Here are five (actually, more) technology news updates, insights, chatter, and plenty more to start your day for Wednesday, August 11, 2021. Sip up.
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- Who We Serve: Content for managed services providers (MSPs), IT service providers (ITSPs), technology solutions providers (TSPs), cloud services providers (CSPs), IT consulting firms, systems integrators, VARs, independent software vendors (ISVs), and any other partner acronym that further caffeinates our already stellar SEO.
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A. What’s Brewing Today: Technology News
1. Managed Services for SaaS Applications: Zylo, which develops an enterprise SaaS management platform, has launched Zylo Managed Services. The offering essentially aligns Zylo's consulting team with end-customers SaaS application management needs. In stark contrast, SMB-focused SaaS management and monitoring startups such as Augmentt and SaaS Alerts have positioned their platforms for third-party MSPs to consume.
2. PC Market Forecast: China's Lenovo Group said it expects strong demand for personal computers to continue until at least 2025 as the pandemic permanently changes how people live and work, after it reported a more than doubling in first-quarter profit, Reuters reports.
3. Funding - Accounting Software Unicorn: FreshBooks has raised $80.5 million in Series E funding and secured an additional $50 million in debt financing. The total FreshBooks valuation now exceeds $1 billion, the cloud-based accounting software company says.
4. Funding - Compensation Benchmarking: Pave raised $46 million in Series B funding led by the YC Continuity Fund. Pave integrates directly with customers’ HR and equity systems so that customers have "access to real-time compensation data and never have to use spreadsheets for compensation surveys, merit cycles, or total rewards statements again," the company says.
5. SAP Data Protection: SIOS Technology Corp. has released SIOS Protection Suite for Linux version 9.5.2 clustering software. The software now features "enhanced automation and application failover orchestration that makes creating and managing high availability (HA) clusters in complex SAP S/4HANA environments easier and more reliable for enterprises," the company says.
6. Google Employee Pay Cuts?: Imagine two Google employees were based in the same office before the pandemic. In the post-pandemic world, those two Google employees could see different changes in pay if they switch to working from home permanently, with long commuters hit harder, according to a Google company pay calculator seen by Reuters.
7. M&A - Consumer Anti-Virus Software: The rumors are true. U.S. cybersecurity company NortonLifeLock has agreed to buy London-listed rival Avast Plc for up to $8.6 billion in cash and shares to create a giant consumer security software business, Reuters reports.
B. Channel Chiefs, Partner Programs, Strategic Alliances and Integrations
1. Microsoft Partner Growth: AvePoint, a provider of data management solutions provider for Microsoft 365, announced financial results for the second quarter ended June 30, 2021. Key metrics include:
- Total revenue of $45.3 million, up 38% year-over-year.
- Total annual recurring revenue (ARR) of $139.0 million as of June 30, 2021, up 33% year-over-year.
- GAAP net loss of $11.6 million.
2. Partnership - Financial Managed Services: Options, a provider of cloud-enabled managed services to the global capital markets, has partnered with Quercus Technology Group. The goal: Enable cloud and application optimization services forTier 1 electronic trading applications and Capital Markets solutions. Options is backed by private equity firm Abry Partners.
3. Partnership - UCaaS Managed Services: Spectrum Enterprise, a part of Charter Communications, has announced Unified Communications (UC) with Webex, an "all-inclusive collaboration solution that brings together Spectrum Enterprise managed services and voice calling with the advanced messaging, meeting, content management and app-based capabilities of Webex," the company says.
C. Channel Partner Summits, MSP Conferences and Virtual Events Calendar
- Build IT Live 2021 (August 30-September 1, New York)
- Salesforce Dreamforce 2021 (September 21-23, Multiple Cities and Virtual)
- BigBig 2021 MSP Conference (September 23-25, Scottsdale, Arizona)
- UiPath Forward (October 5-6, Las Vegas)
- VMworld 2021 (October 5-7, Virtual)
- ChannelE2E’s complete event calendar
- Add Your Annual Event To Our Calendar: Submit it here for consideration.
