Good morning, channel partners. Here are five technology news updates, insights, chatter, and plenty more to start your day for Monday, January 30, 2017.
Actually, there are 15 entries for VARs, managed services providers (MSPs), cloud services providers (CSPs), independent software vendors (ISVs), telco master agents and telco agents to sip on. Take a look…
15. SAP & Trump Immigration Policies: SAP is the latest tech company to criticize U.S. President Donald Trump's immigration curbs, saying the United States, its biggest market, has drifted away from the nation's principles of opportunity and equality, Reuters reported. Leaders from Facebook, Google, Microsoft and the IT service provider market weighed in with reactions over the weekend.
14. No Comment: Companies from multiple vertical markets -- particularly the major U.S. banks and auto companies -- declined to comment about Trump's executive order over the weekend, Reuters reported.
13. Trump's Silent Defenders: While major tech industry leaders pushed back against Trump's executive order on travel from seven Muslim countries over the weekend, there's another issue brewing. It involves tech industry leaders who silently praise Trump's commitment to scaling back business regulations. In recent weeks, we've heard from several software company CEOs who believe Trump's commitment to eliminate certain regulations will make it easier and less costly to expand businesses. But publicly, those executives have largely gone quiet amid protests about Trump's immigration policies...
12. OpenStack Market Growth: The OpenStack cloud market will generate a 30.49 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) from 2016 through 2020, according to Technavio. But if OpenStack is so hot, why are early pioneers like Mirantis and Rackspace diversifying aggressively into additional markets?
11. Tech Data & Microsoft Cloud: Tech Data Europe is creating a Microsoft Cloud ecosystem that will enable partners to deliver Microsoft's cloud-based products through a single, integrated management platform, Telecompaper reported. The move resembles Ingram Micro's worldwide expansion of the Ingram Micro Cloud marketplace. The challenge for Tech Data: Deciding how to evolve its cloud efforts once the Avnet Technology Solutions (ATS) acquisition is completed sometime this quarter. ATS has its own cloud platform marketplace for channel partners.
10. Tech Data Debt: Tech Data, as widely expected, is taking on nearly $1 billion in debt to pay for the Avnet Technology Solutions (ATS) acquisition. The Tech Data-ATS deal is expected to close sometime this quarter...
9. Google G Suite Adoption: Google G Suite now has 3 million paying businesses, up from 2 million paying businesses in November 2015. The statement comes amid reports that Microsoft Office 365 remains the world's most widely adopted SaaS platform. The Google vs. Microsoft SaaS battle has intensified in multiple vertical markets -- particularly the K-12 education sector.
8. Microsoft Surface Revenues: Microsoft's Surface business now generates $4.3 billion in annual revenues... Not too shabby.
7. Legal IT Services: Konica Minolta and its IT services division, All Covered, will showcase solutions at Legal Tech 2017 in New York this week. MSPs in the legal vertical, meanwhile, can complete the Top 100 Vertical Market MSPs survey to earn potential honors in that vertical...
6. AppDynamics for SMB Partners?: Amid Cisco Systems' surprise buyout of AppDynamics, some pundits wonder if AppDynamics will remain mainly an enterprise solution or if Cisco will extend the APM (application performance monitoring) platform down into the SMB channel. Moreover, some pundits suggest AppDynamics rival New Relic has a stronger SMB following. Hmmm...
5. Workplace as a Service: interworks.cloud, a cloud brokerage and Microsoft Solution Provider, has inked a partnership with IndependenceIT. The deal connects interworks.cloud’s business management with independenceIT’s Cloud Workspace Suite (CWS).
4. M&A -- Outsourcing Services: Linedata is acquiring Gravitas Technology Services, a $26.5 million IT services provider focused on the asset management industry. Gravitas Technology Services has roughly 260 employees -- 80 of which are in the U.S. and 180 are in India. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. We'll share more thoughts soon.
3. M&A -- IT Services: Harris is selling its government IT services business to a private equity firm for $690 million. We'll share more thoughts soon.
2. M&A -- Data Centers: H5 Data Centers, a national colocation and wholesale data center provider, has acquired the Cleveland Technology Center in downtown Cleveland, Ohio. H5 now manages nearly 1.5 million square feet of data centers in nine US markets. ByteGrid had owned the Cleveland data center location since 2013. The purchase price at that time was $16.9 million. Terms of the H5 deal were not disclosed. We'll share more thoughts soon.
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