ICYMI: Our Channel News Roundup for the Week of September 4th

Microsoft murmurs and shouts. Love is in the air, or maybe it’s partnership, as existing Microsoft and Adobe joint ventures expand to make e-signatures easier and connect Microsoft Teams and Adobe Cloud Services. Ditto for connecting Windows 10 and Salesforce Chatter. In the “shocked, shocked” category, cloud apps like Linux. So Azure App Service is now generally available on Linux, including Web App for Containers.

New and shiny. Anyone ever complain the network is too fast? Not at NETGEAR. That’s why the vendor rolled out the second generation of its Smart Managed Switching offerings, now supporting 10Gb Ethernet. To help fill that bandwidth, folks there also released the NETGEAR FlexPower Wire-Free IPO Camera (VNC4030) (pictured) and FlexPower Base Station (VNB4000).

Huawei Consumer Business Group unveiled the Kirin 970, an eight-core CPU with a 12-core GPU, all small enough to fit into mobile devices like smartphones. Big reveal: The chip will add real AI to devices for the first time. We’ll let Siri, Cortana, and Google argue about that one.

BenQ America released the LK970 4K UHD BlueCore laser projector. Serious stats: 4K UHD resolution (3840 x 2160) and 5,000 ANSI-lumen brightness. Don’t look at the projector without your eclipse glasses.

People with messy desks love trackballs because they don’t need to clear space for the mouse motions. The Logitech MX-ERGO wireless trackball, available about now, should make them happy.

Atlassian Corp. announced Stride, “a complete team communication solution,” supporting rich text messaging, cloud media integration, security files, fast search, and other goodies like voice, video, screen sharing, remote control, etc. Sound a little like Slack or Microsoft Teams?

Get closer to your clouds with the new Windstream Cloud Connect solution, providing dedicated and secured connections to major cloud service providers AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, Oracle Fast Connect, and Salesforce.

MobileIron made enterprise employees who love Macs happier with its Apple Release including support for iOS 11 (expected soon from Apple).

Fans of the VOSS-4-UC product suite will like the new VOSS Analytics module. Gather data about service usage, service adoption, user trends, and licensing details in a few anticipatory heartbeats.

Fans of better security should appreciate the next generation of Kaspersky Private Security Network, an on-prem version of the cloud-based Kaspersky Security Network. Get access to real-time global threat info but keep all your security data inside your own walls.

All the other news that’s fit to e-print. Mike Potts takes over as CEO of Webroot, succeeding the retiring Dick Williams. Perhaps Williams, who’s staying on Webroot’s board, will help Potts carry in some boxes.

Rob Valdez (pictured) also needs some boxes as he moves from Insight to become national channel manager at TBI. Jonny Lympus also moves to TBI as inbound channel manager from mass markets.

Also:

• HPE closed the deal to acquire Cloud Technology Partners (no financial details given).
• Comodo announced a year of free help desk support for MSPs.
• ContentKeeper’s Multi-layered Gateway Security Platform will soon include the Cylance OEM Engine to add AI-driven, pre-execution malware blocking.
• Storage Guardian signed an agreement to distribute through Ingram Micro.
• HP Inc. and Siemens, longtime partners, teamed up on a new HP-certified Additive Manufacturing (3-D printing) software module, Siemens NX AM for HP Multi Jet Fusion.

This week’s stat ticker. 451 Research, in our second “shocked, shocked” entry today, reports that IoT is having a significant impact on enterprise IT. Dive into Voice of the Enterprise: IoT—Workloads and Key Projects and you’ll find almost a third of enterprises plan to add storage infrastructure to deal with this issue, over 30 percent are adjusting edge equipment, and just under that amount are spiffing up servers. Surprisingly, 26 percent say things are just fine and they have no changes in mind.

IDC believes all these IoT plans show "significant opportunity for Service Providers.” That’s the most important conclusion from the study Worldwide Internet of Things Services Forecast, 2017-2021, just out from the Boston-area research firm. Over half the IoT global services market is domestic, and business consulting is the fastest growing segment currently. Practice those buzzwords and put on your consultant hat.

Train your brain like Tom Brady. Noted mental genius Tom Brady, who looks exactly like Super Bowl-winning All-Pro quarterback Tom Brady, just announced the TB12 BrainHQ regimen. The project is a partnership between BrainHQ maker Posit Science and Tom Brady’s TB12 method of comprehensive and customizable training for mind and body.

“I’m not a brain scientist,” says Brady. Yes, we agree, but His Brady-ness added that over 100 peer-reviewed studies have been published on the technology used by TB12 BrainHQ. He didn’t mention who these peers were, however, so he could be referring to his New England Patriots teammates for all we know. Or, given the result of the NFL season opener, in which the Kansas City Chiefs hammered the Patriots 42-27, those peers could be the hot dog vendors in Gillette Stadium.

Let’s hope the Brady Brain Training system really is what made supermodels like Bridget Moynahan and Giselle Bundchen go ga-ga over Tom-Tom. Because if women like that are only attracted to young, handsome, athletic, and rich guys, we’re back to Dungeons & Dragons, trained brains notwithstanding. Sigh.