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MSP Dataprise has acquired Global Data Vault, which offers disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS), backup as a service (BaaS) and modern data protection solutions. The tie-up creates a broad portfolios of integrated data protection and cybersecurity offerings.

Holistic Cybersecurity Strategy

Steve Lewis is CEO of Dataprise.

Dataprise’s Steve Lewis

“Clients turn to Dataprise to be their one strategic IT partner, which requires we bring the broadest portfolio of services powered by the best technology and deepest expertise,” Lewis said. “Today, the mandate for a holistic cybersecurity and data protection strategy is a top priority for our clients. Global Data Vault is a powerful addition. They bring industry-leading cloud-based data protection solutions that bolster our premier cybersecurity portfolio, top-notch employees, a strong Veeam partnership, and relentless focus on client success.”

Founded in 2004, Global Data Vault is a recognized leader in BaaS and DRaaS, the company said. It’s a platinum Veeam Cloud and Service Provider. Global Data Vault’s mission is to protect organizations’ critical data with modern data protection strategies. This is to ensure business continuity and eliminate downtime. Headquartered in Dallas, Global Data Vault protects hundreds of clients across the U.S., Canada, and the U.K.

Anthony Galley is chairman of Global Data Vault.

“Our clients are facing new challenges driven by dramatic changes in the cybersecurity threat landscape and evolution of IT strategies. Dataprise has an enviable portfolio of cybersecurity, managed IT services and cloud services,” Galley said. “Together with Dataprise we are perfectly positioned to provide our clients even greater value.”

A Broad Managed Services Portfolio

This marks Dataprise’s second acquisition as the company executes on its strategy to build the broadest managed services portfolio. The goal is to give clients one strategic IT partner to solve it all, the company said. The recent acquisition of Wireless Watchdogs added a comprehensive mobility managed services (MMS) and mobile device management (MDM) portfolio. This aims to solve mobile device, IoT and endpoint management challenges.

Global Data Vault’s Will Baccich

Will Baccich is CEO of Global Data Vault.

“We’re excited for the opportunity that joining Dataprise presents for our clients, employees and partners. We now have a much broader set of services, capabilities and resources. They’re all aimed at protecting client data and ensuring business continuity,” Baccich said.

RingCentral and AireSpring have hired new chief operating officers. AT&T vet Mo Katibeh has joined RingCentral, and TPx vet Russell Shipley is now COO at AireSpring.

Katibeh will be responsible for RingCentral’s products, sales, marketing and customer experience. Before RingCentral, he was with AT&T for more than 20 years, and served as chief product officer and chief marketing officer for AT&T Business.

Under Katibeh’s leadership, AT&T established a multibillion-dollar communications, collaboration and security business, driving growth through development and deployment of cloud-based technologies.

Most recently, he was head of AT&T network infrastructure and build. In that role, he was responsible for one of the largest 5G and broadband deployments in the world, and the largest capital investment in AT&T’s history.

RingCentral’s Mo Katibeh

“I’m thrilled to join the RingCentral team as they continue to shape the future of enterprise communications,” Katibeh said. “I look forward to working with the team to build on RingCentral’s core strengths of trust, innovation and partnerships to continue our leadership position in the exciting $100 billion-plus cloud communications opportunity.”

Katibeh will join RingCentral on Jan. 18. Anand Eswaran stepped down from his role as president and COO last month.

AireSpring’s New COO

AireSpring’s Russell Shipley

Meantime, Shipley, AireSpring’s new COO, held a variety of executive positions during his 15 years at TPx (formerly TelePacific). He most recently was COO there.

Before TPx, Shipley was president of wholesale, chief network services and new technology officer at Mpower. In addition, he has held several leadership positions at Global Crossing, Frontier and Rochester Telephone.

“Our strategic plans for continued innovation and automation, laser-focused on providing unparalleled service to customers and partners, will position AireSpring for even greater success, Shipley said.

Global hybrid cloud managed services provider Ensono has joined the M&A frenzy of 2022, snapping up a mainframe modernization specialist.

