5 Channel Partner and MSP Updates: Monday 03 August 2020

Here are five (actually more) technology news updates, insights, chatter, and plenty more to start your day for Monday, August 3, 2020. Sip up.

Our Daily Brew

A. What’s Happening Today

1. M&A - Apple vs. Square: Apple has acquired Mobeewave in a potential counter-move to Square's point-of-sale (PoS) hardware and software for retailers and entrepreneurs. Mobeewave's software transforms iPhones into credit card readers -- with no requirement for additional hardware.

2. M&A - Smart Network Cameras: Cisco Systems has acquired Modcam, a privately held, video analytics company that transforms networked cameras into smart cameras. The deal aligns with Cisco’s Meraki MV smart camera business. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

3. Cloud MSPs - IPO: Rackspace Technology will likely launch its IPO this week. Here are expected valuation metrics for the multi-cloud MSP.

4. Enterprise IT Services & Consulting - Revenue Reality Check: The COVID-19 pandemic will not prevent Perficient from having a strong year, the large IT consulting firm and MSP said during its July 30 earnings call with Wall Street analysts. Perficient's revenue was $146.3 million in Q2 2020, up 3 percent from Q2 of 2019. Also, net income was $6.6 million, down 23 percent from Q2 of 2019, Perficient said. The results generally beat Wall Street's expectations.

5. Work From Home and IT Support: Employees are impressed with their IT departments and technology support, according to a poll from NinjaRMM. The findings are particularly reassuring, NinjaRMM notes, as IT professionals work to support employees amid the coronavirus economy -- which frequently includes work from home and work from anywhere mandates.

6. Bots and Enterprise Service Management (ESM): Espressive has updated its virtual support agent (VSA) Espressive Barista. The update includes Barista Conversational Surveys, an AI-based survey to inform decision making while triggering actions in real time. The bot system includes a predictive model to accurately classify, assign, and prioritize tickets, enabling fast deployment and improved mean time to resolve (MTTR), Espressive asserts.

7. Partner Program - Zoom Video Communications: Zoom will shift to a partner-only sales model in mainland China starting August 23, Reuters reports. Key partners in the region are expected to include Bizconf Communications, Suiri Zhumu Video Conference, and Systec Umeet, the report says.

8. Cloud Services Spending Growth: Q2 2020 spend on cloud infrastructure services passed the $30 billion milestone, an increase of $7.5 billion from the second quarter of 2019, Synergy Research Group reports.

9. Data Protection - Salesforce Cloud: Salesforce discontinued its own Data Recovery service on July 31, 2020. For third-party BDR services, Salesforce is telling telling partners and customers to visit the Salesforce AppExchange and search the word "backup." Popular search results as of August 3 include OwnBackup, Spanning from Kaseya, and Odaseva, among many others. OwnBackup's investors include Salesforce Ventures and Insight Partners -- parent of Kaseya.

10. Virtual Security Summit: Ingram Micro's Security Solutions Summit 2020 is confirmed for August 12-13.

B. Upcoming Technology Conferences & Virtual Partner Events