ICYMI: Our Channel News Roundup for the Week of July 8th

Americans celebrated the Fourth of July last week and the Baseball All-Star game this week, with the American League winning for the seventh straight year. Too bad none of that helps your local team. N.Y. Mets rookie Pete Alonso certainly helped himself by winning the Home Run Derby and fielding the $1 million prize. While we imagined how $1 mil would help our home budget, we missed some newsbits, so let’s get started.

More Microsoft news. Didn’t get enough Microsoft coverage from ChannelPro this week? We’ve got more! Moving on-premise applications to the cloud may not be as aggravating as digging out forgotten shoes from the back of your closet and throwing them in a box, but help with both is greatly appreciated. Hello to the new Microsoft Azure Migrate, a hub for your migration needs. Hey, Azure, can you grab the other end of this couch? No? OK, grab that server then with Azure Migrate: Server Migration. In fact, that’s just one part of many in the entire Azure Migration Program.

What gets moved must also get managed, and Microsoft and ServiceNow work together to move workloads in highly regulated industries to Azure. The U. S. federal government considers ServiceNow a strategic partner in its move to modernize.

Is your biz mobile-centric? Use Office 365? Check out the new MobileIron extensions for the Microsoft Intune Device Compliance Service.

Microsoft SharePoint customers now have access to e-signatures with Nintex Sign powered by Adobe Sign. Still paperwork, but less hassle.

OpenText news. Did you beat the heat by going to Toronto for the OpenText Enterprise World conference this week? If so, you already know about the expansion of Enterprise Information Management with Release 16 and new products like OpenText Intelligent Capture.

Did you pay for dinner at Enterprise World with a MasterCard? Timely, since OpenText and Mastercard shook hands to increase financial efficiencies across global supply chains.

Fan of both OpenText and Google Cloud? Now Google Cloud supports OpenText EIM workloads. Global disaster recovery, integration with Google AI and machine learning tools, and more.

Other product news. Enough work! Blow off some steam with your favorite PC game, now juiced up (oops, a baseball reference snuck in) by the availability of AMD Radeon RM 5700 Series graphics cards and AMD Ryzen 3000 Series desktop processors. Up to 12 cores and 24 threads, plus 1440p gaming, should help you relax.

Summer fun always carries the curse that school will return far too soon (for students). Maybe the updated MacBook Air and MacBook Pro, including student pricing, will ease the transition.

Speaking of portable computing, Dynabook Americas (formerly Toshiba America) offers up three new laptops and a USB-C dock. Drum roll for the Dynabook Portege X30 (pictured), Tecra X40, and Portege A30. Thin, light, full of hot new Intel processors and SSDs and the like.

Buffalo Americas was early into the affordable NAS game. Check out the new TeraStation 5010 and 3010 families of 1U 4-bay NAS boxes that can come partially filled for quick installation.

Where there’s storage, there must be backup. Wave to ManageEngine ADManager Plus with added backup and recovery capabilities. Losing your Active Directory is a bad thing. If you don’t know that pain, count yourself lucky.

Companies not only need migration help when moving to the cloud, they need security. To help, Trend Micro AWS Transit Gateway protection tools are now available in the AWS Marketplace.

Now this:

• The new Kaspersky Security for Virtualization Light Agent can protect up to 100,000 virtual servers and desktops.

• Optiv Security now offers customization to transform traditional SOCs into Advanced Fusion Centers. What does it fuse? Controls, data, analytics, AI, orchestration, automation, and more to track and counter threats.

• Flowmon Networks (security) now supports Amazon Virtual Public Cloud (VPC) traffic mirroring.

• Epson revved up its EcoTank line of printers with six new cartridge-free, all-in-one printers in white. Wide range of price points and performance options.

• GPS Insight and Netradyne team up to offer Driveri Dash Cams that capture 360-degree views at 1080p and the Greenzone Scorecard to track safe driving.

• 8x8 Managed Technical Services just debuted to provide full management of your communications network.

• WebNMS (the IoT part of Zoho) moves into Industrial IoT in a partnership with HMS Networks and its remote access and management tool Ewon Flexy.

• Jamf (management) rings the bell for a new version of Jamf School for more flexible teaching with Apple technology.

Non-product vendor news. New business cards are needed for Pete Bartolotta (pictured) as he moves up to president of business transformation at Avnet.

Start the Welcome Wagon app for Claire Dixon as she joins Intel as corporate vice president and chief communications officer.

Welcome Wagon stop #2 will be for Casey Cheyne at IGEL, where he fills the newly-created vice president, cloud partnerships role.

Lastline (security) welcomes Jarrett Miller as vice president of global channel sales.

F-Secure pulled the curtain on its new Global Partner Program for B2B IT resellers. The four different tiers are Registered, Silver, Gold, and Platinum.

Mastercard and Zoho joined up to help small businesses all over the globe with a range of products like enterprise planning and finance, CRM, and marketing help.

CriticalStart (managed detection and response) will now be available through Ingram Micro.

Axcient (data protection) has signed up with Zedsphere for distribution.

Cisco (you know) looks to improve its coherent optics technology by acquiring Acacia Communications.

NTT Security completed the gobbling, er, acquisition of WhiteHat Security.

Zyxel Communications turned on its new solar power system, a full 200kw, built with the help of SunPower and Renova Energy. That hit a key milestone in the Zyxel Green Initiative.

This week’s stats ticker:

Is artificial intelligence a real thing? Absolutely, according to the IDC report Artificial Intelligence Global Adoption Trends & Strategies. Top of mind for almost every enterprise, but only 25% have developed a company-wide AI strategy. At least the majority (60%) who tried it reported changes in their business model with IT operations the number one biz area using AI. Nearly half of organizations have a formalized framework to use AI ethically, and nearly a quarter have a senior management position involved to ensure adherence.

Criminals may not be geniuses (thank goodness) but they are persistent. Sophos did a global survey called The Impossible Puzzle of Cybersecurity and bad guys still bang on the door every minute. Phishing emails were involved in 53% of those hit with cyberattacks. 41% of attack targets suffered a data breach. Surprisingly, only 16% of respondents consider supply chain security a top risk, which are often the target of nation state adversary attacks. Often those are a launch pad for automated active-adversary attacks. Perhaps that’s why 75% of IT teams find staying up to date with cybersecurity technology a real challenge.

Synergy Research studied the data from Q1 on video conferencing and collaboration. It found year over year growth at 10%, reaching up to $1.5 billion. Video-as-a-Service and USB video conferencing increasingly drive this market. Cisco and Poly (Polycom) lead by a wide margin in videoconferencing and dedicated video desktop segments. Cisco and LogMeIn lead in conferencing SaaS. Better single code systems, more nimble USB video rooms, and VaaS cloud services will keep growth at 10% or so globally.

Another example of men never asking for directions. The Patrouille Suisse is the Blue Angels of the Swiss Air Force, and makes flyovers just like the U.S. and British (Red Arrows) teams. Last weekend, the Swiss flyers did the flyover thing they do so well for the Swiss aviation pioneer Oskar Bider.

At least that was the plan. Instead, the Swiss jets appeared four miles away over the 31st Northwest Yodeling festival. Yes, four miles away.

While it would seem precision would be important to an Air Force, even for flyovers to entertain a crowd, four miles doesn’t seem so precise. Turns out the planes used are over 40 years old and include no modern navigation tools like GPS. That means the flyers rely on maps.

Oops.

On the other hand, the significant others dragged against their will to the yodeling festival had a moment of relief as the lost jets drowned out all that wailing.