Memes sometimes do a great job summing up our mood. We can’t find out who said it first, but our favorite meme this year is “”2020—Written by Stephen King, Directed by Quentin Tarantino.”” Let’s hope next year we can laugh and say we’ve been there, lived through that, and got the t-shirt, without wearing masks. Stay safe as you catch up on all these interesting newsbits that snuck by this week.
Security and cloud news. Security attacks never end, so neither can security training. The new Kaspersky Adaptive Online Training, done with Area9 Lyceum, generates a security awareness curriculum tailored to each individual’s learning needs. We guess that means more pictures for VPs.
ExtraHop Reveal(x) and CrowdStrike Falcon integrated their cloud-native detection and response capabilities to cover devices from network to endpoint. Real-time detection, instant response, and continuous endpoint visibility lead the highlight reel.
Clumio announced data protection for Amazon RDS workloads. Should help reduce some of the cost, risk, and compliance-related barriers for cloud migration and adoption. Hits the streets June 11th.
Many love Microsoft Office 365, including hackers. So the new Cloud Protection for Microsoft Office 365 from F-Secure (pictured) helps counter the malicious emails hiding in employees’ inboxes. The more system alerts, the more tricks phishers have to fool users, so F-Secure scans all Office 365 items and URLs.
Where there’s storage there must be backup (Gandolf, LOTR). Just added, the SaaS-based Otava Cloud Backup for Microsoft 365 provides backup services powered by Veeam.
Got cloud storage? Of course, you do. Cloudian announced HyperIQ to monitor and proactively manage Cloudian storage and related storage across on-premise and hybrid cloud environments. Track those anomalies and sleep better.
Other product news. Hello to VMware vSphere 7. It includes VMware vSphere Bitfusion , which provides elastic infrastructure on-demand for AI and machine learning applications. The first result of VMware’s acquisition of Bitfusion, a big player in the virtualization of hardware acceleration including GPU technology.
Aruba helps you prepare for the next phase of the COVID-19 saga with solutions for three return-to-work scenarios: returning to the office, working from home, and a reimagined office. Includes contact and location tracing, contactless visitor management, and health monitoring.
Feel the need for a friendlier reality, in a virtual way? Lenovo offers its Lenovo Mirage VR S3 headset with ThinkReality (pictured). Better and faster training at lower cost, says the label. The all-in-one headset was developed in conjunction with Pico Interactive and specifically designed for businesses.
AMD fans using AWS can now specify 2nd Gen AMD EPYC processors in their Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud C5a instances. Speeds up to 3.3 GHz in eight configurations with up to 96 virtual CPUs.
HP is big in 3D printing, or more accurately additive manufacturing. Hence the polypropylene material now available for final parts is a big deal. A new HP Metal Jet milestone, partnerships with BASF and Oechsler, and a variety of new professional services offerings also help those in the 3D printing biz.
To create some of those products to 3D print, check out the new Razer Blade 15 Studio Edition laptop. Includes the latest 8-Core 10th Gen Intel processors, NVIDIA Quadro RTX 5000 GPU, custom calibrated 4K OLED touch screen, and much more.
Non-product vendor news. The red carpet rolled out for VMware’s new chief marketing officer, Carol Carpenter (pictured).
A Welcome Wagon visit to Malwarebytes as Dariusz Paczuski joins at senior vice president of marketing.
High Wire Networks added Travis Roy as director of channel sales.
Myrna Soto becomes the first ever chief strategy and trust officer at Forcepoint.
NetApp signed the papers to acquire Spot, a player in compute management and cost optimization for public clouds. The latest addition to the storage vendor’s budding cloud empire since its acquisition of CloudJumper.
WatchGuard finished the acquisition process for Panda Security. WatchGuard resellers have immediate access to popular products like Panda Adaptive Defense 360 via the Panda Security Early Access Program launched on June 1st.
The revamped Cradlepoint Partner Program offers a 5G for Enterprise Branch specialization designation. Its new Technology Alliance Program offers a portfolio of options for wireless branch, mobile, and IoT networking.
Clouds can be a bit more complicated than their data sheets. Ingram Micro’s Illuminate partner enablement program offers services, promotions, and other help to resellers in the Amazon Web Services Partner Network.
Speaking of Ingram, TeamViewer just listed its products on the Ingram Micro Cloud Marketplace. Now rolled out to 18 countries.
Pax8 now offers Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud to its partner community in North America.
Tech Data’s DLT unit has launched an online forum called GovDevSecOpsHub that’s all about DevSecOps for public sector professionals charged with developing and enhancing secure software applications.
SYNNEX has added Acunetix, a maker of automated web application security software, to its line card.
US Signal added new data centers in Michigan. Shout out to Grand Rapids, Southfield, and Detroit Metro. Oak Brook, Illinois comes online in July. Indianapolis follows in September.
This week’s stats ticker:
Almost every business trends downward lately, and smartphones are no exception. The IDC Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker report for Q1 shows the largest year-over-year decline in history. An 18.2% decline is expected in the first half of 2020 and the year as a whole will be down a projected 11.9%. A supply-side crisis turned into a global demand-side problem, IDC says. Lockdowns, unemployment, and reduced customer confidence all played a part. On the bright side, 5G should play a vital role in a worldwide smartphone market bounce back in 2021. China is recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic and should help sales, but aggressively priced 5G phones should help even more.
On the flip side of that coin, Gartner’s Forecast Analysis: Unified Communications, Worldwide, projects 24.3% growth in end-user spending for cloud-based web conferencing solutions in 2020. Total outlays should be $4.1 billion, up from $3.3 billion in 2019. No surprise that it is the fastest growing category in the UC market behind cloud-based telephony, which should hit $16.8 billion this year. This balances a projected decline of 2.7% in end-user spending overall in 2020. That should go back into positive territory in 2021, says Gartner. Cloud telephony will grow at 8.9% in 2020 and 17.8% in 2021.
Four words: Teddy bear roller coaster. Good news is always welcome, but particularly now. Currently closed Dutch amusement park Walibi Holland has let the staff have free reign to be a bit silly. You know, a giant rubber ducky race on the river. Fun videos of pressure washing the park entrance.
But the winner? Teddy bears riding the roller coaster and appearing to have the time of their stuffed lives.
Their heads go back and forth and sometimes they throw their arms in the air like they just don’t care. Some suggest leaving the giant teddy bears in seats to help keep physical distancing when the park reopens.
What better way to ride a roller coaster than with a giant teddy bear beside you?
Image credit: Walibi Holland
