5 Channel Partner Program and MSP News Updates: 21 April 2021

Here are five (actually, more) technology news updates, insights, chatter, and plenty more to start your day for Wednesday, April 21, 2021. Sip up.

What’s In Our Daily Brew?

A. What’s Brewing Today: Technology News

1. MSP - Executive Leadership Part One: Logicalis US has named Michael McClain as chief operating officer (COO). In this newly created position, McClain will oversee Logicalis' Managed Services, IT and Professional Services organizations, as well as support the company's M&A strategy.

2. MSP - Executive Leadership Part Two: Velocity COO Mark Walker has taken on the additional role of president. Also, CEO Greg Kiley takes on the added role of chairman. The net result: Walker is running day-to-day business operations while Kiley focuses on acquisitions and strategic sales growth.

3. Managed Retail Services: All Point, a specialty retail IT solutions company, has announced its Managed Retail Commerce offering. The new service help retailers address their IT challenges from “all points,” creating a foundation for both current and future needs.

4. Funding - SAP Partner: Scottish Equity Partners (SEP) has completed a $25 million growth equity investment in Basis Technologies, a provider of DevOps and test automation software for SAP systems.

5. SaaS and Government Compliance: Merlin Cyber has launched Constellation GovCloud, a managed service that is designed to accelerate Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) authorization for SaaS companies.

B. Channel Chiefs, Partner Programs and Strategic Alliances

1. Talent - Distribution: Tech Data has hired Catherine Solazzo as senior VP of marketing to oversee Americas marketing. Solazzo joins Tech Data from IBM, where she served most recently as the VP, worldwide partner ecosystem

2. MSPs - Edge Services: Zadara has launched the Federated Edge program, which is designed to help MSPs support edge computing without requiring investments in hardware, technology or human capital.

3. Partnership - Google Cloud Backup: HYCU has joined the SADA SaaS Alliance Program. In addition, HYCU will work with SADA to make HYCU’s backup and disaster recovery (BDR) software for Google Cloud available to customers who need additional layers of protection.

4. Partnership - Hosted Desktops: Lenovo has launched hosted desktops as a service, powered by Nutanix. The solution is called Lenovo TruScale for Husted Desktops with Nutanix.

5. Partner - Microsoft Azure Active Directory: Datawiza, which specializes in Access Management as a Service (AMaaS), has announced Datawiza One-Click for Microsoft Azure Active Directory (Azure AD). The new service enable IT teams using Azure AD for identity management to "rapidly integrate new applications into the Azure AD environment without sacrificing security," Datawiza asserts.

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