5 Channel Partner Updates: Thursday 26 March 2020 -

Here are five (actually far more) technology news updates, insights, chatter, and plenty more to start your day for Thursday, March 26, 2020. Sip up.

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A. What’s Hot Today

1. U.S. Distressed Debt: The amount of distressed debt in the U.S. has quadrupled in less than a week to nearly $1 trillion, reaching levels not seen since 2008 as the collapse of oil prices and fallout from the coronavirus shutters entire industries worldwide, Pensions & Investments reports.

2. Big Startup - Emergency Funding?: Scooter rental startup Lime, one of the hottest startups in tech two years ago, is trying to raise emergency funds at a valuation slashed by 80% from last year, The Information reports.

3. Funding - AI and Service Management: Espressive, a developer of artificial intelligence (AI) for enterprise service management (ESM), has raised $30 million in Series B funding led by Insight Partners with participation from Series A investors, General Catalyst, and Wing Venture Capital. Insight Partners also owns Kaseya, the IT management and business automation software provider to MSPs.

4. Funding - Log Management: Humio, a log management platform provider, has raised a $20 million Series B investment led by Dell Technologies Capital, with participation from existing investor, Accel.

5. Chip Companies Seek Green Light: A group representing major U.S. semiconductor companies is working with federal officials to make clear to state and local officials overseeing lockdowns that chip companies are essential businesses that should continue operations, Reuters reports.

6. Government - AWS On Premises: AWS Outposts is now supported in AWS GovCloud (US) Regions. AWS Outposts is a fully managed service that extends AWS infrastructure, AWS services, APIs, and tools to customer datac enters, co-location spaces, or on-premises facilities.

7. Huawei - Back to Work: Most employees at Huawei are back at work following the coronavirus outbreak, though the pandemic is likely to hit the Chinese telecom giant’s financial results this year, CEO Ren Zhengfei told The Wall Street Journal. Also, the company plans to boost its research and development budget this year by $5.8 billion to more than $20 billion.

8. HP Security Solutions: The new offerings include HP Pro Security Edition, HP Proactive Security, and HP Sure Click Enterprise.

9. Patching Problems: Fewer than 50 percent of organizations can patch vulnerable systems swiftly enough to protect against critical threats and zero-day attacks, and 81 percent have suffered at least one data breach in the last two years, according to research from Automox and AimPoint Group.

10. MSPs - Remote Support: Atera has created a new, easy system to deploy a remote workforce amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, the company says. The effort integrates Atera's PSA and RMM cloud platform with Splashtop.

11. Talent - IT Staffing: TSR, a provider of computer programming consulting services, has appointed Thomas Salerno as president, CEO and treasurer.

12. M&A - Xerox and Small Business: Xerox continues to acquire small business IT consulting firms and office equipment dealers. The latest acquisitions involve Altodigital and ITEC Connect in the U.K. The deals reinforce Xerox's direct sales push into small business, and the announcement did not mention Xerox's channel partner strategy.

B. Partner Programs and Strategic Alliances

1. Amazon Pauses Loan Requirements: On a temporary basis, Amazon.com marketplace participants don't have to repay loans Amazon, as merchants confront the prospect of declining sales during the coronavirus pandemic, Reuters reports.

2. Partner Program - MSP: Marco of St. Cloud, Minnesota, has unveiled program that allows certified partners to resell the company's Managed IT Services.

3. Channel Talent - Unified Communications: Broadvoice, a provider of hosted voice, unified communications (UC) and SIP Trunking services for businesses, has named three new regional channel managers, a channel marketing manager and the addition of a partner sales support manager role. The lineup includes:

Tianna Sheppard, a 20-year telecom sales professional, joins the Broadvoice as Channel Manager – Southeast.
Andrew Hernandez, a six-year Broadvoice sales expert, has been promoted from Partner Sales Manager to Channel Manager - Southeast.
Oliver Kersey, a seven-year telecom sales professional and two-year Partner Sales Manager at Broadvoice, has been promoted to Channel Manager – Mountain West.
Eva Mata, a nine-year Broadvoice veteran, has been promoted from Senior Partner Sales Manager to the newly created role of Sales Support Manager, which acts as a liaison between partners, channel sales and operations to drive business forward.
Erica Mikulsky, an IT channel marketing professional, joins Broadvoice as Channel Marketing Manager.