5 Channel Partner and MSP Updates: Friday 13 November 2020 -

Here are five (actually, more) technology news updates, insights, chatter, and plenty more to start your day for Friday, November 13, 2020. Sip up.

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A. What’s Happening Today

1. M&A - PSA Software: Did Ingram Micro acquire Harmony PSA? Hmmm...

2. Funding - PSA Software Startup: Viking Venture has invested €10 million (US$11.82 million) into TimeLog, a professional services automation (PSA) software startup that services the Nordic and northern European markets. TimeLog plans to hire about 25 employees in 2021, and will eventually expand over time into India and the United States. Moreover, TimelLog is planning to acquire one company per year over the next five years, CEO Per-Henrik Nielsen disclosed in a blog.

3. M&A - CRM for SMB: Private Equity firm Vista Equity Partners has acquired Pipedrive, a CRM platform for SMBs led by former Zoho and ManageEngine President Raj Sabhlok.

4. M&A - MSP Ends Discussions: European MSP Redcentric has ended exploratory discussions to potentially sell the business, and is now seeking to potentially acquire more MSPs.

5. MSP - ServiceNow Partnership: Fully Managed, a Top 100 Vertical Market MSP, has achieved ServiceNow ElitePartner Program. Fully Managed helps organizations plan, implement, and manage their ServiceNow solutions.

6. MSP - Oracle Managed Services: Miro Consulting, an independent software licensing consultancy marks, has launched a Managed Services for Oracle Licensing service.

7. MSP - IT Operations: Infosys has launched a Live Enterprise Application Management Platform -- an end-to-end managed services platform for IT operations. The platform, Infosys says, addresses four customer needs.

Setting up a business command center to act as the digital brain, unifying and analyzing input from disparate IT tools and processes to drive zero-touch, zero-latency IT support and maintenance services
Probing for insights and root causes of process friction, poor experience and disruptions, to build sentient and seamless experience journeys
Applying conversational AI and cognitive automation to enable self-service, improve efficiency and reliability of agile operations
Taking a business process KPI-led view of operations aligned with business objectives

8. MSPs - Cloud Services: Zadara has expanded its portfolio to include compute-as-a-service solutions for MSPs and enterprises. Leveraging a new technology partnership with NeoKarm, Zadara is now positioned to offer its MSP partners and customers the ability to build private cloud environments without traditional CapEx investment. The Zadara Cloud Platform (ZCP) allows MSPs to provision compute, storage and networking resources.

9. Next-Generation MSP Service Desks: Where are MSP service desks and help desks heading next? Perhaps some clues have emerged from Salesforce -- which has launched Visual Remote Assistance...

10. Momentum - Data Protection: Veeam Software, backed by private equity firm Insight Partners, grew its annual recurring revenue (ARR) 21 percent year-over-year (YoY) for Q3’20. The data protection provider now supports 400,000+ customers worldwide. Veeam did not disclose actual revenue or profit figures.

11. Partnership - Managed Network Services: BT has launched cloud-optimized managed network services to expand multinational customers’ choice of software-based connectivity solutions, the massive service provider says. The first service, based on VMware SD-WAN, is available to customers globally and already in live deployment, BT adds.

12. Security Certification: A new version of CompTIA Security+, a professional certification for the validation of core cybersecurity skills, is now available.