5 Channel Partner Program and MSP News Updates: Friday 19 February 2021 -

Here are five (actually, more) technology news updates, insights, chatter, and plenty more to start your day for Friday, February 19, 2021. Sip up.

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A. What’s Brewing Today: Technology News

1. For Sale - IBM Watson Health?: IBM is exploring a potential sale of its IBM Watson Health business, as the technology giant’s new chief executive moves to streamline the company and become more competitive in cloud computing, The Wall Street Journal reports. Potential buyers could include a private equity firm or a SPAC (special purpose acquisition company), though there's a chance IBM may not sell the business. Watson Health has earned mixed headlines in recent years, with some reports questioning the technology's effectiveness.

2. MSP Security Sales Tax?: A New York judge recently ruled that MSP and MSSP security services are subject to certain New York sales taxes, when such services are provided with respect to devices located in New York. The ruling could be tricky for MSPs and MSSPs, considering so many users are now mobile and not physically limited to a specific state or region...

3. Integration - IT Service Management (ITSM) and Salesforce: Cadalys Service Management, an ITSM application, is now available on the Salesforce AppExchange.

4. Rackspace Quarterly Earnings Results: Multi-cloud MSP Rackspace announced Q4 2020 financial results. The details include:

Revenue of $716 million, up 14 percent compared to Q4 2019.
A net loss of $64 million, which was significantly smaller than a $246 million net loss in Q4 2019.

Rackspace CEO Kevin Jones sounded upbeat about the results. But Rackspace investors ($RXT) investors were less bullish. The multi-cloud MSP's stock fell about 8 percent on the news.

5. Asset Monitoring - Transportation Services: BlackBerry has upgraded BlackBerry Radar H2, an asset monitoring platform for transportation businesses. The platform helps companies to "reduce costs and securely improve the utilization of their trailers, containers, chassis and other remote assets," BlackBerry asserts.

6. Research - Application Security Vulnerabilities: At least 50 percent of applications in industries such as manufacturing, public services, healthcare, retail, education and utilities, are vulnerable throughout the year due to one or more serious exploitable vulnerabilities, WhiteHat Security research finds.