Traveling for the holiday? Maybe stopping to grab a few presents on the way? Mostly good weather, or at least no new blizzards. Except in the Northwest. Something called an “atmospheric river” tagged the Pineapple Express will dump huge amounts of rain and snow across Washington and Oregon this weekend and snow across the Rockies for Christmas Eve and Christmas. Those of you stuck inside will have plenty of time to read all these newsbits we missed this past week.
Christmas security party. Gift bags from Google are full of over a dozen new security partnerships and other goodies. McAfee, Palo Alto, and Qualys can deploy agent-based endpoint security at scale through the G-Cloud. Exabeam, ForgeRock, Arctic Wolf, and Fortinet have new G-Cloud partnerships, and Citrix Workspace now runs up there as well.
Christmas buying spree. Global technology private equity firm Francisco Partners will acquire LogMeIn for $86.05 per share in cash. Adds up to about $4.3 billion, a 25% bump over the price last September. Should wrap up mid-2020.
Intel acquired Habana Labs, an Israeli developer of programmable deep learning accelerators used in data centers, for around $2 billion. Habana will keep its current management and remain an independent business unit.
Other product news. Microsoft’s Azure IoT Edge keeps making IoT easier. Latest updates include layered deployments, implementing marketplace modules from the Azure portal, and support for automatic device configurations.
Arrow Electronics, Geniatech, and ON Semiconductor got in on the IoT act too with a multi-vendor workplace safety solution that provides real-time data on air quality, humidity, pressure, and temperature.
Hands were shaken, so now we have OpenText Dynamic Analysis for EnCase Endpoint Security. OpenText (information management) will fold in malware analysis and more from Lastline.
Has it really come to this? The Sectigo Embedded Firewall for Automotive was just released. Besides your oil filter, you must now have a set of filtering rules and the ability to detect anomalies and identify traffic variances that could signal cyberattacks. On your car.
CrowdStrike and eSentire also did the handshake, so the two cloud-native platforms increased the speed and efficacy of both endpoint protection and managed detection and response.
NETSCOUT’s nGeniusPULSE can now test network and application availability and performance over Wi-Fi connections, and test performance within an application.
When color accuracy matters, PANTONE is the answer. Good news for Brother International, then, that it just received PANTONE calibrated certification for its line of business color laser printers and MFPs.
Have a management console that needs up to four computers displaying on up to three 4K monitors? The new ATEN 4-port USB 3.0 4K DisplayPort Triple Display KVMP Switch is your ticket. The DynaSync technology eliminates boot-up display issues and the USB 3.1 ports zoom up to 5 Gbps.
Every IT group needs more storage to put more user and application data into. Hence the new Inspur AS5000G5 series of products for mid-range hybrid storage systems. Includes mid-range all-flash storage systems as well.
Vendors, but no products. LogicMonitor anted up to increase its expansion of channel partners and strategic alliances. Sanjay Gupta has joined as global vice president, channels and alliances, to help.
Forcepoint welcomed its very first chief customer success officer, Lisa Schreiber, who came over from Oracle.
Channel management provider Impartner promoted Kerry Desberg (pictured) to chief marketing officer.
CompTIA’s IT Security Community Executive Council just added ID Agent CMO Dana Liedholm.
Boomi (Dell) signed the papers to acquire Unifi Software, a deal that will add the latter’s intelligent data discovery, cataloging, and preparation tools to Boomi’s data management platform.
StorONE and Tech Data teamed up to deliver All-Flash Arrays-as-a-Service (AFaaS). It’s a subscription-based model priced per terabyte.
As part of the Avaya Master Agent program, SYNNEX now offers the new Avaya Cloud Office Unified Communications-as-a-Service (UCaaS) products.
Ingram Micro and Procurri engaged to offer a complete global IT asset disposition solution.
Microsoft certified Ingram Micro Cloud as a Microsoft Azure Managed Service Provider.
Speaking of Azure, Windows Virtual Desktop deployment enhancements from CloudJumper now work with Crayon, the IT advisory firm in digital transformation.
8x8 opened its Elev8 Partner Program to include VARs. The referral partner program increased this year to over 1,000 active channel agents.
Cloud backup player Asigra announced a new program focused on protecting Canadian public and non-profit organizations.
Terminal emulation for legacy apps sound boring and dusty? Nah, it’s all revved up, thanks to IGEL and Ericom Software expanding their partnership to deliver secure access to server-based apps and legacy host systems.
This week’s stats ticker:
There’s been plenty of hype around 5G, but IDC just released its first worldwide 5G forecast, Worldwide 5G Connections Forecast, 2019-2023. Bottom line? Rocketship growth from the current 10 million 5G connections in 2019 to 1.01 billion in 2023. Punch your calculator and you’ll find that’s a 217.2% CAGR. In 2023, IDC expects 8.9% of all mobile device connections will be over 5G. This includes 5G mobile subscriptions and 5G IoT cellular connections.
Another first, the Worldwide Technology Employment Impact Guide from IDC, outlines how information and communication technology full-time employment in those fields will reach 55.3 million worldwide in 2020. A growth rate of 3.8% will push employment to 62.0 million in 2023. The largest group is in applications, which includes software development and management. Graphics, multimedia, and web designers are in the IT/technical group, the second largest, followed by the technical support folks. These groups make up about three quarters of all ICT jobs. The IT/technical group has a five-year CAGR of 0.1% while the cybersecurity people will rack up a 9.6% CAGR. Digital transformation type jobs are about 40% of technology full-time jobs now, but that area should employ about 52% in 2023.
Return of the (polite, this time) Grinch. Porch pirates are not good people. But even people doing bad things can have good manners, especially in places like Minnesota where the folks seem to be nicer than most thanks to the Canadian politeness dripping south.
In St. Paul, Hilary Smith went to her porch to get a package from Amazon. It was not there. Dang you, porch pirates, Hilary might have said while shaking her fists in anger.
What she did find? A polite note from her pirate, thanking her for the opportunity to steal her package. A joke pulled by a neighbor? Alas, no. The package was really gone, and she wasn’t being pranked.
“So just a quick little thank you for leaving me the opportunity of stealing your package,” the note read. “Very nice of you. Thank you, the new owner of your package.”
Hilary did laugh off her aggravation, at least a little bit. “I do like a well-crafted thank you note,” she said, “but that’s when I give a gift.”
Dear porch pirates: leaving a note does NOT make you less of a thief and scumbag. You may have been raised well enough to leave a thank-you note, but not raised well enough to know stealing is a crime. Stop it.
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About the Author
JAMES E. GASKIN is a ChannelPro contributing editor and former reseller based in Dallas.
