5 Channel Partner and MSP Updates: Thursday 10 December 2020

Here five (actually, more) technology news updates, insights, chatter, and plenty more to start your day for Thursday, December 10, 2020. Sip up.

Our Daily Brew

A. What’s Happening Today

1. M&A - Private Equity and Risk Management: Thoma Bravo is making moves in the risk management software market. The first confirmed move involves acquiring AxiomSL, a provider of cloud-enabled risk management and regulatory solutions for banking, investment management, broker dealers and commodity trading institutions. The second move involves potentially selling Riskonnect in Q1 2021, according to PE Hub. ChannelE2E wonders: Will AxiomSL somehow wind up acquiring Riskonnect? Hmmm...

2. M&A - IT Management: ControlUp has acquired Avacee, a cloud-first platform for managing systems and devices everywhere. The combined platform will "enable enterprise IT to identify performance issues, analyze their root causes, and automatically deploy fixes before employee productivity is negatively impacted," the companies say.

3. M&A - Kubernetes Application Management: New Relic is acquiring Pixie Labs, which develops a "machine intelligence observability solution" for developers using Kubernetes. The potential upside for New Relic's MSP partners: Pixie "dramatically simplifies the process of troubleshooting and live debugging applications in Kubernetes environments," the buyer says. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

4. Data Protection: Axcient has announced x360Recover Virtual Office, which is designed for parters to support customer data -- regardless of where the customer data resides. The offering includes appliance-based and appliance-free (Direct-to-Cloud) systems.

5. Cloud-based Networking - Canada: Extreme Networks now offers a native cloud management platform located and running in Canada. The details: ExtremeCloud IQ subscribers can now leverage Microsoft Azure data centers in Toronto to manage their enterprise networks, ensuring "data privacy and sovereignty for citizens and providing a local option for global organizations doing business in the region," Extreme Networks say.

6. Linux - CentOS Shift: Red Hat is shifting its investment fully from CentOS Linux to CentOS Stream, the IBM-owned company disclosed in a blog. The disclosure triggered strong reaction in the open source ecosystem...

B. Channel Chiefs, Partner Programs and Strategic Alliances

1. IT Support - Augmented Reality: TeamViewer has expanded its integrations with ServiceNow and Salesforce Augmented Reality.

2. Distribution - 5G Networks: Tech Data has agreed to distribute Cradlepoint, a specialist in wireless 4G LTE and 5G WAN solutions.

3. Partnership - Workflow Automation: TriggerMesh and Google Cloud are partnering to automate enterprise workflows with an intelligent cross-cloud event bus that connects applications, cloud services, and serverless functions, the companies say.

4. Partnership - Cloud Storage & Video Surveillance: Wasabi and Stone Security are partnering to offer cloud storage for digital video surveillance files.

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