5 Channel Partner and MSP Updates: 15 December 2020

Here are five (actually, more) technology news updates, insights, chatter, and plenty more to start your day for Tuesday, December 15, 2020. Sip up.

Our Daily Brew

A. What’s Happening Today

1. SolarWinds Orion Security Breach: Track all the updates from MSSP Alert here.

2. M&A Bidding War - MSP and Broadband Provider: A bidding war may be emerging for Alaska Communications, an MSP and broadband provider. The original deal involved private equity firms Macquarie Capital and GCM Grosvenor are acquiring Alaska Communications Systems Group for $300 million in cash. But that deal involved a "go shop" period, and now a superior bid has emerged. But the bidding potentially isn't over...

3. Funding - SaaS Productivity Software: ClickUp has raised $100 million in Series B funding, led by Georgian with participation from Craft Ventures. ClickUp's SaaS platform supports project management to chat, docs, time management, wikis, goals and OKRs (Objectives and Key Results), and dashboards.

4. Funding - Developer Blog: Global developer blogging community Hashnode has raised US$2.1 million in funding led by Sequoia Capital India’s Surge.

5. Investment - IT Services & Clean Energy: Accenture Ventures has invested in Reactive Technologies, a London-based provider of power and grid technology, to help utilities accelerate the transition to low-carbon energy.

B. Channel Chiefs, Partner Programs and Strategic Alliances

1. Channel Partner Program: Opengear, a Digi International company, has launched the Opengear Channel Certification Program, the company’s first technical certification program for  its Network Resilience platform. More than 75% of Fortune 100 companies leverage Opengear to manage and secure mission-critical network infrastructure, the company says.

2. Talent - Channel Marketing: Climb Channel Solutions, formerly known as Lifeboat Distribution, has promoted Charles Bass to chief marketing officer (CMO): Climb Channel, a subsidiary of Wayside Technology Group, is an international specialty technology distributor focused on emerging technologies.

3. Talent - Business Communications: Mitel has named Nick Riggott as sales director, UK & Ireland (UK&I). Riggott, who has been with Mitel since 2015, is promoted from his previous role as head of sales, UK & Ireland.

4. Partnership - MSP and SD-WANs: NetFortris now offers the VMware SD-WAN Edge 600 and 3000 Series devices to "deliver SD-WAN services with greater processing power, throughput and security as an affordable managed service," the MSP says.

5. Partnership - Robotic Process Orchestration (RPO): Happiest Minds Technologies, an IT solutions provider, is partnering with Enate to promote Robotic Process Orchestration (RPO) to "accelerate the enterprise intelligent automation journey," the two companies say.

C. Channel Partner Summits, MSP Conferences and Virtual Events Calendar