Good morning, channel partners. Here are five technology news updates, insights, chatter, and plenty more to start your day for Thursday, June 28, 2018.
Actually, there are 19 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:
19. Breaking - Kaseya Names New President: Details are here.
18. Infrastructure: Juniper Networks is extending EVPN-VXLAN fabric to the campus, enabling a common architecture for campus and data center fabrics by unifying disparate architectures, the company says. Juniper also introduced new branch capabilities in its Contrail SD-WAN solution, utilizing NFX Series, SRX Series and vSRX Series WAN Edge devices combined with Contrail Service Orchestration, the company says.
17. SD-WAN Shakeout: A major shakeout in the SD-WAN vendor market could arrive soon...
16. Talent - ITSM: Zendesk has named InaMarie Johnson as its first chief people officer, reporting to CEO Mikkel Svane.
15. Office 365 Cloud Backup: SkyKick has upgraded its Cloud Backup Suite for Office 365. The enhancements extend data protection to Microsoft Office 365 Groups and Teams, the company says.
14. Alliances: Collabrance, a U.S.-based Master MSP, has joined Ingram Micro's Trust X Alliance community of IT Solution Providers. The designation recognizes IT channel leaders who have high level expertise in deploying technology solutions and services and maintaining strategic relationships with leading and emerging IT manufacturers, Collabrance says.
13. Distribution - GDPR Assessments: Prianto has agreed to distribute RapidFire Tools Inc.'s IT assessment and compliance tools to MSPs in the Benelux market. The agreement includes RapidFire Tools’ new Audit Guru for GDPR solution. The current list of European distributors offering Audit Guru for GDPR includes Acmeo (Germany), Achab (Italy), Prianto (UK, Benelux), and Upstream (Denmark, Iceland, Finland, Norway, Sweden).
12. Partnership - Cloud Services: NTT Group has agreed to offer the Enterprise Cloud (ECL) powered by VMware Cloud Foundation service globally.
11. Partner Program - Network Performance Management: Accedian has launched a global partner program called SkyLIGHT 4X. The announcement follows Accedian's acquisition of Performance Vision in February 2018. The new program supports MSPs, cloud service providers, system integrators (SIs) and solution providers.
Continue to page two for today's items 10 to 1.
Welcome to page two of two. Here are items 10 to 1 for today.
10. Partner Program - Public Safety: FirstNet has launched a Dealer Program, which allows select dealers and AT&T Alliance Channel solution providers to sell FirstNet -- a new, nationwide public safety network. Panasonic System Solutions Company of North America has joined the partner initiative.
9. Compliance - RMM Software: Addigy has earned EU-U.S. Privacy Shield certification for the company’s cloud-based enterprise platform. Addigy's offerings support Unified Apple Device Management. The certification allows for the collection, use, and retention of personal information transferred from the EU to the U.S. in support of transatlantic business operations, Addigy says.
8. Partner Program - PSA & EPR Software: FinancialForce, which develops PSA and ERP software for the Salesforce.com platform, has launched a tiered ISV partner program. The tiers are designed for strategic, gold, silver and registered partners. over the past 15 months, bookings from FinancialForce's systems integrator partner referrals have tripled, with more than 100 customers going live on partner-led implementations, the company says.
7. Momentum - Accenture: The company's third-quarter revenue and profit exceeded Wall Street estimates on Thursday as the consulting and outsourcing services provider benefited from its plan to boost investments in digital and cloud services, Reuters says.
6. SMB Credit and Financing: American Express and Amazon are launching a new cobranded Amazon credit card for small businesses in the U.S. The card includes an enhanced data solution that gives businesses in the U.S. greater insight into their purchasing activity, as well as a continued global card acceptance relationship, the companies say. It sounds like more information is available on the Amazon Business page.
5. Talent - Job Loyalty: More than 45 percent of U.S. employees have a high intent to stay in their current positions, well above the international average of 32.4 percent, according to Gartner. Amid a shortage of workers seeking jobs, Gartner is calling on employers to develop Employee Value Proposition plans -- basically, the key offerings that allow businesses to attract and retain top talent.
4. M&A - Hosting Data Centers: Ensono has completed its acquisition of Wipro Limited’s Hosted Data Center Services (DCS) business in U.S., Europe and Singapore. More than 900 Wipro employees join Ensono. The deal essentially doubles Ensono's business -- lifting annual revenues to more than $550 million, the company says.
3. M&A - WordPress Hosting Services: WP-Engine has acquired StudioPress from Colorado-based Rainmaker Digital LLC. Financial terms were not disclosed. StudioPress of Dallas develops Genesis Framework, which eases WordPress website development.
2. M&A - Office Solutions: Staples has acquired HiTouch Business Services, an independent office products dealer network. HiTouch's three operating divisions sell office products, workspace design services and information technology products and services. The acquisition will become part of —Staples Business Advantage, which supports midsize and large businesses.
1. M&A - Microsoft Partner: KnowledgeLake, a Microsoft partner focused on SharePoint solutions and services, has been acquired original founder Ron Cameron. His financial backers include Plymouth Growth Partners and First Bank. Financial terms were note disclosed.
