning sign... Software AG issued a cautious outlook on its profit margins on Thursday, triggering a 7 percent share-price slide even though the German software group also said its industrial internet business could double in size in 2018., Reuters notes.
12. Distribution: Jenne has agreed to distribute Vingtor-Stentofon by Zenitel Group in the United States. Zenitel Group develops intelligent communication solutions.
11. Partner Program: Virtual Instruments, which specializes in application-centric infrastructure performance management (IPM), has refreshed the Virtual Instruments Partner (VIP) Program...
10. Microsoft Partner Strategy: Here's how Microsoft will measure partner success in 2018, according to Channel Chief Gavriella Schuster, who hosted a media briefing on the topic yesterday.
9. M&A - Data Centers: CIM Group, in partnership with 1547 Critical Systems Realty has acquired a datacenter in Toronto. Financial terms were not disclosed.
8. M&A - Hyperconverged Infrastructure: Cisco Systems is acquiring Skyport Systems -- a hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) startup. We're checking to see how Skyport potentially aligns with another Cisco HCI acquisition -- namely, Springpath. The HCI market has been growing and consolidating. The M&A feeding frenzy started in early 2017 when HP Enterprise acquired SimpliVity.
7. PSA & Payment Automation: HarmonyPSA now supports BlueSnap’s e-commerce API. The result: Service providers gain end-to-end automation of invoicing and cash processing, simplifying invoicing and payment workflow.
6. Freelance Platform Shakeout: Fiverr, the online platform for hiring freelancers, has acquired AND CO, the business management platform for freelancers and independent contractors, according to AllyWatch. Financial terms were not disclosed. The move comes only a few days after ADP acquired WorkMarket, an on-demand workforce management platform for employers, freelancers and contractors.
VAR Staffing's Todd Billiar
4. Talent Acquisition Tips: How can VARs and MSPs attract top candidates in an extremely tight labor pool? Perhaps this advice and this advice from VAR Staffing's Todd Billiar can assist your efforts...
5. ESOP Business Ownership - The Model: How can IT service providers transfer business ownership to their employees? One potential answer involves an ESOP (employee stock ownership plan). And one ESOP company case study involves Clif Bar Baking Company, which is now 20 percent owned by employees. The Clif Bar ESOP program, according to MagicValley, works like this:
Twelve months after an employee is hired — or after he or she has clocked in 1,000 hours — the employee enters Clif Bar’s stock ownership plan. But there’s a catch: If the employee leaves before working three years for the company, he or she won’t get any of that money.
After three years, employees become vested, meaning that whenever they retire or leave the company, they have three years to sell their ownership back to the company. The longer they’ve worked for Clif Bar, and presuming the company has grown, the higher that payout is.
The ownership then goes back into the pool for those who still work there. Clif Bar reassesses its value annually.
3. MSP Disaster Avoidance: Synoptek LLC, the fast-growing MSP, migrated customers from its Miami data center to Microsoft Azure before Hurricane Irma made landfall in September 2017. Some of the details are here.
2. MSP Market Forecast: The global managed IT services market will reach $256.5 billion in 2021, representing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 11.5 percent, according to BCC Research. Security services represent 12.3 percent of the U.S. market, but that segment will grow faster than the overall market. Banking, financial services and insurance.
1. Top 100 Vertical Market MSPs 2018: We'll unveil the complete list and associated research during our February 15 webcast. Register now and join us for the live webcast. Can't join us for the live conversation? Register anyway and consume it on-demand after February 15.
