Channel Brief: Cork, OneNeck, Megaport, AI Safety, More

Grab a cup of your favorite morning beverage and check out the return of our regular market briefing for managed services providers (MSPs), IT service providers (ITSPs), technology service providers (TSPs), cloud service providers (CSPs) cybersecurity consultants, systems integrators, VARs, independent software vendors (ISVs), and distributors.

Scroll down for a quick view of upcoming in-person channel and MSP events at the bottom of this post (while we spiff up our industry calendar behind the scenes. It will return!)

And please send your news tips, information, and industry chatter to editorial director [email protected].

Sip up.

A. Today’s Tech, Channel and MSP News

1. Cork gets new exec - Nick Wolf has joined the cyber warranty pioneer Cork as the company’s first director of Partner Acquisition. Wolf comes to Cork from Evo Security, a provider of Identity & Access Management (IAM) solutions for MSPs.

2. NaaS partnership for cloud - Hybrid IT and multi-cloud solutions and services OneNeck IT Solutions is partnering with network-as-a-service provider Megaport Limited to improve customer connections to the cloud with Megaport’s software defined network. The partnership provides for OneNeck to integrate Megaport’s technology directly into its data centers, starting with Minneapolis, Des Moines, and Madison, Wisconson. 

3. NIST AI Safety Institute - The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has launched a consortium dedicated to AI safety. The U.S. AI Safety Institute will include stakeholders in private industry, academia and government, including Cisco, CrowdStrike, DataRobot, FAIR Institute, Fortanix, GitHub, Google, HPE, Hugging Face, Intel, Meta, Microsoft, MongoDB, NVIDIA, OpenAI, Palantir, Salesforce, SAS Institute, and Workday.

4. SolarWinds financial results - Observability and IT management software provider SolarWinds saw its Q4 revenue grow by 6% year over year and its full year reenue grow by 5 percent. Recurring revenue represented 92% of total revenue. Net loss for Q4 was $600,000, and net loss for the fullyear was $9.1 million. The company is expecting a revenue increase of 2% in Q1 and 3% for the full year. 

5. Headed to the Super Bowl - CrowdStrike will be running an advertisement during the Super Bowl for the second year in a row, featuring the company’s AI-powered cybersecurity heroine Charlotte as she tackles modern cyber adversaries and stops breaches. Watch for it during the two-minute warning in the first half. 

6. Cyberinsurance update - Direct written premiums for cyber insurance worldwide could rise to $23 billion by 2025, with U.S. businesses paying about 56% of the total, according to the Insurance Information Institute’s (Triple-I) latest Issues Brief, published this week. The global cyber insurance market has tripled in volume in the five years that ended in 2022, according to Swiss Re Institute. 

B. In-Person MSP and Channel Partner Events