5 Channel Partner & MSP Updates: Monday 14 December 2020

Here are five (actually, more) technology news updates, insights, chatter, and plenty more to start your day for Monday, December 14, 2020. Sip up.

Our Daily Brew

A. What’s Happening Today

1. SolarWinds Orion Security Advisory: MSSP Alert on Sunday reported that hackers had weaponized SolarWinds Orion business software updates in order to distribute malware and launch so-called SUNBURST attacks against government, business and consulting targets. SolarWinds has now issued an Orion Security Advisory to help IT professionals & MSPs patch systems that are at risk.

2. M&A - Private Equity and Online Tech Education: Vista Equity Partners has acquired Pluralsight for $3.5 billion.

3. M&A - Distribution: Ingram Micro is acquiring Canal Digital, a value-added technology distributor based in Colombia. The acquisition is expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2021. This is M&A deal number 520 that ChannelE2E has covered so far in 2020.

4. M&A - Product Lifecycle Management: PTC is acquiring product lifecycle management (PLM) platform provider Arena Solutions for $715 million in cash.

5. Talent - Diversity & Inclusion: A group including some of the biggest U.S. companies is launching a nationwide campaign to hire 1 million Black Americans over the next decade, with a goal of economically uplifting communities of color, CBS News reports. The OneTen coalition — which has 37 members and which includes corporate giants such as AT&T, Bank of America, Comcast, Delta, General Motors, IBM, Nike, Merck, Verizon and Walmart — said they're specifically interested in Black workers who don't have a college degree, the report says.

6. Talent - Managed IT Services Provider (MSP): Aligned Technology Solutions has hired three MSP industry veterans into key leadership positions. The hires include VP of Service Delivery Jeremiah Best; VP Cybersecurity & Compliance Justin Weeks; and Director of Helpdesk Operations Stephen Polidore. These are entirely new positions that were added in support of the company's continued growth, ATS says.

7. Partnership - SD-WANs: Vandis has added Barracuda CloudGen WAN solution to its Microsoft Azure Lighthouse managed service offerings. This technology allows organizations to implement a secure SD-WAN solution while leveraging Microsoft Azure Virtual WAN (vWAN). The result is enterprise connectivity and throughput for meshed connectivity between Branch, Datacenter, and Cloud services, Vandis says.

8. Partnership - EY and Microsoft: Ernst & Young has launched the EY Microsoft Services Group, focused on helping companies realize long-term value through end-to-end Microsoft powered digital transformation, the companies say. EY expects to train 20,000 employees on Microsoft platforms.

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