Here are five (actually, more) technology news updates, insights, chatter, and plenty more to start your day for Thursday, May 28, 2020. Sip up.
Our Daily Brew
- Who We Serve: Content for managed services providers (MSPs), IT service providers (ITSPs), cloud services providers (CSPs), IT consulting firms, systems integrators, VARs, independent software vendors (ISVs), and any other partner acronym that further caffeinates our already stellar SEO.
- Frequency: Every business morning.
- Reaching the Barista: Send news, tips and rumors to [email protected].
A. What’s Hot Today
1. Small Business Revenues & COVID-19: Nearly 70 percent of small businesses believe they can recoup financial losses caused by the coronavirus pandemic, a Verizon Business survey reveals.
2. Funding - Cloud-based Voice Services: Aircall has closed $65 million in Series C funding, led by DTCP with participation from new investors Swisscom Ventures and Adams Street, as well as all existing investors including eFounders, Draper Esprit, Balderton Capital, and NextWorld.
3. Funding - Network Intelligence for Service Providers: Kentik has raised $23.5 million in growth funding led by Vistara Capital Partners. Existing investors August Capital, Third Point Ventures, DCVC, and Tahoma Ventures also participated in the round, which combines equity and growth debt. To date, Kentik has raised $61.7 million in total funding.
4. Cloud MSP - Project Rollout: SADA, a Top 200 Public Cloud MSP, has rolled out a National Response Portal (NRP) -- providing critical data and analytics to aid in the COVID-19 recovery, the company says.
5. Google Cloud Partner Program: 2nd Watch, a Top 200 Public Cloud MSP, has joined the Google Cloud Partner Advantage Program.
6. Quarterly Financial Results:
- Tech Data's Q1 2021 results are here. They generally beat Wall Street's expectations.
- Workday's Q1 2021 results are here. They generally beat Wall Street's expectations.
8. Legacy Systems & Digital Transformation: OpenLegacy and Fujitsu RunMyProcess are partnering to help customers accelerate digital transformation.
9. Microsoft Teams & Corporate Compliance: Epiq has launched Epiq Compliance Connector for Microsoft Teams, a proprietary tool that connects Teams deployments with an organization’s compliance and eDiscovery processes.
10. Multi-Cloud Management: Morpheus Data has unveiled "dozens" of network security and hybrid cloud updates to its unified orchestration and automation software.
11. Talent - Data Center Maintenance: Park Place Technologies has hired Andrew Gehrlein as CFO and Michael Vedda as chief revenue officer.
12. UCaaS and Microsoft Teams: T3 Communications Inc., a subsidiary of Digerati Technologies, has launched its TeamsConnect UCaaS solution and channel partner program targeting MSPs that are Microsoft Partners.
13. Networking: Hewlett Packard Enterprise has expanded the Aruba Instant On product family to include a new series of switches that enable small businesses to deploy a unified, high-speed network that is easy to set-up, manage and maintain, HPE asserts.
B. Channel Partner Programs & Strategic Alliances
1. Partner Program Development: Vendasta, an end-to-end e-commerce platform for companies selling digital products and services to small and medium businesses worldwide, has appointed the JS Group to develop its IT channel program and lead its channel expansion, the companies disclosed today. The JS Group team includes such channel veterans as CEO Janet Schijns and Michelle Ragusa-McBain.
2. Partnership - IT Service Management: Moogsoft and World Wide Technology (WWT),have partnered to deliver a joint solution that allows IT operations and DevOps teams to generate increased business value and more effectively ensure digital service uptime from anywhere, the two companies say.
3. Cisco Small Business Partner Strategy: Details are here.
4. Robotic Process Automation: UiPath has enhanced its Business Partner Program with new training, certification, and marketing programs.
5. Unified Communications as a Service: NEC Corporation of America, has launched NEC Univerge Blue Connect, a cloud-based UCaaS solution, and NEC Univerge Blue Engage a CCaaS solution for businesses of all sizes. Both offerings are generally available for NEC’s U.S. Business Channel Partner Community and customers. This announcement represents phase one of a global rollout during 2020 that will ultimately include partners around the globe by 2021. NEC partnered with Intermedia to build the services.
6. Workday Alliances: Fast-growing SaaS application provider Workday is working more closely with Salesforce and Microsoft..
