5 Channel Partner and MSP Updates: Friday 04 December 2020

Here are five (actually, more) technology news updates, insights, chatter, and plenty more to start your day for Friday, December 4, 2020. Sip up.

Our Daily Brew

A. What’s Happening Today

1. M&A - Private Equity: Thoma Bravo has acquired Flexera, a developer of IT management solutions. Flexera’s existing shareholders TA Associates and Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board retain "meaningful" stakes in the business. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Thoma Bravo also owns Barracuda, ConnectWise, Sophos and SolarWinds -- although SolarWinds also trades on public markets ($SWI).

2. M&A - eDiscovery: Exterro has acquired AccessData, a provider of digital forensic investigation technology.

3.  M&A TLS/SSL Certificates: Sectigo has acquired SSL247, the biggest SSL certificate and web security provider in the UK and France, and Xolphin, the largest provider of SSL certificates and digital signatures in the Netherlands. With the two acquisitions, Sectigo "significantly extends its sales reach and support for the company's leading SSL certificate solutions" to "thousands of additional organizations across Europe and Latin America," the buyer says.

4. Talent - Enterprise SaaS Management: Zylo has hired Salesforce veteran Tim Horoho as chief technology officer (CTO) and Conga veteran Bob Grewal as chief revenue officer (CRO).

5. Multi-Cloud Data Storage: Nutanix has announced new hybrid cloud capabilities for its unstructured data storage offerings, Objects and Files. The result: Nutanix customers can now "deploy an easy-to-use, scale out storage fabric across their different cloud environments to simplify data management and effectively manage costs - moving IT teams ever closer to a true hybrid cloud operating model," the company asserts.

6. Data Protection - Microsoft Office 365: Veeam has released version 5 of Veeam Backup for Microsoft Office 365. The upgrade includes backup and recovery support for Microsoft Teams.

B. Channel Chiefs, Partner Programs and Strategic Alliances

1. Partnership - eSignatures: Sherweb's partner portal within the next few months will feature airSlate's signNow e-signature solution, the two companies say.

2. Partnership - M&A Guidance: Ernst & Young has built EY Diligence Edge, a software platform designed to help M&A dealmakers identify risks and opportunities faster through deeper insights across the transaction’s life cycle, EY says. The software platform leverages IBM Cloud and IBM Watson Discovery.

3. Partner - Cisco WebEx: Theta Lake, Inc., which specializes in collaboration security and compliance solutions, is now available on the Cisco Global Price List (CGPL). Cisco participated in Theta Lake’s recent $12.7 million Series A funding round.

4. Partnership - Managed Containers: MayaData and Platform9 are partnering to deploy and manage performance-sensitive stateful workloads on Kubernetes.

5. Distribution - Cloud Data Protection: Tech Data has agreed to distribute Druva in the Nordics.

6. Partnership - Industrial Security:  Nozomi Networks and Chinook Systems have partnered to provide cybersecurity solutions to protect industrial and critical infrastructure facilities across North America.

C. Channel Partner Summits, MSP Conferences and Virtual Event Calendar