5 Channel Partner Program and MSP Market News Updates: 16 September 2022

Greetings and salutations. Here are five technology news updates, insights, chatter, and plenty more to start your day for Thursday, September 15, 2022. Sip up.

What’s In Our Daily Brew?

A. Today’s Technology, Channel Chief and MSP Partner Program News

1.  Top 250 MSSPs List of 2022: The newly published Top 250 MSSPs list for 2022 is here.

2. MSSP Alert Live 2022 Conference - Starting Monday: Our live news blog has started.

Special thanks to the MSPs, MSSPs, speakers and sponsors who are set to join us in Washington, D.C. (Sept. 19-21). I'm already on-site, and look forward to kicking off fireside chats with Secureworks CEO Wendy Thomas, ConnectWise CISO Patrick Beggs and Booz Allen Hamilton Senior VP Wade Alt on Monday afternoon, September 19.

3. MSP Partner Program: Blue Equinox has launched the MSP Alliance Partner Program and Network. The program is not related to the MSP Alliance organization, which launched in 2000.

4. Channel Chief - Data Protection: Commvault has hired Dell and EMC veteran Alan Atkinson as chief partner officer. Atkinson reports to Chief Revenue Officer Riccardo Di Blasio.

5. Ernst & Young Consulting Concerns?: Strong competition and a slowing economy could pose challenges for Ernst & Young as it looks to stand up a separate consulting brand as part of the planned split of its business, The Wall Street Journal reported. PricewaterhouseCoopers, KPMG and Deloitte—the other Big Four accounting firms—have said they don’t intend to pursue a similar split.

6. IT Consulting - Communications Services: IBM and Bharti Airtel are working together to deploy Airtel's edge computing platform in India -- which will include 120 network data centers across 20 cities. The IBM-Airtel project highlights how IBM's consulting services may wind up competing with spin-off Kyndryl, ChannelE2E believes.

7. Distribution - Smart Building Infrastructure: TD SYNNEX has launched IAconnects MobiusFlow Click-to-Run on Azure, which "simplifies the complex process of configuring a solution that provides hardware, software and infrastructure to manage smart buildings," the distributor said.

8. Partnership - Artificial Intelligence: Intel and Mila -- the Montreal-based artificial intelligence (AI) research institute -- are partnering to develop advanced AI techniques to address global challenges such as climate change, the discovery of new materials, and digital biology, IT World Canada reported. Related: See our AI Ethics, Regulations and Privacy report here.

9. AI Service Desks and Customer Support Automation: Zendesk has announced Intelligent Triage and Smart Assist, a family of AI (artificial intelligence solutions "empowering businesses to triage customer support requests automatically and access valuable data at scale."

10. Research - IT Observability and Visibility: New Relic has published the 2022 Observability Forecast report, which "captures insights into the current state of observability and its growth potential," the company said.

11. NCR Breakup: Instead of selling itself, NCR is breaking itself into two businesses -- a digital commerce company and an ATM company. Translation: NCR couldn't find a buyer for the company pre-breakup.

12. Diversity, Equity and Inclusion: Sumo Logic has published its latest Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Report. Related: See ChannelE2E's Diversity, Equity and Inclusion indutry progress report here.

B. Annual Channel Partner Conferences and MSP Summits