Good morning, channel partners. Here are five technology news updates, insights, chatter, and plenty more to sip on for Thursday, June 2, 2016.
Actually, there are 19 (yeah, baby) entries for VARs, managed services providers (MSPs), cloud services providers (CSPs) and independent software vendors (ISVs) to sip on. Take a look…
19. SolarWinds Acquires LogicNow: OK, in case you somehow missed our flurry of coverage late yesterday afternoon: SolarWinds has acquired LogicNow and will merge the business with its N-able operations. The resulting business division will be called SolarWinds MSP. What does all that mean for MSPs? Here are all the details, served up by ChannelE2E.
18. TeamViewer Outage, Hack?: TeamViewer suffered a denial of service attack yesterday, but the remote control company denied reports that customers suffered major hacks of their systems. TeamViewer had been part of GFI Software (the precursor to LogicNow) before it was acquired by Permira in 2014.
17. Don't Overlook ServiceNow: Indeed, ServiceNow is buying BrightPoint Security in an all-cash transaction expected to close this month. The deal expands ServiceNow's Security Operations offering, enabling customers to more quickly identify and respond to relevant threats. More details about the deal -- perhaps even financial terms? -- will likely emerge when ServiceNow announces quarterly financial results on April 20. Memo to VARs and MSPs: Keep a close eye on the ServiceNow platform for a range of IT automation opportunities.
16. Data Center Expansion: TierPoint LLC, a St. Louis-based data center operator, has completed a 17,640-square-foot expansion of its Milwaukee facility, the Journal Sentinel reported. TierPoint has been expanding its data center footprint via M&A deals, which ChannelE2E has been tracking closely.
15. Data Center Talent: Former CenturyLink Data Center VP Joel Stone has joined RagingWire as senior vice president and chief operating officer. The move comes amid continued rumors that CenturyLink wants to sell its data centers while continuing to focus on cloud and managed services.
14. AWS Cloud Management: Memo to RMM (remote monitoring and management) software companies... Major APM (application performance management) platform providers are beating you to the punch when it comes to Amazon Web Services management and monitoring. A case in point: New Relic is promoting a range of APM case studies for AWS, and rival AppDynamics has a closer relationship with AWS. What Should RMM Companies Do?: Sign up to attend AWS Re:Invent 2016, check out the massive conference, listen to customers, and then strategize from there.
13. Required Cloud Skills: So, you want to profit in the cloud. Jobs related to Amazon Web Services have shot up 53 percent in the past year. Similarly, demand for Microsoft Azure professionals has jumped 75 percent in the past year, according to Rackspace. Perhaps that's why MSPs like Aldridge (and its Arterian business, led by Jamison West) are betting heavily on Azure skills development. Should you be doing the same?
12. Office 365 SMB Adoption: Adoption of Microsoft’s cloud-based Office 365 is still in its infancy, according to GeekWire. Indeed, only 7.5 percent of small and medium-sized businesses in the U.S. currently using it, according SkyKick. The data is based on a survey of 109,000 businesses with employee headcounts of 250 or less across the U.S.
11. Oracle Cloud Accounting Questions: Do Oracle's cloud revenues add up correctly? A whistleblower suggests Oracle uses improper accounting practices to bolster its cloud revenue figures. The claims surfaced in a lawsuit. "We don't agree with the allegations and intend to vigorously defend the matter," an Oracle spokeswoman told Reuters." Oracle's SaaS and PaaS revenue grew 61% in Q3 2016, the company said, though IaaS revenues haven't impressed Wall Street to date.
10. Ten KPIs for Your Sales Dashboard: Find them here. More details soon.
9. Managed Security Services Growth: SecureWorks says Q1 revenue was roughly $100 million, up 29 percent from the corresponding quarterly last year. The figure beat Wall Street's expectations, according Briefing.com. The company now has 4,300 clients of varying sizes and complexity from small businesses to global Fortune 100 companies, across 59 countries and all key industry sectors.
8. Cisco IoT Reality Check: Cisco Systems is tracking 28 million IoT devices on its network. Hmmm... That sounds like a lot of network switches, routers, PCs, smartphones and tablets. But in reality, most of the 28 million devices are cars, according to CEO Chuck Robbins. Side note: Robbins explained the company's IoT strategy and recent acquisitions in this ChannelE2E video from March 2016:
7. Women In Tech: At first glance, the tech industry is diversifying beyond middle-aged white guys like me (MAWGLMs). But take a closer look and our progress toward diversity is still pretty pathetic. Consider these stats from Craigslist Founder Craig Newmark: "Women (who represent 57 percent of the U.S. labor force) fill just a quarter (26.5 percent) of tech jobs at the top U.S. tech firms. Also, women earn on average just 85 percent of what their male counterparts do.Plus, 18 percent of women hold leadership positions in these companies. At the top 100 VC firms, a mere 7 percent of managing partners are women." Um... who said we're making progress?
6. Predicting Employee Departures: Automatic Data Processing Inc. plans to launch a product as early as October that predicts the flight risk of individual employees. Indeed, ADP is testing proprietary algorithms that can score an individual’s likelihood of quitting based on pay, commute and other factors, The Wall Street Journal reported. Here's a novel idea: Instead of working in reactive mode (analyzing data) companies should be in proactive mode (treating their employees better from the get-go).
5. Box Quarterly Results: Box says Q1 revenues were $90 million, up 37 percent vs. the corresponding quarter last year. However, Box shares are down about 10% on the earnings news because Wall Street wants faster bookings growth. Competition within the file sharing and sync market has intensified over the past year or two, particularly in the SMB market where channel-led solutions (like Autotask, Datto Drive and eFolder Anchor) have emerged. Even Dropbox has been describing major channel milestones in recent months.
4. Slower Smartphone Sales Growth: The smartphone market will grow about 3.1 percent this year -- far more slowly than an earlier 5.7 percent growth protection, according to revised IDC estimates. Temporary slowdown or the new normal? Hmmm...
3. Flat Internet Growth: Meanwhile, growth of Internet users worldwide is essentially flat, according to the new Internet Trends report from Mary Meeker, a general partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. It's a sobering reality. Think of it this way. The highway (i.e., the Internet) is built. The roadway is in. There are still opportunities to manage more and more types of workloads as they navigate that roadway.
2. Dodging the Watson Revenue Question: IBM CEO Ginni Rometty says it's still too soon to disclose specific Watson revenue figures. In fact, there's "no value" in sharing that info right now. That comment demands a capital HMMMM...
1. Channel Events: Trying to figure out which channel partner events, conferences and summits to attend? Check out the ChannelE2E Technology Event Calendar for 2016, 2017 and beyond. It's the world's largest database of channel-centric summits designed for VARs, MSPs, CSPs, ISVs and other channel influencers.
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