5 Channel Partner Program and MSP News Updates: Wednesday 17 February 2021

Here are five (actually, more) technology news updates, insights, chatter, and plenty more to start your day for Wednesday, February 17, 2021. Sip up.

What’s In Our Daily Brew?

A. What’s Brewing Today: Technology News

1. Funding - MSP Sales Automation Software: Zomentum, which develops a sales automation and acceleration platform for MSPs and channel partners, has raised $13 million in Series A funding from Elevation Capital, Accel and Greenoaks Capital. Poke around, and you'll see some familiar channel influencers involved in Zomentum.

2. Funding - Business Automation Software: airSlate, which develops no-code business automation software, has received $50 million in debt financing from Silicon Valley Bank for a total of $130 million in capital raised to date. airSlate's software simplifies business process automation, e-signature and document management, the company says.

3. Potential IPO - CRM and ITSM Software: Freshworks, which develops cloud-based CRM and ITSM (IT service management) software, appears to be marching toward a potential IPO. The company's annual recurring revenue (ARR) reached $300 million in 2020, and the business grew roughly 40 percent compared to 2019.

4. M&A - Managed Data Services Provider: Calligo has acquired Decisive Data, a provider of data analytics, data science and visualization technologies.

5. Talent - UCaaS: Avaya has hired UJET veteran Darcey Harrison as VP of cloud acceleration, North America. Harrison is responsible for "continuing expansion of new and existing customer adoption of the Avaya OneCloud communications and collaboration portfolio," the company says.

B. Channel Chiefs, Partner Programs and Strategic Alliances

1. Channel Chief - Data Protection: Druva has hired Scott Morris as VP of sales for Asia-Pacific and Japan (APJ). Morris previously held key sales and and channel program posts at HPE, SimpliVity, NetApp and Dell, among others.

2. Channel Chief - Cloud MSP: Rackspace has hired Neil Emerson as global chief relationship officer, ArnNet reports.

3. SMB Partner Financing: Xerox has formally announced and launched a new standup business - Xerox Financial Services (XFS). This global payment solutions business is vendor-agnostic - financing both Xerox and third-party tech, office equipment, and other office needs for enterprise and SMB customers. Lexmark is the organization's first partner.

4. Partner Program - Ubuntu Linux: Canonical, the publisher of Ubuntu Linux, says the company's channel partner program has grown by 5X in three years. Moreover, Canonical's partners have expanded Ubuntu's global presence to several new markets, such as Russia, India and Africa, the company says. The partners, spanning all major industries, are building successful businesses around Canonical’s open source technology for the Internet of Things, data centers, private, public, and hybrid clouds, the company says.

5. Partner Program - Open Source Automation Software: Camunda has launched the Camunda Connect Partner Program.

6. Partner Program - Unified Communications: Wildix, which develops a web-based unified communications and collaboration solution, added 18 new partners to its network during the fourth quarter of 2020. Moreover, key relationships allowed the company to expand into Columbia, Panama, Peru and Argentina.

7. Partnership - Desktop as a Service: Global Technology Market is partnering with CyberlinkASP to" meaningfully extend its cloud portfolio with a comprehensive, fully managed Desktop-as-a-Service (DaaS) offering," the companies say.

8. Partnership - Cloud Storage: Nasuni has formed a strategic collaboration with Google Cloud to address the growing need for enterprise file storage that is "simple, reliable, and low cost," Nasuni asserts.

9. Distribution - Infrastructure Management: Arrow Electronics has agreed to distribute Park Place Technologies' services in North America. The relationship enables Park Place to expand its services within its Discover, Monitor, Support and Optimize (DMSO) strategic approach to infrastructure management, the company says.

10. Distribution - Collaboration Software & Governments: Carahsoft has agreed to serve as Vyopta’s Master Government Aggregator. Vyopta's software will be available via Carahsoft’s reseller partners and NASA Solutions for Enterprise-Wide Procurement (SEWP) V and Maryland COTS contracts.

11. Integration - UiPath and ServiceNow: Robotic process automation (RPA) software company UiPath has deepened its existing integration with ServiceNow. UiPath Test Manager enables ServiceNow customers to automate their testing environment to test and implement new workflows quickly, the companies say.

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