Channel Mastered News

Devoted readers know that I regularly—and shamelessly—plug the podcast I co-host these days, which has featured long-form interviews with a string of C-something executives from leading vendors. The episode due out next Friday, in fact, features an interview recorded two days ago with Kaseya CEO Fred Voccola, and though you’ll have to wait a week…

With 11 locations in four states, according to its website, The Purple Guys is a pretty big MSP. Ntiva, which has offices in 12 states and the District of Columbia, is even bigger. So when Ntiva bought The Purple Guys a couple of months ago, the result was what John Holland, managing director of M&A…

Back in March, I came across a freshly published IDC report built around an interesting question: Have Cyberinsurance Premium Increases Finally Slowed Down? That would be welcome news, obviously, if true. According to Fitch Ratings, premiums on cyber policies rose roughly 200% across 2021 and 2022. About time they start plateauing. Turns out the answer…

Not every vendor on the crowded show floor at Pax8’s Beyond conference last week works in security, but it sure felt like they did sometimes. Here’s news from seven of those companies that I couldn’t fit into the rest of my Beyond coverage last Friday. Acronis joins the XDR club Acronis has completed the detection…

Gen Z is so done with people. Gen Zers who buy things are, anyway. “75% of this cohort does not want to talk to a human,” said Canalys analyst Jay McBain during a keynote at Pax8’s second annual Beyond conference in Denver this week. “They’ll go buy a car, which is the second most expensive…

I’m flying in to Denver as I write this to attend the 2024 edition of Beyond, Pax8’s now second annual partner conference, but despite last Friday’s oversized post I still have a few final updates to share from exhibitors at ConnectWise’s IT Nation Secure event last week. Further reason to think platform not product My…

When is a duck not a duck? Please don’t waste time on that ridiculous question until I’ve set it up for you a little. ConnectWise made several product announcements at its IT Nation Secure event in Orlando this week, including a new MDR service for Microsoft 365, a security-specific version of its SideKick AI companion,…

Statistics are all about context. For example, just 30% of IT jobs are held by women at present, according to 2024 data from CompTIA. Pretty bleak, but actually better than last year’s 26% and better still than the state of play in cybersecurity, where a mere 20 to 25% of the workforce is currently female,…

Editor’s note: Covering the channel is a marathon, not a sprint. Savvy channelholics rest up now and again, so I’ll be snoozing on a beach somewhere next week rather than posting. Back on the job and loving it two weeks from today though. It’s a tough time to be in venture capital. “Publicly traded tech…

I came home from last week’s RSA Conference with lots of news and insights from the world of cybersecurity. I also came home with a sinus infection of some kind, which is why the RSAC follow-up coverage I originally promised to post on Monday isn’t appearing until now. Worth the wait, I hope! CrowdStrike wants…