RCP analyzed the Worldwide Partner Conference session
catalog to help partners get the
most out of the show or to track it from the office. For more on WPC 2016, visit our event page here.
If you think of the Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) in terms of the old Microsoft phrase "drinking from the firehose" for getting up to speed at a disorientingly fast rate, this is the group of sessions that forms the core of the conference's infodump.
1. Satya Nadella Vision Keynote: The Microsoft CEO usually kicks off the conference from the big stage, laying out the themes and making some major news announcements. More
Posted by Scott Bekker on July 05, 20160 comments
With the LinkedIn acquisition, expect Jeff Weiner to be a major player at Microsoft. The question is, for how long?
The top executives of large companies that Microsoft acquires frequently become major movers and shakers within Microsoft, at least for a while. See Bates, Tony; Elop, Stephen; and Ozzie, Ray. More
Posted by Scott Bekker on June 24, 20160 comments
Business continuity and data recovery specialist Datto rolled out its third generation of appliances, services and cloud solutions under the SIRIS brand this week during its DattoCon conference for MSPs in Nashville.
A major new element of the broad set of enhancements across the SIRIS 3 platform was the addition of an all-flash backup appliance called the SIRIS 3 X1. That device has a 1TB solid state drive, 16GB of RAM and local virtualization capabilities. More
Posted by Scott Bekker on June 23, 20160 comments
SkyKick this week introduced two new distribution methods for its partner-focused, cloud management software.
The Seattle-area company already uses its Web site and some distribution relationships to sells its tools for helping partners migrate customers to Office 365 and manage and back up their cloud accounts once the customers are in the cloud. More
Posted by Scott Bekker on June 23, 20160 comments
ORLANDO, Fla. -- ConnectWise this week released a substantial upgrade to its LabTech remote monitoring and management (RMM) tool and previewed some integrations with the rest of the ConnectWise Business Suite, including a new unified ticketing system.
The announcements came during the Automation Nation show in Orlando attended by more than 500 ConnectWise partners. More
Posted by Scott Bekker on June 22, 20160 comments
If successful, Microsoft's acquisition of LinkedIn for $26.2 billion would be the tech giant's highest-valued deal to date by a huge margin. The face value of the LinkedIn agreement is more than triple what Microsoft paid for the next biggest acquisition, Skype. The LinkedIn offer is about half the size of Microsoft's $44.6 billion bid in 2008 for Yahoo, but that deal ultimately did not go through.
Here are Microsoft's acquisitions worth $1 billion or more, ranked by their value at the time: More
Posted by Scott Bekker on June 13, 20160 comments
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) giant Amazon Web Services (AWS) delivered a key new element for its channel program this week with the formal rollout of the AWS Migration Competency.
Amazon announced that the migration competency was on the AWS Partner Network (APN) roadmap last October during the AWS Global Partner Summit in Las Vegas. The migration competency is about helping partners move applications or entire datacenter operations to the Amazon cloud. More
Posted by Scott Bekker on June 09, 20160 comments
BitTitan, which sells a broad array of tools that help partners sell, onboard and maintain cloud services from Microsoft and others, has closed a $15 million Series A financing round, which will allow the company to boost its engineering and global sales efforts.
The 9-year-old Kirkland, Wash.-based company did not disclose the specific percentage stake that the investors led by San Diego-based growth equity firm TVC Capital were getting in the company or what the deal means for the overall valuation of BitTitan. More
Posted by Scott Bekker on June 09, 20160 comments
In a deal that combines two of the biggest players in the managed service provider (MSP) tools market, SolarWinds has bought LOGICnow and will combine their product lines into a unit called SolarWinds MSP, the companies said Wednesday.
SolarWinds, an IT management software company that bought its way into the MSP market with the acquisition of N-able Technologies in 2013, positioned the new combination as adding LOGICnow's cloud capabilities and MSP-focused data analytics to SolarWinds' existing remote monitoring and management (RMM) and other MSP-focused technologies.
More
Posted by Scott Bekker on June 01, 20160 comments
Microsoft on Tuesday released its Partner of the Year award winners for 2016. Microsoft typically releases the list in May or June and honors the winners on the main stage and in a private event at its annual Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC), which will be held this year in Toronto on July 10-14.
Below are the categories, winners and finalists of the global awards, as well as a few country-level Partner of the Year winners. More
Posted by Scott Bekker on May 31, 20160 comments
Microsoft and Facebook on Thursday jointly unveiled the highest-capacity subsea cable yet to carry their customers' data across the Atlantic Ocean.
Construction of the cable, called MAREA, is set to begin in August with an expected end date a little over a year later in October 2017. Telxius, a telecommunications infrastructure company owned by Telefonica, will operate the 4,100-mile cable system. More
Posted by Scott Bekker on May 26, 20160 comments
Windows Phone is losing a key app, although the platform has company in its misery.
PayPal this week announced that June 30 will mark the end of the availability of its widely used digital payment apps for Windows Phone, Amazon Fire and BlackBerry. More
Posted by Scott Bekker on May 26, 20160 comments