Bring your own…pitchfork? Poodle? Pompadour? You’ll just have to listen to this week’s show to find out. Luckily for you, you’ll also hear Matt, Rich, and returning guest host Rory Sanchez, of True Digital Security, discuss the new stand-alone small business edition of Microsoft Teams, Poly’s desk phone trade-in program, research from Auvik revealing the future of SMB networking, and evidence from Sophos and Trend Micro that security vendors are all-in on cloud.

This week, Erick and Rich discuss the SMB network of tomorrow, per research from Auvik, doing a little pre-holiday tax planning with your financial advisor, and an internet gaming platform that briefly accepted bets on a soccer match completed the day before.

Speaking with ChannelPro during the Amazon Web Services re:Invent conference this week, both vendors said that while IT providers are gradually learning to protect cloud workloads, there’s further progress to be made.

Called Microsoft Teams Essentials, the service provides group video calls for up to 30 hours and 300 people, up to 10 GB of file storage, group chat, calendaring, and more without a Microsoft 365 subscription for $4 per user per month.

As the shift toward hybrid work arrangements continues, the network management vendor reports in newly published research, businesses are embracing simpler, speedier network architectures that rely more on Wi-Fi access points than switches and firewalls.

Providing access to the CIS security controls compliance tool from within its solution, the vendor says, will help channel pros develop detailed and comprehensive client recommendation reports more rapidly.

What you need to know about the world’s most popular operating systems.

CompTIA research finds declining satisfaction with current state of cybersecurity.

A step-by-step guide to reselling for VARs and MSPs

To keep corporate networks secure, implement a least-privilege, zero-trust approach with devices, not just users.