5 Channel Partner Program and MSP News Updates: Monday 22 March 2021

Here are five (actually, more) technology news updates, insights, chatter, and plenty more to start your day for Monday, March 22, 2021. Sip up.

What’s In Our Daily Brew?

A. What’s Brewing Today: Technology News

1. M&A - Massive Distribution Merger: Tech Data and Synnex are merging to counter Ingram Micro on a global scale...

2. M&A - Private Equity and Financial Software: Thoma Bravo is nearing a deal to buy Calypso Technology in a deal valued at roughly $3.7 billion, Bloomberg reports. Bridgepoint and Summit Partners currently own Calypso Technology, which specializes in financial trading and risk management software.

3. MSP Software - N-able Rebrand: N-able, formerly SolarWinds MSP, has completed its company rebrand. The MSP software business’s potential spin-off from parent SolarWinds ($SWI) appears to be drawing near.

4. Rackspace For Sale?: An SEC filing triggered the rumor, though the speculation about Rackspace potentially having a change of ownership may be unfounded. Rackspace, backed by private equity firm Apollo Global Management, is a very successful multi-cloud MSP. The company ranks among the world’s Top 250 Public Cloud MSPs, according to ChannelE2E research. Still, investors have been underwhelmed by Rackspace stock ($RXT) because of the MSP's debt load and dependence on third-party clouds to generate recurring managed services revenues.

5. Microsoft Exchange Server - Mailbox Repair Software: Stellar has launched Stellar Repair for Exchange v10, which is designed to "expedite mailbox recovery from corrupted and dismounted Exchange databases in vast scenarios," the company says.

6. OVHcloud - Second Data Center Destroyed: Ten days after a fire destroyed OVHcloud's SBG2 data center in Strasbourg, the French hosting company says it will abandon efforts to restart the adjacent SBG1 data center, and will shutter the facility and move servers to other locations, Data Center Frontier Reports.

7. Google Caps Cloud Sales Commissions: Google recently reintroduced a cap on the commissions earned by Google Cloud salespeople who sell to large companies, The Information reports. Although Google Cloud is growing rapidly, the business unit lost $5.6 billion in 2020, the report notes.

B. Channel Chiefs, Partner Programs and Strategic Alliances

1. Channel Talent - IoT Software: Ingram Micro and IT By Design veteran Gennifer Biggs has joined Data Inventions as director of marketing. The company develops apps that offer visibility into real-time production, so "machine operators and managers can do their jobs better and run the business more effectively," the company says.

2. Channel Talent - Communications: Ooma, a smart communications platform for businesses and consumers, has appointed Amy Regan as channel sales manager. Regan has extensive channel sales experience. Previous employers include Office Depot, nexVortex, 3CX and Technifax Office Solutions.

3. VMware Partner Incentives: VMware has launched the Customer Lifecycle Incentives Program to "help partners facilitate the end-to-end digital transformation for their customers," the enterprise software provider says. The program will help partners to "drive increased profitability through new and expanded customer engagement, a simplified experience, optimized incentive return on investment, and partner-to-partner cooperation rewards," VMware added.

4. Integration - Cloud Data Lakes: Micro Focus and Snowflake have partnered to "deliver data-centric protection to organizations worldwide." The relationship integrates Micro Focus Voltage SecureData with Snowflake. The connection enables Voltage customers to "seamlessly and securely shift workloads to Snowflake's platform without the risk of compromising business-sensitive data, while adhering to privacy regulations," Micro Focus asserts.

5. Partnership - Multi-Cloud Data Management: Cubic Information Systems is the newest solutions provider to join the HYCU's Global Partner Program in North Africa.

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