More than 115,000 people attended CES 2023 last week, almost 3x more than last year. Reviews were mixed, as usual, since consumer media loves to highlight “concept” products like flying cars, virtual reality, and robots, lots and lots of robots. Example? The barista robot that might misspell your name in Lucida console font if it ever reaches a store.
Intel and Intel partner news. You had to wait until after CES to see Intel’s newest chips, the 4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processor family, the Intel Xeon CPU Max Series, and the Intel Data Center GPU Max Series. Promised adoption by all the usual hardware partner suspects real soon now.
Segue alert! Lenovo announced 25 new products powered by 4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors for high-performance jobs like AI, containerized workloads, and other projects in the ThinkSystem and ThinkAgile server lines.
NVIDIA wants clients to partner 4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors with NVIDIA H100 Tensor Core GPUs inside more than 60 servers and NVIDIA DGX H100 systems to improve efficiency an average of 25x over CPU-only data center servers.
Other product news. On to a different Intel. A new Threat Intel & Investigation add-on for Vade for M365, will help Vade clients gather the integrations, intelligence, and tools for MSPs and security groups to respond faster to email-borne threats moving through networks.
Trend Micro spun out CTOne, a new subsidiary for advancing 5G network security and more.
The new HPE Alletra 4000 expands into server-based, cloud-native data infrastructure with a new look for data storage servers built to securely keep up with expanding data demands.
Hello to Nfina’s new Nfina-View cloud-based unified management dashboard for remote monitoring and failover software for IaaS and DRaaS.
Epson released four new thermal receipt printers (two of them pictured): OmniLlink TM-m30111, TM-m30III-H, TM-50II, and TM-50II-H, each spiffy-looking and reliable.
Following the July 2021 acquisition of GoContact, Broadvoice will soon offer its first GoContact cloud contact center program for business customers in North America.
Feel the click when your fingers pound the new Cherry DW 9500 SLIM Combination of the KW 9100 wireless keyboard and the MW 8C ERGO mouse.
IoT news. Amazon at CES 2023 talked and demonstrated plenty of IoT tools, including AWS IoT support for Matter. Not unexpected, since Amazon helped develop the standard, but still nice.
A variety of China-based smart home IoT vendors also promised support for Matter, which should help boost IoT security.
Parks Associates lists its “Top 10 Insights” for the smart home, including how insurance companies are getting involved with various smart home product vendors.
Who wants to refresh batteries in IoT devices every few months? Nobody, which is why a new industry standard from the AirFuel Alliance merits mention. AirFuel RF can send 1 watt to a device wirelessly.
IoT security exploits are on the dark web, where tools to infiltrate cars and medical devices are popular with criminals. Nothing nerve-wracking there, right?
IoT in the food service industry improves safety, reduces waste, and cuts carbon footprints, says Just Food.
Non-vendor partner news. The red carpet leading to the door at Infoblox rolled out for new CEO Scott Harrell (pictured).
New faces abound at Nerdio, where they welcomed new Chief Product and Technology Officer Suresh Thirunavukkarasu, promoted Andy Baker to chief people officer, and greeted new VPof Customer Success Susan Driscoll.
The Welcome Wagon arrived at the door of Cato Networks to greet Frank Rauch as global channel chief, and Robert Holley as area vice president.
Over at Nintex, the new employee packet has the name of Jen Bailin, who joins as chief commercial officer.
Middle-market private equity firm HKW acquired CMIT Solutions from Craftsman Capital. Financial terms were not disclosed.
IRONSCALES announced its new @SCALE partner program for global channel members including distributors, VARs, integrators, and MSPs.
Partner Marketing Automation programs from Impartner revved up, making co-selling and co-marketing more automated.
This week’s stats ticker:
The SMB Technology Forecaster from Analysys Mason predicts small and medium-sized businesses will increase technology spending in 2023, but not quite to pre-pandemic levels. The report analyzed SMBs in 52 countries across 132 technology categories. IT spending through MSPs will grow 11% per year to USD 279 billion in 2023, but 37% of SMBs plan to switch channel partners to gain an “enterprise-lite” experience in support and services. Telecom operators will receive more than $66 billion, as PaaS and SaaS spending will grow.
Kaspersky’s MSPs in 2023 report found (no surprise) that price was the most important detail MSPs look for from their vendors, at 89%. Full-time technical support only rated 58%. Close to price, features and functionalities tied with support for second place at 88%, with 87% listing efficacy followed by market share at 84%. The most value for support came from around-the-clock availability. Security products either in the MSPs catalog of on the plan-to-add list in the next year included managed detection and response at 50%, threat detection at 47%, endpoint detection and response at 46%, and endpoint protection at 45%.
The first ever Global Technology Ecosystem Benchmark Report from TD SYNNEX looked at industry trends for 2023 and beyond. The three fundamental factors people searched for were anticipating and meeting end-user technology expectations, managing technology ecosystem business operations, and technology ecosystem engagement, enrichment, and enablement. Critical insights for reseller’s strategic growth plans include entering new vertical markets and investing in people to deliver the outcomes customers need.
Hawaii 5 Oracle. Men driving fast cars, such as Corvettes, might have a heavy right foot on occasion. That’s true even in Hawaii, where a Maui police officer pulled over a speeding orange Corvette last October.
It’s one thing to pull over an important person, another to realize the speeding driver was actually a billionaire, but discovering that the man trying to talk his way out of a ticket owned 98% of the island where this occurred, Lanai, was above and beyond.
Yes, a cop pulled over a speeding Larry Ellison and demanded to see his license and registration. Slight problem: Ellison had neither with him.
Larry, billionaire and landlord for the island, including the police station, got a ticket. Hope he can afford the bump in insurance rates.
