5 Channel Partner Program and MSP News Updates: Thursday 18 March 2021 -

Here are five (actually, more) technology news updates, insights, chatter, and plenty more to start your day for Thursday, March 18, 2021. Sip up.

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A. What’s Brewing Today: Technology News

1. M&A - Data Protection: Arcserve and StorageCraft have completed their previously announced merger.

2. Research - Runaway Spending & SaaS Management: Of all the challenges related to SaaS management, overspending took the crown with 41% of respondents naming avoidance of overspending as their top concern, according to OneTool research findings. The takeaway for MSPs: Focus on SaaS monitoring, management and cloud cost management.

3. Compliance - SOC 2 Certified: EasyIT, an MSP in Dublin, Ohio, has completed the SOC 2 - TYPE 2 audit examination. The milestone opens the door for EasyIT as a certified, licensed vendor available to work in all areas of the financial sector, the MSP says.

4. Accenture Quarterly Earnings: Accenture's Q2 fiscal 2021 financial results included...

Revenue of $12.1 billion, up 8 percent from Q2 of fiscal 2020.
Net income of $1.46 billion, up 12 percent from $1.25 billion in Q2 of fiscal 2020.

Accenture raised its business outlook for fiscal 2021, and announced a one-time bonus -- equal to one week of base pay -- for all people below managing director.

5. Update - Datto Lawsuit vs. Former Employee: Datto lost its bid to subpoena email from ConnectWise in connection with a Datto lawsuit against a former employee who allegedly stole business secrets from the company, Bloomberg Law reports. ConnectWise is not accused in the case. The overall case is ongoing.

6. Datto Cyber Resilience Strategy: Datto CISO Ryan Weeks shares details here.

7. N-able Spin-Off Costs: SolarWinds spent $12.2 million during 2020 to explore and plan for the potential spin-off of N-able (formerly SolarWinds MSP), according to an SEC filing. The rebrand to N-able is expected to be completed this month, and the potential spin-out appears on-track for Q2.

B. Channel Chiefs, Partner Programs and Strategic Alliances

1. Talent - Partner Relationship Management: Impartner has hired channel analyst and journalist T.C. Doyle in the newly created role of channel growth evangelist.

2. Zoom Partner Program: Zoom Video Communications has announced new benefits and an expansion to its Master Agent Referral Partner Program. With Zoom’s new commission structure, Zoom Master Agents can earn more than before, the company says. Master Agents can expand their business with existing Zoom Meetings customers by offering additional solutions like Zoom Phone and Zoom United, and receive increased commissions for net-new opportunities, the company adds.

3. Partner Program - Email Marketing: Omnisend has announced a new Omnisend Partner Program, which is designed to simplify how "freelancers, agencies, and technology partners can share in the success of their clients," the company says.

4. Partnership - Digital Business Insurance: Next Insurance has partnered with Amazon Business to provide eligible Business Prime members the opportunity to access customized small business insurance.

5. Data Protection and Hybrid Cloud Services: OpenText Migrate (formerly Carbonite Migrate) has achieved the AWS Outposts Ready designation. AWS Outposts is a fully managed service that extends AWS capabilities to third-party data centers and/or customers' on-premises systems.

6. Partnership - Data Storage: Wasabi and Digital Bedrock have partnered on a solution that extends Digital Bedrock’s offline digital preservation services into the cloud using Wasabi’s low-cost cloud storage.

7. Datto Partner: DS Business Life Simplified, an MSP in New Jersey, has achieved Platinum partner status with Datto.

8. Associations - Blockchain: CompTIA unveiled the CompTIA Blockchain TIG at this weeks' annual Communities & Councils Forum (CCF) Online.

9. Analytics - Channel Performance: Vartopia has released a new Channel Analytics module that provides "insight into critical channel performance indicators in a manner that is aesthetically pleasing and easy to comprehend," the company says.

10. Distribution and Outsourcing: Tech Data's Global Lifecycle Management services organization has entered into an agreement with Fujitsu America to become the sole outsource service provider of the company’s Technical Maintenance Services (TMS) business. The deal spans multi-vendor Retail Managed Services and Product Related Services. More than 300 service and support professionals from the TMS workforce joined Tech Data on March 13, 2021, the distributor says.

11. Distribution: Synnex has agreed to distribute Entrust trusted identity solutions in North America.