On Tuesday, the Illinois-based company said it has acquired New York-headquartered ExperSolve. ExperSolve focuses just on mainframe modernization — a need that, by many accounts, is soaring. For example, a recent survey from vendor LzLabs indicates that 98% of IT leaders would consider getting away from mainframes – those unwieldy but high-performance computers – completely. Of those, 82% would opt for public or hybrid clouds as a replacement. Even Amazon Web Services, a purely cloud-centric vendor, now offers mainframe modernization. So does Microsoft Azure, among other cloud providers.

Why is mainframe modernization such a hot topic? For starters, the technology is old. IBM, arguably the biggest name in mainframes, has produced the computers since 1952. As such, fewer people now know how to run the machines and their applications. The interfaces and programming languages have grown outdated. Plus, on the whole, operating mainframes is complex. To ease that load, many organizations need to migrate their mainframe applications to the cloud; this, or update the applications themselves on the mainframe. ExperSolve handles both use cases.

Ensono, for its part, has offered mainframe modernization and optimization services for years, similar to ExperSolve. In fact, “about half of our revenue comes from the mainframe side of the business,” Chad Mead, vice president of mainframe consulting and security at Ensono, told Channel Futures. Adding ExperSolve to Ensono beefs up the latter’s overall capabilities — and staff.

“Despite the increase in popularity of cloud-native applications, the reality is that most organizations currently operate a hybrid environment and prefer a partner who has deep expertise in both the cloud and mainframe,” Mead said. “We’ve seen providers like Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services improve their mainframe modernization offerings to meet these needs in recent years, showcasing that legacy systems are not going away anytime soon — just changing. With the acquisition of ExperSolve, we’re able to meet the moment.”

‘Digital Preparedness and Long-Term Success’

Noah Ross, founder and president of ExperSolve who now serves as managing principal at Ensono, agreed.

“A key focus for Ensono is its clients’ digital preparedness and long-term success, which is why ExperSolve aligns well with Ensono,” Ross said. “Both companies are dedicated to innovation that will help our clients meet their business outcomes and stay relevant in today’s enterprise.”

Such an approach is key to success, Liam Eagle, research director at 451 Research, wrote in a recent report.

451 Research’s Liam Eagle

“Application modernization remains a bigger-picture and longer-term IT objective at many organizations, motivated by the promise of modern architectures and technologies to deliver performance, cost and efficiency benefits,” Eagle said. “These efforts are driving cloud adoption and migration across enterprises as organizations see cloud platforms and their component services as a means of modernizing legacy applications.”

To that end, Ensono is keeping all of ExperSolve’s employees, including executives. ExperSolve joins Ensono’s advisory and consulting practice, part of the mainframe and security consulting division. Ensono did not disclose financial terms of the acquisition. Martinwolf acted as advisor to ExperSolve.

Now for the Bigger Picture

The Ensono-ExperSolve union joins what looks like a record number of M&A deals.

Just 11 days into 2022, more than a dozen channel – and channel-friendly – companies have made purchases and undergone private equity transactions. MSPs make up a sizable portion of this activity. Ensono’s Deal said that’s because of “increased demand for their services across organizations. This could also be attributed to organizations reevaluating their business needs as they go through pandemic recovery and lay out their plans for the future, as the modern workplace looks very different than it did less than two years ago.”

Zooming out even farther, financial experts say deal-making will remain a big story throughout this year. The reasons boil down to the need to stay competitive, especially to get their hands on talent amid the Great Resignation; having access to tons of cash; and bowing to investor pressure to raise valuations, according to a recent survey by global consultancy KPMG.

“Based on the volume of new pitches in November and December – transactions that would come to market in Q1 and Q2 of 2022 – there are no signs of a slowing deal market,” Philip J. Isom, global head of M&A at KPMG, said in the company’s report, “2021 Was a Blowout Year for Global M&A.”

In the year ahead, KPMG’s survey shows that executives are eyeing M&A to diversify portfolios and gain access to products, services and technologies they otherwise would not.

