Your weekly round-up of channel and IT news you don’t want to miss.
StorageCraft offers free BDR to storm victims
Now that Tornado season is upon us, StorageCraft Technology Corp. is offering its StorageCraft ShadowProtect IT Edition for free to businesses and non-profit organizations in the affected areas of the Southern and Midwestern United States. These areas include parts of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Mississippi, Oklahoma and Tennessee. “The StorageCraft team’s hopes and prayers are with the people affected by this week’s deadly storms," said Curt James, marketing and business development VP of the Draper, Utah-based company in a statement. ShadowProtect IT Edition gives users three days to backup and recover any number of laptops, desktops even if it wasn’t previously installed on the devices.
Perficient purchases Trifecta Technologies’ IBM business for $13.7 million
Perficient is continuing its strategy of picking up assets, expertise and market capacity through acquisition. This week the St. Louis-based solution provider bought Trifecta Technologies’ IBM Smarter Commerce division for $13.7 million. The move follows the purchases in February and April of ForwardThink ($46 million) and BioPharm Systems ($17.6 million) respectively. The roots of the growth-through-acquisition strategy were planted firmly last year with multiple deals for IBM and Salesforce.com businesses, including CoreMatrix in October, and Clear Task and TriTek Solutions in May. According to Perficient executives, the Trifecta business was attractive for a number of reasons, but especially for technology that provides users with a preconfigured store-front with back-end operations on IBM Commerce Suite. In addition to the technology Perficient – which was already IBM’s top U.S. partner in the midsize partner category – also picks up more than 40 employees and significant enterprise class clients. The company plans to take some time to integrate the latest three acquisitions, but expects to make at least one more purchase in the third or fourth quarter as it nears hitting its stated $500 million revenue target by the end of the year.
Michael Dell reveals massive channel business growth [with Ingram Micro] to kick off 2014
Speaking to the inaugural Ingram Micro One event this week, Michael Dell told the audience – made up primarily of channel partners – that Dell’s channel business [with Ingram Micro] grew 95 percent in the 1st quarter of 2014. Moreover, the company experienced its best growth in five years during the quarter. Dell's Partner Direct program currently has 146,000 partners and accounts for about 30 percent of the company’s total business. “Our channel program has evolved in a tremendous way. The momentum and growth is unparalleled,” he said, adding that he believes its possible for Dell to pull in as much as 75% of its overalll revenues from the channel. “There's tons of upside.” According the Dell, current channel success is built on the foundation provided by the channel programs of the companies it has acquired in recent years, including SonicWall and Quest Software.
Amazon introduces AWS certification
Amazon Web Services has introduced a professional level certification program for its partners. The new certification builds on the AWS Global Certification Program, which was launched last year and allowed technicians, administrators and developers to qualify and validate their skills and abilities to plan, deploy and manage solutions and systems on the AWS public cloud. "The new AWS Certified Solutions Architect -- Professional Level exam validates advanced technical skills and experience and represents the next level of proficiency along the AWS Certified Solutions Architect path, with a focus on the design and development of distributed systems," Jeff Barr, chief evangelist for AWS, wrote in a blog. According to Barr, candidates for the new certification must already hold the Associate Level certification, and should have several years of experience designing and deploying architectures on AWS. AWS has published an Exam Guide to help applicants prepare for the new test.
SAP creates new channel organization, elevates channel focus
SAP has been undergoing major changes over the past little while, continuing this week with the departures of two senior executives and the creation of a new channel organization that is expected to carry more revenue weight for the company. Early in the week news that Vishal Sikka, the head of SAP's development operations, was leaving the company for personal reasons. A few days later it was revealed that Shawn Price, president of SAP's global cloud operations, also was stepping down. The week has closed with the announcement that the company is creating a new Global Partner Operations organization under Rodolpho Cardenuto who will report directly to CEO Bill McDermott. The GPO will take over responsibility for SAP's existing channels endeavours as well as managing the SAP Business One application set for small businesses, the OEM business, and the vendor’s other strategic partnerships. "The formation of our new Global Partner Operations organization is key to driving scale and adoption of the SAP Cloud powered by SAP HANA," McDermott said in a statement. "Rodolpho will engage with a vibrant and open ecosystem of more than 11,500 companies worldwide to unlock the potential of every customer to become a best-run business. Rodolpho's appointment shows that our bedrock commitment to the spirit of partnership with the SAP ecosystem has never been stronger."
