5 Channel Partner Program and MSP News Updates: 15 April 2021

Here are five (actually, more) technology news updates, insights, chatter, and plenty more to start your day for Thursday, April 15, 2021. Sip up.

What’s In Our Daily Brew?

A. What’s Brewing Today: Technology News

1. Ingram Micro Quarterly Earnings: Ingram Micro Q4 2020 net sales were $15.56 billion, compared to $12.2 billion in Q4 of 2019. Net income was $226 million in Q4 2020, compared to $230 million in Q4 of 2019. Ingram's sale to private equity firm Platinum Equity is on track to close at the end of Q2 2021, the distributor added.

2. MSP - Managed Cloud DevOps: Rackspace, a Top 250 Public Cloud MSP, is pivoting toward so-called "elastic engineering," which will help customers to speed their cloud migrations and business models, the company says.

3. Research - SMB Security: A new research report -- called the Cisco Security Outcomes Study: Small and Midsize Business Edition -- has surfaced.

4. IT Service Management: BMC has introduced new AI-driven IT Operations (AIOps) and AI-driven Service Management (AISM) capabilities for the BMC Helix portfolio that will "enable IT service and operations teams to predict issues better, resolve them faster, and provide always-on service," the company says.

5. Upgrade - PSA and ERP for Salesforce: FinancialForce has launched its Spring 2021 Release -- an ERP and PSA upgrade that integrates tightly with Salesforce cloud.

6. Cloud Software Suite: OpenText, owner of Carbonite and Webroot, has launched OpenText Cloud Editions (CE) 21.2 -- which features content, collaboration, security and developer capabilities, among other areas of focus.

7. Talent - Cloud Cost Management: CloudCheckr has named Anu Subramanian as its chief technology officer.

B. Channel Chiefs, Partner Programs and Strategic Alliances

1. Talent - MSP Technology Sales: Datto has hired Poly, Forcepoint and Palo Alto Networks veteran Joshua Hoffman as senior VP of sales.

2. Channel Chief: Okta has hired former Insight North America President Steve Dodenhoff as channel chief, CRN reported.

3. Integration - ServiceNow and Oracle Cloud: ServiceNow's IT service management (ITSM) software now supports Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.

4. Partner Program - Privileged Access Management (PAM): BeyondTrust has revamped its Channel Partner Program to expand its tier structure, increase cloud and term subscription discounts, and boost benefits as Partners move up to new tiers, the company says. New Vice President of Global Partner Programs, Jeff Mattan, is leading the effort.

5. Partner Program - Work Management Software: Asana has launched Asana Partners, an ecosystem of over 200 essential work tools and strategic channel partners across 75 countries, the company says.

6. Partner Program: Jolt Software, an operations management and digital food safety platform for the deskless worker, has launched its new Partner Program division -- adding resellers to its previously launched Referral Partner Program.

7. Partnership - Salesforce Financial Services Cloud: AppCrown and Vantage Point are partnering to support wealth management and banking companies that run the Salesforce Financial Services Cloud (FSC).

8. Partnership - Multi-Cloud Data Protection: VMware hosting provider iland will integrate the iland Secure Cloud platform with Cohesity’s multicloud data platform. Enterprise customers will gain "faster and more precise data protection capabilities," iland and Cohesity assert.

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