Meanwhile, some important trends will influence the market. For one, private equity players have a lot of money at their disposal and want to invest it. For another, the Fed is expected to raise rates to combat inflation. Buyers that rely on debt financing will move quickly to avoid those higher interest rates, KPMG noted. Finally, the continued acceleration of digital transformation is driving deals, KPMG said, as is the worldwide ESG push.

Microsoft’s New Commerce Experience (NCE) has gone into full effect, officially in play since Jan. 1.

For the last few months, the company’s cloud service provider partners have been preparing customers for the changes to a per-seat model. Those changes apply to Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365, Windows 365 and Power Platform subscriptions. There are a lot of caveats, requirements and promotions, and some exceptions, tied to NCE. Cloud marketplace distributor Pax8 does a good job of explaining those here.

Zix’s Justin Gilbert

Most notably, NCE shifts subscriptions to annual and 36-month terms. Month-to-month options now will cost a premium, “a 20% price uplift,” Justin Gilbert, senior director of channel marketing at security vendor Zix, which specializes in Microsoft technologies, told Channel Futures. (OpenText bought Zix late last year.)

Microsoft also will not allow users to move from higher-paid SKU to a lower-paid counterpart, as Pax8’s Kristen Fehrenbach, director of Microsoft go-to-market, wrote in November. Microsoft further is requiring that all licenses stay with the partner and provider from which the end user purchased, Fehrenbach noted.

And, Microsoft is tightening cancelation policies, too. Now, organizations only have 72 hours. After that, they must pay for the remainder of the subscription term.

“Partners need to be more diligent on ensuring the customer is prepared to commit to the full term of the subscription,” Ingram Micro Cloud’s Briana Lau wrote in a blog last October.

However, Microsoft is letting organizations sign up under the legacy platform — but only until March. Regardless, all the New Commerce Experience activity means “the partner’s going to need to make some fundamental changes to the way they have set up [the end user’s] license,” said Geoff Bibby, chief marketing officer at Zix.

‘Just an Initial Reaction’

That might sound frightening but maybe it’s not such a big deal.

Abel Solutions’ David Hammond

“Although NCE and its price increases may initially cause such a response, it is just an initial reaction,” David Hammond, president of channel partner Abel Solutions told Channel Futures. “In most cases, Microsoft technologies affected by NCE support critical business functions and workloads, and business leaders generally understand switching to another provider is either not an option or would ultimately cause more issues – and cost) – than remaining with Microsoft.”

Zix’s Bibby agreed. Microsoft, he said, has not raised its prices in the last decade. Now, it’s just catching up. But the company also has added 1,400 different features to Office 365, which, Bibby said, “far and away, runs corporate America.” Partners and organizations will adjust to the new requirements, he added.

“It’s all manageable,” he said.

Abel Solutions, for its part, continues to educate its clients about New Commerce Experience pricing, Hammond said. And despite the higher monthly charges associated with NCE, some customers still might require that flexibility.

“We anticipate that some customers may choose to incorporate some monthly subscriptions into their approach,” Hammond said. “Primarily, this ‘hybrid’ approach may be useful for companies that have a sizable workforce that is variable or seasonal. In these cases, the additional cost of monthly subscriptions could be less than an annual commitment. In all cases, we will be performing a cost-benefit analysis with our customers to recommend the best option for their situation.”

Making Sense of the New Commerce Experience

For now, Abel Solutions is finding that, rather than fielding customer pushback, making sense of NCE is consuming much of its energy.

“We feel like our biggest challenge now is ‘demystifying’ NCE and its impacts to be able to counsel our customers appropriately,” Hammond said. “This is a challenge because the rollout of NCE continues to evolve, and there is no single right answer for every business.”

In terms of impact on channel partners, Pax8 is optimistic.

“Moving to the New Commerce Experience will help you prepare for future growth thanks to improved revenue predictability, reduced licensing complexity, multiple term options, and features that enable new sales capabilities and operational efficiencies,” Fehrenbach wrote.

Microsoft calls the New Commerce Experience the third phase of its “multistage, multiyear transformational journey to deliver a simplified engagement experience.” The company started the effort in 2019 with Azure.

Data management company Redstor just got an investment from Bregal Milestone, a European technology growth capital firm. Expect the company to us the funds to pursue more of the managed service provider (MSP) market in the U.S.

