5 Channel Partner Programs and MSP Updates: 11 May 2021 -

Here are five (actually, more) technology news updates, insights, chatter, and plenty more to start your day for Tuesday, May 11, 2021. Sip up.

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A. What’s Brewing Today: Technology News

1. Rackspace Quarterly Financial Results: The multi-cloud MSP announced announced financial results that disappointed Wall Street analysts, and Rackspace's stock ($RXT) promptly fell about 19 percent on the news. Rackspace's financial metrics include:

Revenue of $726 million in Q1 of 2021, up 11 percent from Q1 of 2020.

A net loss of $64 million in Q1 of 2021, compared to a net loss of $48 million in Q1 of 2020.

2. 8x8 Quarterly Financial Results: The unified communications company announced:

Total revenue of $144.7 million in Q4 of fiscal 2021, up 19 percent from Q4 of 2020.

Net loss was $45 million in Q4 of 2021, slightly less than the $50.1 million net loss in Q4 of 2020.

3. ScanSource Quarterly Financial Results: The distributor announced:

Net sales of $729.9 million in Q3 of 2021, down 2 percent from Q3 of 2020.

Net income from continuing operations of $13.8 million in Q3 of 2021, far higher than $5.7 million in Q3 of 2020.

4. Momentum - Email Security & Cloud Backup: Barracuda's email protection solutions, including Sentinel and Forensics and Incident Response, added 3,400 new customers in FY2021, which ended February 28, 2021. That's 60 percent year over year growth in new customers, the company says. Also, Barracuda Cloud-to-Cloud backup experienced 112 percent growth. And annual recurring revenue (ARR) for Barracuda MSP’s email protection solutions grew 66 percent year-over-year at the end of Q4 FY2021. Barracuda is owned by private equity firm Thoma Bravo.

B. Channel Chiefs, Partner Programs and Strategic Alliances

1. Partner Program - Windows Virtual Desktops: Nerdio has launch of its Nerdio Partnerd Program and certification courses for MSPs.

2. Partner Program - Storage: NetApp has updated its Unified Partner Program for fiscal year 2022 -- which includes a planned transition to a new tiering structure. The program is "expanding the partner ecosystem, offering new financial incentives and accelerating profitability, and adding new solutions and Services Certified specializations," NetApp says.

3. Partnership - Darktrace and Microsoft Azure Sentinel: Darktrace and Microsoft are partnering to provide mutual customers with "enterprise scale, self-learning AI that detects and autonomously responds to cyber-threats," Darktrace says. The collaboration "amplifies Darktrace's self-learning artificial intelligence for cybersecurity within Microsoft environments, including Microsoft 365 and cloud applications like Azure Sentinel," the companies add.

4. Integration - IT Service Management: Blancco Technology Group, which develops data erasure and mobile device diagnostics, now integrates with ServiceNow to provide secure data sanitization capabilities directly from the Now Platform . Blancco’s Secure Data Erasure app is available on the ServiceNow Store.