Channel Brief: Intel Plans ‘Thousands’ of Layoffs, Shareholders Sue CrowdStrike

Good morning, folks! Welcome to August.

This week, we learned that Intel is planning to lay off thousands to help finance its recovery. It'll be interesting to see what its quarterly results are -- the chipmaker is reporting those today. Speaking of shares and shareholders, CrowdStrike's shareholders are suing the firm for damages after the mid-July outage.

ConnectWise has a new Chief Business Officer -- congratulations to Aziz Benmalek! Distributor Westcoast is acquired by ALSO Group in Europe, Atera has launched a new AI copilot tool with updates for macOS administration and Mission Cloud has a new AI Foundation offering in partnership with AWS.

As always, drop me a line at [email protected] if you have news to share or want to say hi! If you've been at CompTIA's ChannelCon this week, I'd love to hear about your thoughts, experiences, impressions. Hit me up.

In the meantime, grab your coffee. Here's what you need to know today.

Today’s Tech, Channel and MSP News

1. ConnectWise Appoints New Chief Business Officer: Software platform company ConnectWise this week appointed Aziz Benmalek as its new chief business officer (CBO). In this role, Benmalek will oversee the company's sales and marketing organizations globally, reporting to CEO Jason Magee. Benmalek has more than 25 years experience in building and scaling businesses and leading multiple customer segments and route-to-market strategies across mature and emerging markets. He has held leadership positions at Microsoft, Splunk and Sage. Congratulations!

2. CrowdStrike Sued by Shareholders: Reuters reported that CrowdStrike has been sued by shareholders who said the cybersecurity company defrauded them by concealing how its inadequate software testing could cause the July 19 global outage that crashed more than 8.5 million computers. In a proposed class action filed on Tuesday night in the Austin, Texas federal court, led by the Plymouth County Retirement Association of Plymouth, Massachusetts, seeks unspecified damages for holders of CrowdStrike Class A shares between Nov. 29, 2023 and July 29, 2024. Shareholders said they learned that CrowdStrike's assurances about its technology were materially false and misleading when a flawed software update disrupted airlines, banks, hospitals and emergency lines around the world.

3. Atera Launches Copilot 2.0 for Remote Support: Atera this week launched version 2.0 of Copilot, its AI companion for IT technicians powered by ActionAI, which fuses Azure OpenAI and Atera’s proprietary technology, the company said in a statement. This version now includes extended capabilities for Mac users including macOS diagnostics, troubleshooting alerts and detailed support and resolution summaries, along with other performance and feature enhancements.

4. Intel Plans to Lay Off 'Thousands' to Fuel Recovery: Reuters reported that Intel "plans to cut thousands of jobs to finance recovery and cope with eroding market share." Bloomberg News initially reported the news on Tuesday, citing "people familiar with the matter." The chipmaker is set to report quarterly results today, and shares were up about 1% in extended trading. The stock has slumped 40% so far this year. Reuters said CEO Pat Gelsinger initiated a turnaround focused on revitalizing its manufacturing capabilities, investing in advanced chip technologies and expanding into new markets. In October 2022, Intel announced a cost-reduction plan that included "people actions" aimed at slashing annual costs by $3 billion in 2023, reducing the chipmaker's headcount to 124,800 at the end of 2023 from 131,900 a year earlier, according to regulatory filings.

5. Mission Cloud Launches AI Optimization Service With AWS: Mission Cloud has launched Mission AI Foundation, a managed service designed to help businesses optimize their AI solutions on Amazon Web Services, CRN reported. The service combines support, engineering, strategy and guidance to help organizations manage their cloud infrastructure and build better AI practices. Mission AI Foundation uses Mission Control, the company's cloud services platform, alongside Amazon QuickSight and Amazon Q, to provide cost visualization and management capabilities. The service also gives businesses access to a team of certified cloud analysts, technical account managers, solutions architects and AI engineers to help with prompting best practices to improve accuracy, reduce hallucinations, and enhance overall model performance.

6. ALSO-Westcoast Deal Propels Disty to the Big Time: European distributor ALSO Group is acquiring assets from Westcoast, a major player in the UK, for an undisclosed sum, Channel Futures reported this week. Established in 1983, Westcoast’s 2023 revenue was £4.2 billion (US $5.4 billion). ALSO is buying Westcoast’s operations in the UK, Ireland and France in a cash and share deal with Westcoast chairman and owner Joe Hemani. The deal will propel ALSO to a top five distributor globally by revenue, according to Canalys figures. Combined 2023 sales of $16.6 billion put the company behind industry giants TD Synnex, Ingram Micro, Arrow Electronics and Digital China, Channel Futures said, but the deal will allow the combined entity to "chase down" TD Synnex, Alex Tatham told CRN.

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