The Old Farmer’s Almanac prepares us for March by reminding us the month is named for Mars, the Roman god of war. Guess now is the time to start that hostile takeover of a competitor. Wrap it up by St. Patrick’s Day, named for the Irish god of coloring foods green. And now: green newsbits.
Microsoft Ignite news. Big news is how much new power the Power Platform has, powering business users and analysts, IT admins, and developers to build and deliver applications faster. Microsoft Power Automate Desktop is now free for all Windows 10 users, and the next generation of Power BI Premium will be available in early April.
Microsoft 365 has added features to support the new world of remote work and hybrid users. Microsoft Teams now supports up to 1,000 attendees in interactive webinars, PowerPoint Live has a new Presenter mode to bore, er, inform those 1,000 attendees, and the new Microsoft Teams Connect lets you share channels with people both inside and outside your organization.
New goodies in Azure IaaS help remote and hybrid workers too, including access to more VM choices, simplified network resources, more options to scale deployments (including new Azure Load Balancing capabilities), and new performance tiers on premium SSDs.
Hardware news. Intel just launched the Intel Solid State Drive (SSD) 670p, a 144-layer quad-level cell (QLC)-based SSD for everyday use and mainstream gaming. Ups performance over previous models with 2x faster sequential read and a 20 percent endurance boost.
Welcome to the new AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT graphics card with 1440p resolution support for games and more. Uses the AMD RDNA 2 gaming architecture, 96MB of AMD Infinity Cache, and 12GB of high speed GDDR6 memory.
Cherry Americas pulled the curtain on its new GENTIX DESKTOP set (pictured), which includes the wireless CHERRY GENTIX MOUSE and a matching wireless keyboard. Includes ten multimedia keys to switch from kitten videos back to the boss’s weekly video meeting and avoid getting caught.
Jabra’s newest Evolve 2 headset is the Jabra Evolve2 30, great for a busy office or noisy home. Dual microphones for better input and 28mm speakers for better output.
Need more power? Of course, and Schneider Electric’s 3-Phase Easy UPS 3L bumps up from 250 kVA to 600 kVA with the addition of more 3-phase UPSs providing external batteries. Now available in most countries.
Security news. Untangle unleashes new features in its Untangle SD-WAN Router Version 3.0. Among them is WireGuard VPN integration.
The CrowdStrike Falcon platform aims to rev up security operations center (SOC) efficiency and effectiveness, to help security teams be proactive against cyber threats. New notification workflows, real-time response capabilities, and an automated full-cycle incident response add more juice.
Loose lips used to sink ships, but now devices phone cybercriminals and transfer data. The new D3Alert from Dark Cubed automatically sends alerts when an internal device links to a high-risk external device.
Improper access credentials will break your heart, says Security Cupid. Attivo Networks expanded its Active Directory products with its new ADAssessor to continually assess enforcement of privileged access.
Infocyte has a new Microsoft 365 Security Module that inspects, hardens, and monitors Microsoft 365 environments for mid-market customers and partners. Tuned for better remote worker support, because COVID-19.
Other product news. Cisco Webex Real-Time Translations (pictured) fixes the American businessperson’s inability to speak anything but English by supporting 100+ languages. This updates the 10+ languages in the earlier version, and now covers Armenian to Zulu.
Fax refuses to die, so when customers need an upgrade check out the new Lexmark GO Line of MFPs that combines optional cloud fax from etherFAX with standard Wi-Fi and cloud connectors.
Epson announced its Moverio BT-40 and BT-40S, a new generation of Moverio augmented reality smart glasses. Wider field of view, full HD 1080p resolution, improved connectivity, and more.
IBM Cloud Satellite and Lumen Technologies announced that hybrid cloud services are generally available on any cloud, on premises or at the edge. Low latency but still the same levels of security, data privacy, interoperability, and open standards.
The Cloudera Data Platform Operational Database is now available on both Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure. Deploy anywhere, on any cloud platform, and align with the cloud strategy best suited to the business.
The Nexsan Assureon Cloud Edition, an immutable active data vault, is now available. Unbreakable backup, secure protection, compliance, and flexibility included.
Need a better client to cloud experience? Check out the new updates from Juniper, including WAN Assurance and the Marvis Virtual Network Assistant, both driven by Mist AI. Revs up the Session Smart network portfolio.
Non-product vendor news. Malwarebytes welcomed Mark Strassman (pictured) as its new chief product officer.
Managed cloud service player Navisite added three new members to its board. Welcome to big table Dorothy Copeland, head of global partner ecosystem at Stripe, Earl Newsome, CIO of Americas IT at Linde PLC, and Gerhard Bette, consultant and senior partner emeritus at McKinsey.
KnowBe4 acquired MediaPRO, expanding its footprint in the security awareness training market.
TeamViewer acquired Upskill to add its AR software for frontline workers to boost its secure remote connectivity solutions.
Private equity firm TPG has inked a definitive agreement to combine Centrify with Thycotic, creating a dynamic identity security provider.
Pax8 announced MSP Foundations, a live, eight-week instructor-led course teaching MSPs key fundamentals for developing a dynamic and profitable business.
Nextiva signed with D&H to broaden the reach of its cloud-based communications products.
Automated malware analysis and detection company VMRay signed a distribution deal with Ingram Micro.
MSP BLOKWORX added the WitFoo SECOPS platform, fueled by big data analytics, to improve its security services.
CloudSaver, Infobip, and Privafy are the latest additions to TBI’s provider portfolio.
Netrality Data Centers expanded its Netrality Partner Program to allow partners to leverage its ecosystem of providers. This will help partners meet the growing enterprise demand for hybrid-multi cloud solutions.
This week’s stats ticker:
Frost & Sullivan’s “”Leveraging Vertical and IoT Expertise Improves Outcomes for the Global IoT-Managed Services Market“” predicts tremendous growth for the global Internet of Things managed services market in the next five years. How tremendous? From $53.56 billion in 2020 to $167.71 billion by 2025. Research covered the globe in five managed services segments including connectivity, data, device, infrastructure, and security. IoT projects are moving from pilot and proof-of-concept to implementation across almost all verticals, including manufacturing, retail, healthcare, utilities, and energy. APAC will be the fastest-growing region, followed by North America, which leads in 5G, LTE-M, and Narrowband IoT (NB-IoT) deployment. The lack of standardization for IoT results in a fragmented ecosystem, forcing users to struggle to find interoperable and compatible systems.
Krazy kats. Cats may be stars in your company Zoom meetings, but they can love you so much it almost kills you, literally. Twitter user Syela posted pictures of how his cat almost loved him to death.
Syela had trouble breathing when he slept, and being a modern guy, installed a camera in his bedroom to see if there was some easy-to-identify problem he could fix. Yes, there was. Syela sleeps on his back, and the unnamed cat-assassin waited until he dozed off, then climbed on his face. Yes, the cat slept on his face. True love or “”stop the snoring”” remedy?
The pilots of a Sudanese passenger plane wished a sleepy cat was their problem on a flight from Khartoum to Doha, Qatar. A half-hour into the flight, a stowaway cat entered the cockpit and attacked the pilot. Ever try to hold your cat at the vet’s office? Imagine that struggle while flying an airplane. The pilot said enough is enough and made an emergency landing.
