5 Channel Partner Updates: Monday 24 February 2020 -

Here are five (actually far more) technology news updates, insights, chatter, and plenty more to start your day for Monday, February 24, 2020. Sip up.

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A. What’s Hot Today

1. M&A - Managed Cloud Services: CloudScale365 has acquired eApps Hosting. The deal extends CloudScale365's expertise from Microsoft to Linux-oriented managed cloud applications.

2. M&A - Distribution: Audio America, a regional distributor of consumer electronics and 12V products, has acquired Consumer Electronics Distributors (C.E.D.), which has a strong track record in the midwest. The combined company is branded as Audio America.

3. M&A - Pure Speculation: An alliance between data protection specialist Arcserve and cybersecurity firm Sophos appears to be catching on globally -- including a major focus in Africa. The relationship is particularly timely. Private equity firm Thoma Bravo is in the process of acquiring Sophos. Also, there are rumors Arcserve is up for sale. That makes us wonder: Could Sophos and Arcserve wind up with the same owner -- somewhat akin to Webroot and Carbonite coming together under OpenText's ownership? Hmmm...

4. MSPs and Compliance: Kaseya has unveiled an audit, assessment and analysis solution that allows users to automate compliance processes and documentation in accordance with the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST) Cyber Security Framework (CSF). The new capabilities are found within Kaseya Compliance Manager.

5. Zix Financial Results: Zix, parent of AppRiver, announced Q4 2019 revenue of $50.4 million, a 15 percent organic growth rate from Q4 2018. GAAP net loss was $5.2 million in Q4 2019, compared to $9.2 million net income in Q4 2018. The figures generally beat Wall Street's expectations. Zix and AppRiver offer multiple data protection and email protection services via MSPs and VARs.

6. Talent - Field Service Management: In this interview, Salesforce GM Mark Cattini reveals key priorities in the field service management software market. Cattini, the former CEO of Autotask, led ClickSoftware ahead of that company's sale to Salesforce.

7. Salesforce Automation: HappyFox has introduced Workflows for Salesforce. The software provides drag-and-drop workforce automation capabilities across sales, support, marketing and other application use cases. HappyFox also makes workflow automation software for IT service desks and help desks.

8. Google Cloud Growth Strategy: Details are here.