New Intel Core chips, a new hyperconverged cyber protection platform from Scale Computing and Acronis, new features from MSP360, and what may be the world’s stupidest hiker all figure in this week’s batch of better-late-than-never news.

Feel free to tackle only simple challenges, channel pros. Just don’t expect to make much at it. Take it from this week’s guest host, podcaster and industry analyst Dave Sobel, it’s the hard stuff that produces big money. Dave, Matt, and Rich have plenty to say about that topic, as well as the news from Acronis’s CyberFit Summit, and Dave has a few thoughts to share about Kaseya’s efforts to harden its software against future breaches too.

Speakers at the IT membership community’s second-to-last conference for 2021 addressed top-of-mind issues in the SMB channel, with a particular focus on security and cloud computing.

A recent MicroAge survey of IT leaders finds MSPs are falling short in three key areas: cloud strategy, security, and IT spending.

Threat hunting proactively looks for threats your automated detection tools might miss, providing additional protection for your customers.

The market for clear LED panels is on the rise, creating opportunity for channel pros.

Everyone else is working from home these days. Why not The King? You know who’s not working from home this week? Rich Freeman. He’s in Las Vegas for Kaseya’s ConnectIT conference and has plenty of news from Kaseya to share. He and Matt also discuss HP’s big new collaboration and conferencing portfolio as well as the challenges and pleasures of running a tech business with your spouse.

Side by side for the first time since COVID, Erick and Rich discuss Kaseya’s take on its RMM breach, trueing up your managed services clients, and a woman who went to sleep alone and woke up next to a meteorite.

CMO Mike Puglia (pictured) discussed those and other product plans at the vendor’s ConnectIT event this morning.

Called HP Presence, the sprawling set of hardware, software, and services is designed to make meetings easier for remote and office-based employees to participate in together and easier for IT professionals to manage and secure.