Azure updates from Microsoft Build, laptops from Acer, and a tasty new use for swarming cicadas are all among the stories we’re sending your way just in time for the holiday weekend.

He’s on the road and face to face with vendors again! Listen in on Joel Zaidspiner’s recent chats with Axcient, Cloudwerxe, OITVoIP, and ReachOut Technology.

There are lots of good reasons to be a channel pro. If golf isn’t one of yours, you need to listen to this week’s show, in which Matt, Rich, and guest host Andrew Sampson, of solution and managed service provider SAAI, discuss forthcoming partner resources from D&H, rising hardware prices, a new automated management solution from Extreme Networks, and ChannelPro‘s latest Vendors on the Vanguard list.

It is critical to strike the right balance of agility and security for your customers’ needs.

Rolled out in March alongside higher deal registration discounts, the changes are designed to minimize the cost of switching from perpetual licensing to “everything as a service”, according to North American Channel Chief Kevin Rooney (pictured).

The enhancements, chiefly to its backup solutions for Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, Microsoft Azure, and Microsoft 365, arrive amid surging migration of backup data from on-premises systems to public cloud platforms.

For end-user businesses, the biggest benefit the cloud provides is the ability to continue working and communicating in any situation.

The new ConceptD 5 models now include a 16-inch display with a 16:10 aspect ratio.

Unveiled during the vendor’s annual user conference today, ExtremeCloud IQ CoPilot draws on artificial intelligence to continuously measure network behavior against baseline norms and automatically issue alerts when it spots potential problems.

Coming off the first $5 billion fiscal year in its 104-year history, the distributor has increased credit, more hiring, and a new distribution center on the way, but foresees higher prices on hardware coming too.