5 Channel Partner Updates: 13 March, 2017

Good morning, channel partners. Here are five technology news updates, insights, chatter, and plenty more to start your day for Monday, March 13, 2017. Actually, there are 18 captivating updates 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… 18. Blizzard: It's going to snow -- a lot -- across much of New York and New England on Tuesday, March 14. We'll be checking in with MSPs and CSPs to see how their IT services -- and end-customer networks -- hold up amid the storm. 17. Lloyds Outsources IT to IBM: Lloyds Banking Group is set to ink a £1.3 billion (US$1.6 billion) contract with IBM to outsource many of its computer systems and shift more than 1,900 jobs to the US IT services provider, according to Financial Times. Rumors about the pending deal have circulated since January 2017. 16. Retail Technology Sales: Radio Shack is heading back into bankruptcy, and Staples continues to close retail locations. Yada, yada, yada... Remember when Radio Shack innovated with actual Tandy-branded products? 15. SaaS Market Share Figures: Which companies lead the SaaS market? Synergy Research Group offers some SaaS market share figures for Q4 2016 here... 14. UK Tech Outlook: Nearly two thirds (65%) of small and medium-sized tech and telecom firms plan to grow dramatically or moderately over the next two years, according to a new report launched by Albion Ventures, one of the largest independent venture capital investors in the UK. Only 7% think they will shrink or wind down. With nearly half (48%) of tech entrepreneurs planning to grow their headcount over the next two years, finding skilled staff has emerged as the biggest challenge they face (48%), followed by accessing new markets (31%) participating in public procurement processes, leaving the EU, and broader political uncertainty (30%) the report said. 13. U.S. Federal Government Security Holes: The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) was responsible for 10 of 16 major information security incidents in FY2016, according to Federal Computer Week's analysis of an Office of Management and Budget report...

12. AppRiver Momentum: AppRiver's corporate revenue grew 16 percent in 2016, and the company's channel business surged 24 percent. Take a closer look and you'll notice a 22-percent increase in partners and a 19-percent increase in partner customers, the company says. Much of the momentum involves AppRiver's advanced Office 365 services for partners. Join Us: AppRiver's Justin Gilbert shares more details about the Office 365 partner revenue opportunities during our ChannelE2E webcast this Thursday, March 16. 11. Amazon AWS & HIPAA Compliance: Amazon Web Services Direct Connect technology is now on a list of HIPAA-eligible services from AWS. Direct connections allow companies to maintain secure, private connections to public cloud providers. They're increasingly popular for AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud and more. But wait. More content awaits you on page 2. Proceed to page two now and sip up the remaining items... Welcome to page two. Enjoy a second serving of channel content -- items 10 to 1 -- here. 10. Verifone Security Breach: Verifone says a recent security breach was "limited" to two-dozen U.S. gas station convenience stores. The company, which develops point of sale systems, has had a rocky year amid tricky transitions to chip-based credit card readers.... 9. Home Depot Security Breach: Home Depot has agreed to pay $25 million for damages that occurred in a 2014 data breach that impacted 50 million customers. 8. SMB Fails Security Tests: Forty percent of IT pros at small and medium-sized businesses give their organization a failing grade for having a balanced security stack, Infosecurity Magazine reports... 7. MSP IPO Recap: Presidio (PSDO) debuted at the low end of its IPO range on the Nasdaq Friday. The company, which offers mid-market IT services, raised $233 million by pricing 16.7 million shares at $14 each, Barron's noted. You can track Presidio's overall IT services strategy here.

Ted Roller

6. Talent: ConnectBooster has hired Ted Roller as Channel Chief. ConnectBooster develops an automated payments processing solution for channel partners. Roller is a well-known IT channel veteran and co-founder of Get Channeled, which offers virtual channel chief services to tech companies. He previously was channel chief at Intronis (now owned by Barracuda Networks) and also guided channel development initiatives for Mailprotector. 5. M&A - Driverless Cars: Intel has agreed to buy Israeli driverless technology firm Mobileye for $15.3 billion, the largest ever acquisition of an Israeli high-tech company, Reuters noted. The deal is the world's biggest purchase of a company solely focused on the autonomous driving sector; Mobileye accounts for 70 percent of the global market for advanced driver-assistance and anti-collision systems, Reuters estimated. 4. M&A - Office Equipment: Global Imaging Systems has acquired Laser Resources Inc., essentially uniting a Xerox service provider with a printer dealer. The deal strengthens GIS's presence in Iowa. We'll share more details soon. 3. M&A - SAP Partner: AMERI Holdings (aka Ameri100) has acquired ATCG Solutions  a system integration firm specializing in providing end-to-end SAP enterprise cloud services. ATCG's expertise includes SAP HANA, Hybris, SuccessFactors and business intelligence. We'll share more details soon. 2. M&A - Cloud Management: Cloudability acquired CloudMGR, the two companies confirmed this morning. It's all about AWS management for MSPs. Details here. 1. Call for Entries: Participate in our Top 100 Vertical Market MSPs survey, and your company could earn honors. We'll announce results, honorees and associated research in April. Complete the survey today.