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5 Channel Partner Updates: 9 Feb 2016

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Good morning, channel partners. Here are five technology news updates, insights, chatter, and plenty more to sip on for Tuesday, February 9, 2016.

Actually, there are 10 items for VARs, managed services providers (MSPs), cloud services providers (CSPs) and independent software vendors (ISVs) to sip on…

10. Zenefits CEO Resigns: How ironic. Parker Conrad has resigned as the CEO of Zenefits -- a health insurance brokerage that... wait for it... didn't have proper compliance procedures in place. The company promoted COO David Sacks into the CEO slot, and hired former federal prosecutor Josh Stein as chief compliance officer.

9. Talent: Tigerpaw Software has hired Ashley Flynn as its customer experience manager. The newly created role will focus on managing communications between the company and its customer base, tracking and sharing feedback, listening to the Tigerpaw community, and plenty more.  Flynn joins Tigerpaw from Lexmark Enterprise Software (formerly Perceptive Software), where she oversaw large-scale events and event marketing communications.

8. Cisco Quarterly Results: They're set to surface on Wednesday, Feb. 10. The earnings could offer new clues about Cisco ONE software licensing momentum, and other efforts to push beyond traditional hardware sales. The earnings will surface about two weeks before Cisco Partner Summit 2016 kicks off in San Diego...

7. Amazon Web Services for MSPs: Unitrends, which specializes VMware backup to AWS, and CloudCheckr, a provider of AWS monitoring solutions, are partnering to help MSPs build, manage and grow their AWS-hosted businesses...

6. AWS Billing Management: Keep an eye on CloudMGR. We'll share more details soon.

5. HP Perks: Meg Whitman earned $17.1 million last year as she oversaw the Hewlett-Packard Co.'s split into two businesses. Sounds lofty -- except that it was down 13 percent from the $19.6 million she received in 2014.

4. IT Job Growth Slowing Down: Roughly 5,300 IT jobs were created in the U.S. in January 2016, down from about 15,900 for January 2015, according to Janco Associates. January 2016 was the worst month of net new IT jobs since August 2014, according to BLS. Still, the typical IT professional earns about $82,000 per year, compared to $66,000 for all other corporate professionals, Janco says.

3. Cyber Security Spending: President Obama wants to increase cyber security spending across the U.S. government to $19 billion in 2017, up from about $14 billion in 2016. A related $62 million effort will also seek to expand the number of cyber professionals working for the government.

2. On the Road: ChannelE2E is set to attend IBM PartnerWorld Leadership Conference 2016, Cisco Partner Summit 2016 and CompTIA Annual Membership Meeting 2016 over the next few weeks. If you'd like to potentially meet at one of those gatherings please send me email ([email protected]). Also, check the ChannelE2E Technology Event Calendar for a complete list of channel partner conferences and summits in 2016 and beyond.

1. Attention Top MSPs: Complete the ChannelE2E Top Vertical Market MSP Survey and your company could be honored for its work in a key vertical market (healthcare, government, retail, financial services, education, etc.).

More: Read all of our daily 5 Channel Partner UpdatesPlus: Subscribe to our daily enewsletter. Thanks to those who already have.

Joe Panettieri

Joe Panettieri is co-founder & editorial director of MSSP Alert and ChannelE2E, the two leading news & analysis sites for managed service providers in the cybersecurity market.