Staying informed is a constant challenge. There’s so much to do, and so little time. But we have you covered. Grab a coffee and take five while you nibble on these tidbits.
SYNNEX Inspire conference update
COVID-19 related restrictions have forced SYNNEX to limit in-person attendance at its SYNNEX Inspire conference, October 4 – 8, 2021. Peter Larocque, President, North America Technology Solutions, SYNNEX Corporation said in an email, “In conjunction with the [COVID-19] Task Force, our Events Team has worked to create a more engaging and meaningful virtual experience for our attendees. With live streams, exclusive content, and behind-the-scenes interviews, I’m excited to present our virtual attendees with access to more takeaways and more ways to join the conversation than we previously have been able to offer.”
He said that registration will commence “in the coming weeks”.
Microsoft certifies new 365 partner
Microsoft has certified iboss in its Microsoft 365 Networking Partner Program (NPP). The iboss Zero Trust SASE platform is natively integrated with Microsoft 365 to provide direct connectivity for seamless, secure connections from anywhere.
The Microsoft 365 NPP is designed to offer customers a set of partners whose networking requirements and best practices are aligned with Microsoft’s key principles for optimal Microsoft 365 connectivity.
Windows 365 (Cloud PC) now generally available, pricing revealed
Microsoft Windows 365 is now generally available, and as promised, the company released its plans and pricing on August 1. Canadian businesses can expect to pay CA$28.90 per user per month or more, depending on the plan they select. But because of unexpectedly high demand, Microsoft suspended the previously-offered free trials, instead asking interested parties to sign up to be notified when resources for the trial were again available.
Citrix revamping sales organization to accelerate move to the cloud
Citrix president and chief executive officer David Henshall announced in a letter to stakeholders that major changes are coming to its sales organization to improve execution, prioritize landing, and grow new business opportunities as it moves from on-prem licensing towards a SaaS subscription model.
The letter said actions will include:
- Reorganizing sales teams: Reorganizing sales leadership, realigning customer-facing organization, and enhancing focus on indirect channels, new product adoption and SaaS migration
- Increasing direct quota carriers: Focus on reallocating resources and efforts to increase the capacity of quota-carrying sales representatives to better support longer-term growth.
- Channel leverage: Re-aligning channel incentives to focus on landing and growing new business activities
- Prioritizing SaaS: While the hybrid and on-premises technologies will continue to be an important differentiator for product strategy, embracing the faster pace of cloud adoption and sales strategies to support this move
AWS announces plans to retire EC2-Classic
Amazon Web Services (AWS) has announced plans to shutter its Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2-Classic) service, transitioning customers to Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC). In a blog post announcing the news, it said it that on October 30, 2021 it will disable EC2-Classic in Regions for AWS accounts that have no active EC2-Classic resources in the Region, and will stop selling 1-year and 3-year Reserved Instances for EC2-Classic. On August 15, 2022, it expects all migrations will be complete, with no remaining EC2-Classic resources present in any AWS account.
The blog post details the steps required for migration, as well listing tools available to assist in the move.
LastPass improves MSP offerings
Password manager LastPass has augmented its MSP solution to provide partners with additional offerings to sell to their clients, and well as features that will simplify client management, it announced in a blog post.
MSPs will be able to offer every LastPass Business account end user a complimentary LastPass Families account, plus five additional licenses to share with family and friends. They will also be able to offer Advanced MFA (multi-factor authentication) to business customers on top of the base LastPass Business offering.
The MSP Admin Console now provides more granular access controls, as well as professional services automation (PSA) provisioning integration with ConnectWise Manage and Datto Autotask. LastPass also promises a new comprehensive Admin console for MSPs in the coming months.