5 Channel Partner Program and MSP News Updates: Wednesday 13 January 2021

Here are five (actually, more) technology news updates, insights, chatter, and plenty more to start your day for Wednesday, January 13, 2021. Sip up.

What’s In Our Daily Brew?

A. What’s Brewing Today: Technology News

1. Equality - Martin Luther King Holiday: The Communication Workers of America has sent a letter to Lumen CEO Jeff Storey, asking him to extend the Martin Luther King paid holiday to all Lumen workers. Lumen is the new name for the former CenturyLink.

2. Talent - ServiceNow MSP Partner: Fully Managed has promoted Rick Bowes to chief technology officer. Bowes was co-founder of Lime Collar Group, which Fully Managed acquired in 2019. Additional Fully Managed moves include naming:

3. Talent - Public Cloud MSP: DoiT International has hired Rackspace veteran Scott White as chief revenue officer, and Flxential veteran Kristen Cardinalli as chief marketing officer. DoiT International is a Google Cloud and Amazon Web Services (AWS) partner.

4. Talent - AWS Cloud Consulting: Mission, a Top 250 Public Cloud MSP according to ChannelE2E, has hired Rackspace veteran Jaret Chiles as VP of consulting services. Chiles will be responsible for the structure and performance of Mission’s Professional Services, Managed DevOps, and Project Management Office organizations. Mission is an AWS Premier Consulting Partner.

5. Talent: Avaya has hired UJET,Markforged and Cisco Meraki veteran Darcey Harrison as VP of North America Cloud Sales.

6. Managed Services for RPA Software Bots: Accelirate of Sunrise, Florida, has launched enterprise managed services for commercial RPA (Robotic Process Automation) programs. Accelirate employs more than 200 RPA automation and AI (artificial intelligence) professionals, the company says.

7. IT Monitoring - Cisco WebEx: Vyopta has introduced real-time monitoring and broadened analytics support for Cisco Webex Meetings.

8. Funding - Workflow Automation: Workato has raised  $110 million in Series D funding led by Altimeter Capital alongside Insight Partners. Workato has now raised $221 million overall, and the company's valuation is now $1.7 billion. Workato's software is designed to automate workflows and potentially competes with Robotic Process Automation (RPA), Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS), business process management (BPM), and chatbots. Related: Workato partner program information.

9. Funding - Information Management: M-Files has received a strategic investment of $80 million (€67 million). Bregal Milestone, a European growth capital firm, led the round with current investors Partech, Tesi and Draper Esprit also participating.

10. Potential IPO - Cloud Communications Services: Chinese cloud communications company Beijing Ronglian Yitong Information Technology Co., also known as Yuntongxun, is weighing an initial public offering that could raise as much as $500 million, Bloomberg reports.

11. Government Data Protection: The Acronis SCS hardened backup and disaster recovery solution has officially earned Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) 140-2 validation. The backup software is designed for federal government and utilities. Acronis SCS serves the U.S. public sector with a focus on federal, state, and local governments, education and non-profit organizations, while Acronis Inc. handles all remaining industries and geographies. Acronis SCS CEO John Zanni further described the company's business strategy in this ChannelE2E interview.

12. Milestone - Zoom Phone Seats: Zoom has sold roughly 1 million Zoom Phone seats since launching the product family roughly two years ago, the video conferencing company says.

13. Capital Projects and Digital Transformation: Many capital projects companies have invested in digital and data capabilities, but only a few get the returns they expected, new Accenture research concludes.

B. Channel Chiefs, Partner Programs and Strategic Alliances

1. Partner Financing - Distribution: D&H Distributing has extended the exclusive 60-day repayment terms it has arranged with financing partner DLL until the end of 2021. The program had involved a 30-day repayment schedule before the COVID-19 pandemic arrived. Sales through this program increased approximately 85 percent in the past year to-date, year-over-year, D&H says. D&H’s channel partners can visit the company’s Financial Services page and apply for DLL’s offering, or email [email protected] for information.

2. Partnership - Small Business Cloud Communications: Telus and RingCentral have expanded their partnership to enable Canadian small businesses to transition their legacy phone systems to the cloud via TELUS Business Connect, an all-in-one communications solution for message, video, and phone.

3. Data Protection Marketplace: Spirion has introduced Customer Marketplace, an online hub for third-party data privacy and security integrations, applications, best practices, and training information.

4. Government - Robotic Process Automation (RPA) Impact: The Center for Business Civic Engagement (CBCE) at George Mason University has established a Robotic Process Automation (RPA) Initiative in partnership with UiPath to determine the impact of RPA on government effectiveness and efficiency, the organizations say.

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