Google Cloud partnership expands as SADA seals $500M pact

Insight report: IT modernization key to transformation

While some digital transformation pundits insist the practice is not about technology, technology managers would beg to differ.

Sixty-seven percent of the IT directors polled in an Insight Enterprises survey cited IT modernization as essential for enabling their transformation initiative. IDG Research Services conducted the survey of 200 IT, data and security managers, a group that included CIOs, CTOs and CISOs.

The results, published this week in Insight's State of IT Modernization 2020 report, also reveal 25% of respondents believe they have met their initial IT modernization objectives. In addition, 41% of those polled said they delayed or abandoned some of their 2019 IT modernization efforts, according to Insight.

Key challenges for 2020 include creating new governance strategies to support modernization and the cloud; "defining and optimizing new centers of data" that span cloud, on-premises and edge computing; and determining how to link those centers of data, the survey stated.

A survey sponsored by Ahead, an enterprise cloud solutions provider in Chicago, provides additional evidence of technology's importance in digital transformation. In that survey, 67% of respondents cited infrastructure as a big part of their digital transformation strategies. As for transformation obstacles, the most-cited hurdles were legacy systems and technical debt, according the survey, which was conducted by Hanover Research.

Pulseway rolls out MSP Toolkit 2.0

Remote monitoring management (RMM) vendor Pulseway upgraded its library of business management resources for MSPs.

Available for free through Pulseway's RMM software, MSP Toolkit 2.0 provides tools and content to help MSPs tackle various challenges involved in running their businesses. The latest version of MSP Toolkit features a self-assessment platform to benchmark MSPs' businesses, offerings and pricing against local competitors. The toolkit also introduces video training material provided through a partnership with Gary Pica, founder and president of TruMethods, a firm that offers coaching for IT providers transitioning into managed services.

"We feel it is important to give [MSPs] all this information so that if they do want to … expand on their businesses, they have all the material they need from us," said Edgar Zacharjev, vice president of marketing at Pulseway, which is headquartered in Dublin.

Zacharjev noted that MSP Toolkit 2.0 expands on the tools and content previously available to users. The content includes new marketing materials such as templates for email campaigns, white-label PDF brochures, and digital design elements for improving MSPs' websites and social media initiatives. Additionally, the toolkit builds out existing training material for demand generation and sales.

Since launching MSP Toolkit in January 2019, Pulseway has had about 1,400 MSP users engage with the toolkit, Zacharjev said. He added that Pulseway has about 5,000 customers in total and aims to get 2,500 to 3,000 users engaging with MSP Toolkit 2.0.

"We are going to try updating [MSP Toolkit] maybe every six months or so to keep growing and adding to this so it becomes a really useful hub for MSP partners," Zacharjev said.

Other news

• Booz Allen Hamilton, a consulting firm based in McLean, Va., joined the Google Cloud Partner Advantage program. The partnership aims to bring Booz Allen's cloud offerings and Google's cloud technology to federal government customers.
• CenturyLink Inc., based in Monroe, La., entered the Networking Managed Service Provider Program for Microsoft Azure.
• Wipro Digital, the digital business unit of Wipro Ltd., acquired Rational Interaction, a digital customer experience company.
• Cognizant, an IT services provider based in Teaneck, N.J., enlisted in the Auth0 partner program and will tap that company as its primary authentication provider.
• IT services company DXC Technology said it is working with Ixom, a water treatment and chemical distribution company based in Australia, to develop a custom training and assessment application that uses mixed reality on Microsoft HoloLens.
• Infosys inked a partnership with Applause, a digital quality and crowdsourced testing company.
• Malwarebytes, an endpoint detection and remediation solution provider based in Santa Clara, Calif., rolled out general availability of its MSP Premier Partner Program and OneView, the program's cloud-based operations console.
• NYI, a managed hybrid IT solutions provider based in New York, is teaming up with ServerFarm, a data center developer and operator based in Los Angeles, to target latency-sensitive applications in the Chicago market. Those applications are related to edge, IoT, AI and 5G technologies, according to ServerFarm.
• Kaseya, which provides IT infrastructure management products for MSPs, launched an audit, assessment and analysis offering. The capability, available within Kaseya Compliance Manager, follows best practices described in the National Institute of Standards and Technology's Cyber Security Framework, according to Kaseya.
• Houston-based Iland, an application and data protection cloud services provider, said its upgraded Secure Cloud Console lets MSPs provide backup as a service internally and manage multiple repositories and locations from a single pane of glass.
• InfoSec Industries, a cybersecurity distributor based in Naples, Fla., will distribute Greenbone Networks' vulnerability management offerings under a new agreement.
• Green House Data, a digital transformation services provider based in Cheyenne, Wyo., has been registered with the Canadian Controlled Goods Program. Green House said the move will expand its ability to provide IT modernization services to Canadian organizations working with controlled goods, including data. Green House Data operates an office in Toronto.

Market Share is a news roundup published every Friday.