5 Channel Partner Updates: Monday 06 January 2020

Here are five (actually, a bit more…) technology news updates, insights, chatter, and plenty more to start your day for Monday, January 6, 2020. Sip up.

Our Daily Brew

A. What’s Hot Today

1. Expansion - IT Services: TeamLogic IT, a franchise network of managed IT services providers, recently opened location 200. The office, located in Denver, Colorado, is owned and operated by Tim and Claudia Pillow.

2. Private Equity - The Big Challenge: Private investors are sitting on a record $1.5 trillion in cash, according to new data from Preqin. Yes, that's trillion -- with a T. That is the highest on record and more than double what it was five years ago, CNBC reports.The flush of cash means more competition for the same deals, however, pushing up valuations. That's potentially good news for sellers -- but potentially bad news for PE firms. Indeed, some analysts think returns will “disappoint," CNBC says.

3. M&A - MSP: Private equity firm Trinity Hunt Partners has acquired Dataprise, a Top 200 MSSP (managed security services provider) and Sophos MSP partner of the year.

4. M&A - Distribution Buyout: Private equity firm Clayton, Dubilier and Rice (CD&R) has agreed to raise its buyout offer for Anixter International to $4.3 billion. The new bid surfaces after Anixter received a rival offer.

5. M&A - Cybersecurity Part One: Mimecast has acquired Segasec, a cybersecurity software provider that protects against fake websites, phishing scams, credential harvesting and impersonation attempts on the Web.

6. M&A – Cybersecurity Part Two: Broadcom has acquired Bay Dynamics. The move boosts Broadcom’s Symantec enterprise unit with cyber risk analytics software.

7. M&A - Xerox and HP: Xerox has secured financing to fuel its hostile takeover of HP Inc., The Wall Street Journal reports. HP has repeatedly pushed back against the proposed takeover, alleging that there's no compelling reason to pursue the deal as currently proposed.

8. M&A - LogMeIn Buyout Update: LogMeIn won't likely attracted more bidders, leaving private equity firm Francisco Partners as the remote IT software provider's most likely next owner, KeyBanc predicts.

9. Research - IT Services Market Forecast: Top Indian software services companies are expected to have a tough year in FY21 amid continued weakness in demand from the banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) and retail verticals, LiveMint reports.

10. Disk Drive Price Fixing: HP Inc. was awarded $439 million in damages against Quanta Storage Inc. and its U.S. subsidiary after a federal judge tripled a jury’s 2019 award for damages caused by a widespread scheme to inflate the price of optical disk drives, Bloomberg reports.

11. Cloud Storage Lawsuit: SynKloud is striving to enforce a patent against the entire cloud storage industry. Recent legal targets include HP Inc. and Microsoft. We're watching to see if the suit ever gains traction.

12. IoT Monitoring Dashboard: ZScaler has unveiled a freemium IoT monitoring dashboard, eWeek notes.

13. Talent - AT&T Layoffs?: The chatter is here.

14. Talent - Cloud Data Management: Informatica has named Amit Walia as CEO, succeeding Anil Chakravarthy.

15. Talent - Data Protection: Veeam Software has promoted Danny Allan to chief technology officer (CTO) and senior VP of product strategy.

16. Data Center Expansion: LayerHost.com has opened a new data center location in Houston, Texas.

B. Channel Partner Programs and Strategic Alliances

1. Channel Chief: Juniper Networks has named Gordon Mackintosh as its worldwide VP of channel and virtual sales. Mackintosh previously held key posts at Extreme Networks and Cisco Systems. On a related note, Juniper recently announced updates to its Partner Advantage program for 2020 with new specializations.

2. Partnership - Network Storage: Cumulus Networks and HP Enterprise have partnered to promote open storage networking platforms.

3. Smart Display Screens: Taoping, which develops Internet-based smart display screens, has recruited dozens of companies into the Taoping Alliance partner program.

4. IoT Cloud Partners: Haltian Oy has achieved Amazon Web Services (AWS) IoT Competency status, the companies say.

5. All Partner Programs: Search the comprehensive ChannelE2E Partner Program Database here. Also, submit your company information here and your partner program can be listed in the database.

C. Upcoming Technology Conferences

Got news to share for our morning update? Email me: [email protected].