Acumatica, the Bellevue, Wash.-based company run by former Microsoft channel chief Jon Roskill, on Monday announced a $25 million funding round that Roskill believes will accelerate Acumatica's cloud ERP business.
Leading the Series C preferred round is Accel-KKR, a Menlo Park, Calif.-based technology-focused investment firm with $4.3 billion in capital commitments. AKKR is joined in the round by existing investors. More
Posted by Scott Bekker on June 18, 20180 comments
When it comes to broad, new business opportunities for Microsoft partners, security stands apart.
No matter how specialized a partner may be, security concerns are on the rise and they cut across every vertical and niche. Between the need for customers to up their security game and a global skills shortage, there are plenty of ways for partners to rush in. More
Posted by Scott Bekker on June 14, 20180 comments
Microsoft on Wednesday unveiled big feature changes for the Office user experience, including a simplified ribbon, new colors and icons, and a search overhaul, about a month and a half behind Google's release of major updates for Gmail.
The changes will roll out in stages over the next few months, starting with Web versions, and will be exclusive to Office.com and Office 365. Apparently remembering the significant user backlash that accompanied the original rollout of the Office ribbon, Microsoft is taking care to present the changes as a work-in-progress that will be tested with initial user groups and modified as necessary, rather than blasted out to the billion-plus monthly users of Office. More
Posted by Scott Bekker on June 13, 20180 comments
Microsoft highlighted partners doing work with artificial intelligence (AI), Big Data and open source among other categories this year in its annual Partner of the Year awards announced this month.
"These companies are bringing cutting-edge solutions to complex business challenges and providing digital transformation opportunities for their customers," said Gavriella Schuster, corporate vice president for One Commercial Partner at Microsoft, in a statement announcing the 39 category winners, as well as country-level winners. More
Posted by Scott Bekker on June 11, 20180 comments
Microsoft envisions partners helping to drive a major push of the GitHub software development and version control platform into the enterprise.
Microsoft announced a deal on Monday to acquire GitHub for $7.5 billion in stock. The transaction has been approved by both companies' boards and is expected to close before the end of the year. More
Posted by Scott Bekker on June 04, 20180 comments
Microsoft announced its latest companywide reorg back in March, but with just a month to go until the end of its fiscal year, its executive roster is still in flux.
In a memo dated March 29, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella unveiled a major reorganization that included the departure of Terry Myerson, head of the Windows and Devices Group and longtime Microsoft veteran. Myerson was to stay at Microsoft for a while to help with the transition. More
Posted by Scott Bekker on June 01, 20180 comments
A year after launching a platform based on the idea that Microsoft Azure was both a powerful and challenging platform for IT as a Service (ITaaS), Chicago-based Nerdio is taking its vision for managed service providers (MSPs) and small and medium business (SMB) to another level.
Nerdio for Azure (NFA) formally launched last year as a toolset to help MSPs get their SMB customers up and running on an ITaaS platform based on Azure. NFA included tools for provisioning, managing and optimizing entire environments into the Microsoft public cloud. An NFA-enabled environment could include desktops, as either virtual desktop infrastructure or via Remote Desktop Services (RDS); server instances with automated backup; and Office 365.
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Posted by Scott Bekker on May 29, 20180 comments
Managed service providers (MSPs) who manage small office/home office (SOHO) routers and network-attached storage (NAS) devices for SMB customers are facing a major new headache in the destructive malware dubbed VPNFilter that has spread to an estimated 500,000 devices in 54 countries.
Cisco Talos Intelligence Group, which conducts broad industry research for vulnerabilities beyond just Cisco hardware, on Wednesday called on owners of the devices and ISPs who provide routers to customers to reboot the devices to their factory settings, a temporary measure that provides only a limited fix for the issue. More
Posted by Scott Bekker on May 24, 20180 comments
Any independent software vendor (ISV) looking for growth opportunities in the enterprise needs to take a hard look at artificial intelligence (AI) right now, industry analysts suggest. And for the next few years, at least, the more niche the solution, the better.
"One of the biggest aggregate sources for AI-enhanced products and services acquired by enterprises between 2017 and 2022 will be niche solutions that address one need very well," said John-David Lovelock, research vice president at Gartner, in a statement. "Business executives will drive investment in these products, sourced from thousands of narrowly focused, specialist suppliers with specific AI-enhanced applications." More
Posted by Scott Bekker on May 22, 20180 comments
Microsoft this month is informing partners that requirements and costs to participate in direct billing for Cloud Solution Providers (CSPs) will be increasing, starting this summer, and that revenue requirements are a likely next step in the evolution of the program.
In an e-mail sent to direct CSPs on May 10, Microsoft introduced two new direct-bill requirements that partners must meet before their next enrollment period after Aug. 31. According to the e-mail, which was confirmed as authentic by a Microsoft spokesperson, direct CSPs must now purchase a support plan from Microsoft and demonstrate a few key capabilities. More
Posted by Scott Bekker on May 17, 20180 comments
Aparavi, a startup in the crowded cloud backup space, this week released a solution that the Southern California company's executives believe will appeal to the second-generation of cloud storage users, who have experienced some of the pain points in the cloud and have more sophisticated requirements.
Called Active Archive, the SaaS-based platform's design goals include archiving unstructured data, minimizing storage requirements and promoting independence for customers among cloud platforms with several features designed to smooth migration from one storage cloud to another. More
Posted by Scott Bekker on May 16, 20180 comments
Veeam Software executives urged partners to go "all in" with the backup and availability specialist as the company focuses on a dramatically expanded portfolio of solutions from on-premises agents to public cloud this week at its VeeamOn 2018 conference in Chicago.
"Customers are making the decision to move on from their legacy backup products," said Kevin Rooney, vice president of Americas Partner Sales, in a keynote for the partner general session on Monday. Rooney said the key opportunity is from now through the next 12 to 18 months for Veeam's 55,000 partners, who account for 100 percent of Veeam sales. More
Posted by Scott Bekker on May 15, 20180 comments