Channel Brief: VMware Revenue Down, Blue Mantis Launches Backup-as-a-Service

Hi, folks! Happy Thursday! I'm getting caught up on email after traveling, so I'm a bit late posting this morning. I'll keep it short and sweet: VMware revenue is down, but so are costs, with Broadcom's Hock Tan telling investors he'll cut costs even further by the end of the year. That, of course, is sparking speculation that more layoffs are coming.

SPECTRA joins Ingram Micro to offer cyber warranties and cyber insurance to smaller businesses, Blue Mantis has a managed backup-as-a-service offering, Jill Passalacqua joins Horizon3.ai as its new chief legal officer and more.

Grab your coffee. Here’s what you need to know today.

Today’s Tech, Channel and MSP News

1. Horizon3.ai Appoints New Chief Legal Officer: Autonomous security solutions firm Horizon3.ai has appointed Jill Passalacqua as Chief Legal Officer (CLO). As Chief Legal Officer, Passalacqua leads Horizon3.ai's legal department during its rapid growth phase, driven by the global adoption of their autonomous penetration testing solution, NodeZero. Before joining Horizon3.ai, Passalacqua was CLO at JumpCloud and has held general counsel positions at Harness and Avi Networks where she led the corporate legal strategy and operations and facilitated substantial growth, including a successful acquisition by VMware. Before Avi Networks, Passalacqua was at FireEye and managed the commercial team, built the global compliance and legal operations functions, and managed international expansion and M&A integration. Congratulations!

2. SPECTRA Joins Ingram Micro: Cyber insurance solutions provider SPECTRA is making its new Certification and Cyber Resilience Warranties available to some Ingram Micro channel partners in the U.S., the company said in a statement. Members of Ingram Micro’s SMB Alliance and TRUST X Alliance communities can access certification and cyber resilience warranties at a special rate through the end of the summer. Members of Ingram Micro’s SMB and Trust X Alliance communities have a first-to-market opportunity with SPECTRA to become certified and offer Cyber Resilience Warranties covering up to one million dollars per customer. In 2025, the relationship will expand to include Ingram Micro partners worldwide.

3. DataStrike Acquires MiCORE: Data infrastructure services provider DataStrike has acquired database and cloud management pioneer MiCORE. DataStrike provides SMBs across industries with an end-to-end portfolio of onshore managed services, including data management, cloud, enterprise application management and analytics. Through the acquisition of MiCORE, the combined company now boasts more than 200 clients and thousands of databases monitored across North America. The move forms the largest MSP specializing in data infrastructure services for SMBs, the companies said in a statement. The company also appointed a new management team that the companies said holds deep roots in the data infrastructure space. DataStrike’s leadership includes CEO Buddy Flerl, President and COO Rob Brown and CMO Kelsic Pross, all former executives from database administration MSP RDX.

4. Blue Mantis Backup-as-a-Service for Mid-Market and Enterprise Customers: MSP Blue Mantis today announced managed backup-as-a-service (BaaS) for mid-market and enterprise customers. The managed BaaS leverages technology from Veeam and Wasabi and ensures high degrees of resiliency and supports physical, virtual, public cloud and Microsoft 365 and Azure workloads, the company said in a statement. Delivered as a managed service and backed by Blue Mantis’ managed services team, Blue Mantis Managed BaaS assumes responsibility for an enterprise’s entire backup and recovery, allowing IT teams to focus on more strategic initiatives.

5. VMware Revenue Down -- Are More Layoffs Coming? The Register reported that, during its first full quarter under Broadcom ownership, VMware's quarterly revenue appears to have fallen by $600 million. CEO Hock Tan announced on Broadcom's Q2 2024 earnings call that VMware revenue for the quarter came in at $2.7 billion. Broadcom's quarter ended on May 5 – as did pre-acquisition VMware's Q1 2024 when, in June 2023, it reported $3.28 billion revenue for the period. Tan said VMware did increase annualized booking values – a metric of commitment to long-term contracts – which rose from $1.2 billion last quarter to $1.9 billion. He added that Broadcom sees "a lot of interest" from customers looking to VMware's portfolio as a means to build on-premises private clouds "as a nice complement, maybe even alternative or hybrid, to public clouds." Costs are also down significantly from $2.3 billion a quarter to $1.6 billion, and, as the article said, Tan told investors Broadcom targeted quarterly costs of $1.4 billion, but is on track to exit 2024 with costs at $1.3 billion – and can reduce them further to $1.2 billion. Rumors of further layoffs are already circulating, The Register said.

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