5 Channel Partner Program and MSP News Updates: 17 June 2021

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

What’s In Our Daily Brew?

A. What’s Brewing Today: Technology News

1. Executive Leadership - MSP Technology: Crewhu, an employee engagement and gamification software platform for MSPs, has hired Blackpoint Cyber and Huntress veteran Ryan Denning as VP of sales.

2. Executive Leadership - Microsoft 365 Partner: AvePoint, a data management solutions provider for Microsoft 365, has hired global Stuart Robertson as its first-ever chief people officer. 

3. Executive Leadership - Microsoft Chairman: Microsoft has named CEO Satya Nadella to the additional title of chairman, succeeding John Thompson -- who remains an independent director at the software and cloud services giant.

4. Open Source - IT Service Management (ITSM): RapDev will open source all of its internal projects and codebases related to ServiceNow. The efforts will "help drive continuous innovation and collaboration in the ServiceNow community," RapDev asserts. Founded in 2017, RapDev is a Boston-based tech company with engineers specializing in DevOps, SRE, and cloud platforms. RapDev also works closely with Datadog.

5. Data Protection - U.S. Federal Government Part One: Commvault's Metallic Government Cloud has achieved "High Ready” status for its Metallic Backup-as-a-Service (BaaS) portfolio and Metallic Cloud Storage Service (MCSS) from the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP).

6. Data Protection - U.S. Federal Government Part Two: Backup and disaster recovery (BDR) software provider Veeam has launched a federal government-focused subsidiary called Veeam Government Solutions (VGS).

7. Akamai Outages: Australia's central bank and various Australian businesses suffered widespread Internet outages today. The outages apparently involved Akamai's content delivery system.

B. Channel Chiefs, Partner Programs and Strategic Alliances

1. Partner Program & Channel Chief: Cloud email and collaboration security provider Avanan has launched a Global Channel Partner Program. Michael Lyons, VP of global channels, is driving the effort.

2. Partner Program - Display Solutions: ViewSonic has introduced new financial incentives and sales enablement tools for channel partners. Check in with the company for details.

3. Partner Program - Vertical Markets: IBM Cloud for Financial Services now has 100 ecosystem partners, the company says.

4. Partner Program - Latin America: Globo, a media group in Latin America, has launched the Globo Partner Program to help U.S. companies expand into the Latin American market.

5. Partner Program - DevOps: GitLab has expanded its Global Partner Program with new technology partner integrations as well as a new GitLab Certified Services Partner Program.

6. Partnership - Secure Access Service Edge (SASE): Comcast Business has embraced Versa Networks for a software defined networking (SDN) platform. The platform helps "midsize and large enterprise customers secure their networks, devices and employees from a variety of cyberthreats," Comcast asserts.

7. Partner Momentum - Data Protection : Cohesity announced "record-breaking" financial performance for its third quarter ended April 30, 2021. Among the milestones: 80 percent year-over-year growth in annual recurring revenue in Q3 2021 vs. Q3 of 2020. Also, the number of partners actively selling Cohesity grew 20 percent in Q3 2021 vs. Q3 of 2020. Still, the data protection software company did not disclose actual quarterly revenue or profit dollar figures.

8. Partnership - AWS Networking Services: Claro Enterprise Solutions has been certified as an Amazon Web Services (AWS) Direct Connect Partner. The certification allows Claro Enterprise Solutions to provide customers with access to high-speed, secure MPLS connections through AWS cloud services, Claro says.

9. Partnership - Video Conferencing: Intelisys, a ScanSource company, has expanded its Cisco Systems partnership with Webex services.

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