OK, who had “Blizzard Warnings in Southern California,” on the Apocalyptic Bingo Card? And the weather boffiins continued their naming habit and call this Winter Storm Piper. Piper? Shouldn’t they call it Mr. Freeze and give Arnold a shoutout?
Security news. Trend Micro signed a definitive agreement to acquire security operations center player Anlyz. Financial terms were not disclosed.
Kaspersky has a new maintenance service agreement for MSPs. It’s called Successive Plus MSA, it comes with 24/7 priority service, and is billed monthly.
Netwrix gave its sbPAM a new name along with a bunch of new features. Netwrix Privilege Secure will identify all privileged accounts, spot threats, investigate incidents faster, and more.
Tenable’s Vulnerability Management solution has a new feature, the Cyber Insurance Report, tucked inside. It will summarize exposure information to streamline policy underwriting and measure preventative security programs.
Users put all sorts of important information inside emails, so protecting those will protect the company. Trustifi rolled out a new tokenization capability (pictured, with helpful big blue arrow) to isolate and encrypt confidential information while leaving non-sensitive parts of the same message as is.
IoT news. New branding alert: Wi-Fi HaLow is just the new IEEE 802.11ah standard detailing a long-r-nge, low-power, low-speed version of existing Wi-Fi. Perfect for IoT devices, machine-to-machine applications and similar. It will support HD-quality video, however. Runs at 902-928 MHz in the U.S.
Forbes lists 14 essential steps to secure household IoT devices, which will also apply to many small businesses.
Catch up to the state of IoT in medicine, or at least the top six things, according to TechRepublic. And then there’s this wireless hearing aid using Bluetooth.
Hackster.io has a story about Qualcomm Aware (pictured), an edge-to-edge platform for IoT. Expect the rollout later this year.
Thales describes how “Massive IoT” will rely on cellular networks to connect billions of low-cost, low power, and relatively dumb IoT devices for less critical applications like soil monitoring. Their value? Inexpensive, so you can put monitors on everything everywhere, all at once.
Other product news. GoTo has some new remote monitoring and management features for GoTo Resolve, in fact, over 60 new features in the first-of-its-kind free RMM solution.
Scale Computing Fleet Manager is all revved up with zero-touch provisioning. Central configuration of edge computing infrastructure could decrease your installation time by 90%, per Scale.
GreatAmerica Financial Services now integrates with ConnectWise, so your customers waving purchase orders can submit a credit application from within ConnectWise CPQ (formerly ConnectWise Sell).
There’s a new lineup, but these aren’t the usual suspects. Take a gander at the new Z by HP Intel-based high performance workstation desktop family (sample pictured), including the Z4, Z6, Z8, and Z8 Fury. Scalable balance of CPU and GPU for speed, accuracy, and to support creativity.
Spreading out beyond Apple, Jamf announced the Safe Internet for Chromebook security solution, optimized for education. Can it make the students put down their phones and listen to the teacher?
Got access points? Of course. Can you manage them quickly and easily? If not, look at the new TRENDnet Hive, which adds support for select TRENDnet indoor wireless access points.
IGEL COSMOS is a unified, agile platform to manage and automate digital workspaces from, get this, any cloud. And there’s the new IGEL OS12 operating system to check out as well.
Communication products should talk to lots of platforms, right? So it makes sense that the new Broadvoice b-hive platform now supports Zapier no-code integrations and Webhooks for data sharing and workflow automation.
To drive more partner loyalty and profitability, or help you do so, Impartner launched Rewards Management in Impartner PRM.
Non-product vendor news. The red carpet at the door of CrashPlan welcomed Director of Channel Sales Everett Brooks.
Aryaka beefed up its global channel leadership team with an addition, Jon Selway, who enters as vice president of channel sales for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA). There were also several promotions: Layeeque Ahmed is now director of channel sales for Asia Pacific (APAC), Sarah Linford Cothran moves up to global director of channel programs and operations, and Nicole Steele (pictured) takes over as global director of channel marketing and enablement.
The Welcome Wagon had a package for Rebeca Obregon-Jimenez, joining Avnet as senior vice president of strategic business engagements and supplier management.
Perimeter 81 signed with TD SYNNEX for distribution.
The new Proofpoint Element Partner Program, built from the ground up, simplifies the channel process, like with their two-tiered system with just Core and Elite levels.
Over at IRONSCALES, the new @SCALE Partner Program is worldwide and run by newly appointed Mark Fitzmaurice, SVP of global channel sales.
We can’t contain this any longer: the launch of the Kubecost Partner Program to spread the word about Kubernetes cost management is now up and running.
Keep an eye out for the 27 new POPs in 21 countries from Aryaka, including 15 major metropolitan areas, all running AppAssure tech.
Here’s the second mention of Nicole Steele, director of global channel marketing and enablement at Aryaka, selected by the Alliance of Channel Women as their Big Impact Winner for Q4 2022. Kudos to all in the running.
This Week’s Stats Ticker:
Trend Micro’s What Decision Makers Need to Know About Ransomware Risk*discovered that while only about 10% of ransomware victims pay their extorters, that’s still enough to encourage attacks on other organizations. Those who pay quickly are often forced to pay more per compromised event. Victims who pay put their peers in the same country in the cross hairs as well. Extortions are lowest in January and July-August, so those may be good times to beef up infrastructure against future threats. Maybe wave this report to get security budgets increased?
The “Implications of Stress on CISOs 2023 Report” from Cynet found that, surprise, 65% of CISOs at SMBs admit work-related stress issues compromise their ability to protect their organization. Another shocker? 100% said they need additional resources to keep up with current security challenges. Over three-quarters admit their limited bandwidth and lack of resources meant important security initiatives fell to the wayside. 79% of those report complaints from colleagues, employees, and even board members. How many believe they have enough time to perform strategic, high-value work? 7%. For more stress on the family front, 84% say they’ve had to cancel a vacation due to an urgent work matter.
The IDC Worldwide Edge Spending Guide tells us to look not just at the edge, but up, since spending worldwide will be $208 billion this year. This rising pace will continue through at least 2026, when the total will hit $317 billion. Biggest budget busters? Content delivery services, virtual network function, and multi-access edge computing will account for nearly 20% of edge spending this year. Services is the biggest budget category, both professional and provisioned, this year. Half of that total will be connectivity services, followed by hardware sending.
Workers go home. There’s lip service to “work-life balance” and then there’s action. Maybe our overly stressed CISOs would mellow a bit if they worked for the startup Softgrid Computers in Indore, India. When your shift is over, a notice appears on your screen saying, “The office system will shut down in 10 minutes.”
Yes, one company, a startup no less, tells people to go home rather than guilting them into sitting in their cube for longer and longer times until their family forgets them altogether. One woman of the 40 employees told a reporter the pop-up helped her leave on time to “fulfill other responsibilities at home.” Those will have to wait for another column.
Photo: Tanvi Khandelwal via BBC News
