Even the oldest traditions benefit from modernization, such as the new pitch clock in Major League Baseball. No longer do baseball games last eight hours—the average time now is 2 hours and 37 minutes. Who’s ready for a “meeting clock,” to keep managers focused and cut the blather?
News from the valley of the giants. The latest feature release of Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare (pictured) helps payors, automates workflows, supports remote care management, and will soon integrate with Cognizant’s TriZetto healthcare products.
Wave hello to VMware Cross-Cloud managed services, which aims to enable partners to expand their services for hybrid clouds, native public clouds, and offers incentives like 40% more rewards for proofs-of-concepts.
AI news. Zomentum’s new Smart-AI writer uses software smarts to streamline document creation, including a new AI-powered proposal writing feature.
Nextiva acquired Simplify360, an India-based AI customer experience platform, to improve their support, management, and analysis of every business communication.
Security news. Lots of goodies in the new Application Protection plans from Barracuda, including machine learning-powered web applications and zero-trust security to power API, DDoS, and bot defenses against complex threats.
Why stop with a zero-trust product when you can build a zero-trust ecosystem? Dell did exactly that, with more than 30 leading security companies involved.
Take a look at the new Trustifi Management Dashboard for MSSPs (pictured), which works across multiple clients from a single interface.
Spin.AI’s SpinOne security platform revved up with new goodies such as security posture management, data leak prevention, data loss protection, and ransomware detection, along with ServiceNow and Jira integrations.
AI+HI is the term IRONSCALES uses to describe the combination of AI and human insights it now uses to boost protection against business email compromise attacks.
Now available, Lookout Mobile Endpoint Security helps MSSPs identify risk, ensure compliance, and reduce policy admin time by 80%.
Sharpen your pencils and get your new backpack to attend Blackpoint University, the new learning platform from Blackpoint Cyber for receiving sales and technical cybersecurity training.
CrowdStrike Falcon Complete XDR adds 24/7 expert management, threat hunting, monitoring, and end-to-end remediation.
Syncro collaborated with Proofpoint on email security and security awareness training.
Armis and TrueFort partnered to boost the discovery and enforcement of security policies for IT, IoT, and OT.
Forcepoint offers MSSPs and distribution partners access to its cloud-delivered security solutions on a “pay as you go, pay as you grow” subscription model.
IoT marches on. According to our friends at Parks Associates, those in the smart home vertical better get ready. Some 28% of smart home device owners now identify as the early majority (a step down from early adopters), and 37% are familiar with smart locks. Tipping point?
Sigfox stumbled for a bit, but with companies like Actility and UnaBiz integrating LoRaWAN and Sigfox OG technology, it won’t fall.
GCN outlines how IoT, by way of a cloud-enabled sensor network, helps officials with smart city planning.
Makers and manufacturers begging for faster connections for their IoT device products should sample some of the new TI SimpleLink CC33xx chips. Bluetooth Low Energy and Wi-Fi 6 included.
CrowdStrike calls it the world’s first XDR for IoT, including medical devices and industrial IoT applications.
In Israel, Cellcom and Parallel Wireless are rolling out an independent 5G SA network to test the Open RAN 5G technology for IoT networks.
Other product news. ConnectWise and Sharp collaborated on a managed print security service for Sharp models.
JumpCloud boosted its Open Directory Platform to make hybrid work easier, more secure, and more manageable with new mobile functionality.
You may move slowly around the house, especially in the morning, but your Wi-Fi doesn’t have to. Zyxel’s new SCR 50AXE AXE5400 Tri-band Wi-Fi 6E Secure Cloud-managed Router zooms at up to 5.4 Gbps.
CMIT Solutions, with help from private equity firm HKW, is expanding its coverage of the hospitality industry.
Want to up your gamer cred but your pocket isn’t full of change? The new ViewSonic OMNI VX28 Series Monitors (sample pictured) for casual gamers may do the trick in either 24- or 27-inch versions.
Or up your mobile gaming with Acer’s new Predator Triton 17 X and Predator Helios Neo 16 gamer laptops. 13th Gen Intel processors and NVIDIA graphics are included among other tech.
Bizzity, SaaS-based CRM solution (and member of the ChannelPro Vendors on the Vanguard list for 2023) is now officially and generally available.
Non-product vendor news. The red carpet to the door of Liongard ushered in Michelle Accardi (pictured) as the new CEO.
Over at CloudBolt, the Welcome Wagon greeted another CEO, Craig Hinkley.
The guy looking for the break room at Pax8 is David Powell, the new vice president of sales strategy. Or you might help Carrie Schiff find a meeting room, since she just joined as chief legal officer.
All those balloons at Ooma? To welcome Katha Mazza, the new head of channel sales.
Those boxes at Fortanix belong to Ron Longo as he moves in and takes the chief revenue officer position.
Gradient MSP Synthesize now integrates with PowerDMARC, speeding their billing reconciliation and more.
Beat the winter doldrums this year by attending the ASCII Navigate MSP event in Hawaii on December 7, 2023.
UPSTACK acquired RYSE Communications LLC (dba Signal Technology Group), an independent advisory firm. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
This week’s stats ticker:
Techaisle included questions about ChatGPT and large language models (LLMs) in its survey to 1,872 SMBs and midmarket firms, and found that AI adoption will increase by 79% in small businesses, 63% in core-midmarket firms, and 53% in upper-midmarket firms. 41% of SMBs call AI a priority, as do 75% of core-midmarket and 79% of upper-midmarket firms. SMBs are using 2023 to evaluate ChatGPT and LLMs, compared to midmarket organizations where early adopters are gaining experience with LLM-based systems. AI and ChatGPT aren’t used as stand-alone products in SMBs but are folded into other applications. Expectations differ, as SMBs plan to use these tools for customer experience and marketing/advertising, while midmarket firms will apply them to risk reduction, customer experience, and process automation.
The Q1 2023 Phishing and Malware Report from Vade showed phishing increased by 102% QoQ, hitting the highest Q1 totals since 2018. How high? 284.8 million more phishing emails this quarter over last. January saw five times more phishing emails than the totals of February and March. Malware volumes declined 7%, which is good news, and a 13% decrease from the same period last year. Microsoft and Google were the brands most spoofed.
According to the annual Enterprise Network Transformation report from Aryaka, the uncertain economy will impact investments, but IT leaders are doubling down on the cloud to the point that the rapid cloud-shift has changed how modern IT regards network and security. Network-as-a-Service and the decline of MPLS are loosening the hold of legacy telcos on the enterprise network. 98% of the 230 executives surveyed plan to increase their cloud service usage, and they see networking and security as vital to their long-term success.
Cola Bear. Plenty of folks have had a great time making fun of the Cocaine Bear movie and people seem to think such events are purely fiction, even though the movie is loosely based on real events. But bears don’t really do that kind of stuff, right?
Talk to Sharon Rosel of British Columbia and look at her videos of a bear ripping open her Jeep to gorge on, well, 69 cans of various soft drinks. She buys drinks by the case for her food truck.
Ms. Rosel said she tried to reason with the bear. Surprise, that didn’t work. What did stop the attack? Tasting the diet drinks. It left several of those, the only ones not slurped.
Photo: Sharon Rosel
