Good morning, channel partners. Here are five technology news updates, insights, chatter, and plenty more to start your day for Wednesday, March 21, 2018.
Actually, there are 13 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…
12. Distribution: Synnex has launched a new member community through its CONVERGESolv Secure Networking Group. The CONVERGESolv Community is a consortium of IT resellers with a vested interest in addressing the rapidly growing security, networking, and communications technology markets, the distributor says.
11. Distribution - IoT: Synnex has expanded its agreement with Microsoft to offer Azure IoT solutions to its partners. The effort will help partners to deliver IoT solutions to such vertical markets as education and public safety, transportation, healthcare, utilities and construction, Synnex indicated.
10. Dropbox IPO Update: Dropbox has raised its IPO price target range by $2, essentially signaling strong investor demand for the initial public offering. The upbeat report counters earlier reports that expressed concerns about Dropbox's slowing growth. Indeed, Dropbox's private valuation had actually dropped by about a third in recent months.
9. Partner Program: Vonage has introduced a new channel partnership program, aptly called The Vonage Partner Network. The new program promotes Vonage's unified communications solutions and embedded communications APIs. Vonage already has 25 channel managers on staff and is already working with 30 of the largest master agents in the nation and thousands of subagents, the company says.
8. Dell-VMware Reverse Merger: T-Rowe Price, a major VMware shareholder, is the latest investment firm to push back against a potential Dell-VMware reverse merger.
7. Workspace as a Service: CloudJumper has launched WaaS platform enhancements including a Citrix Workspace and Citrix XenApp migration tool; hyper-scalable application services for the delivery of business application workloads; Windows 2016 session server support; automated multi-cloud management, and support for Azure Active Directory as a Service across public, private, and hybrid clouds, the company says.
6. VMWare and MSP Momentum: VMware is gaining momentum as hosting partners transform into MSPs. Ajay Patel, VP and GM, cloud provider software business unit, shared VMware highlights with ChannelE2E during a meeting yesterday at IBM Think 2018. We'll share more details soon...
5. PSA Software Adoption: Kimble Applications points to growing PSA (professional services automation) software adoption among technology and service providers in North America. Key adopters include Esri, CSA, Iron Mountain and Scrum Inc., among many others. It sounds like the PSA provider truly is in growth mode, though we don't have specific revenue or profit figures from the company...
4. M&A - SAP Partners: Techedge has acquired NIMBL, uniting two key SAP channel partners, and giving Techedge a deeper footprint in the U.S. market. We'll share more details soon.
3. M&A - Salesforce MuleSoft: Salesforce is acquiring MuleSoft for $6.5 billion. MuleSoft is a popular platform for building application networks that connect enterprise apps, data and devices, across any cloud and on-premise system.
2. M&A - Government IT Services: U.S. defense contractor General Dynamics on Tuesday raised its offer for CSRA Inc. to $9.7 billion, in an attempt to top an unsolicited bid from CACI International, Reuters notes.
1. IBM PartnerWorld: We'll spend today at IBM PartnerWorld, where the technology giant is expected to unveil partner program updates aligned with strategic imperatives like cognitive computing, security, cloud services and more. Stay tuned to our live blog from IBM PartnerWorld, part of the IBM Think conference.