Redstor didn’t say how much it got, but Bregal Milestone manages more than €1 billion dedicated to investments in high-growth technology companies. With more than 40,000 customers worldwide, Redstor will use the financing to fuel its international expansion into the United States. It will also accelerate its AI-enabled platform and overall growth.

All-in-One Platform

Paul Evans is founder and CEO of Redstor.

Redstor’s Paul Evans

“This is a truly exciting partnership for us. We have been on a strong trajectory of profitable, international growth in recent years, and it is a pleasure to have Bregal Milestone alongside us to achieve our goals. The firm’s in-house value creation and operational capabilities, along with its long track record of helping market-leading tech companies internationalize, will be invaluable as we continue to drive our strategic vision and expansion.”

Redstor says an MSP or other channel company serving the midmarket discover, manage and protect customer data from a single, cloud-based application. Using Redstor’s all-in-one platform, MSPs can protect data on-premises. That’s within cloud-native infrastructures like Kubernetes and in SaaS applications including Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, Salesforce and Xero. MSPs can scale their services and introduce new revenue and growth opportunities, which can dramatically reduce management overhead.

Evans’ leadership team includes industry experts from companies such as DXC Technology, Rackspace, Vodafone and Autotask. Bregal Milestone will help drive Redstor’s next phase of expansion, leveraging its experience in scaling global software companies. The firm will support Redstor’s expansion to the U.S. and invest to extend Redstor’s technology edge for organic growth.

Cloud-Centric Model

John Hales is principal at Bregal Milestone. He is confident Bregal Milestone can actively support and internationalize Redstor’s platform.

Bregal Milestone’s John Hales

“Redstor is perfect for Bregal Milestone’s portfolio,” he said. “This is one of Europe’s most exciting data management software companies, which has built a hyper-scalable global platform. We look forward to supporting Paul and the team in the next phase of Redstor’s success story.”

Analyst firm IDC predicts that 55% of organizations will have migrated their data protection systems to a cloud-centric model within the next two to three years. This is to centrally manage core, edge and data protection from the cloud. Redstor is primed to take advantage of this $18 billion-plus market.

Archana Venkatraman is senior analyst at IDC. She says the growing number of ransomware attacks across all applications makes it a top priority for organizations to minimize data loss.

IDC’s Archana Venkatraman

“Cloud data management vendors that are committed to infusing AI and machine learning into their platforms truly empower MSPs to deliver consistent data protection at scale, gain deeper insights to better protect customers’ data and have automated upsell opportunities,” she said.

RingCentral and AireSpring have hired new chief operating officers. AT&T vet Mo Katibeh has joined RingCentral, and TPx vet Russell Shipley is now COO at AireSpring.

Katibeh will be responsible for RingCentral’s products, sales, marketing and customer experience. Before RingCentral, he was with AT&T for more than 20 years, and served as chief product officer and chief marketing officer for AT&T Business.

Under Katibeh’s leadership, AT&T established a multibillion-dollar communications, collaboration and security business, driving growth through development and deployment of cloud-based technologies.

Most recently, he was head of AT&T network infrastructure and build. In that role, he was responsible for one of the largest 5G and broadband deployments in the world, and the largest capital investment in AT&T’s history.

RingCentral’s Mo Katibeh

“I’m thrilled to join the RingCentral team as they continue to shape the future of enterprise communications,” Katibeh said. “I look forward to working with the team to build on RingCentral’s core strengths of trust, innovation and partnerships to continue our leadership position in the exciting $100 billion-plus cloud communications opportunity.”

Katibeh will join RingCentral on Jan. 18. Anand Eswaran stepped down from his role as president and COO last month.

AireSpring’s New COO

Meantime, Shipley, AireSpring’s new COO, held a variety of executive positions during his 15 years at TPx (formerly TelePacific). He most recently was COO there.

Before TPx, Shipley was president of wholesale, chief network services and new technology officer at Mpower. In addition, he has held several leadership positions at Global Crossing, Frontier and Rochester Telephone.

“Our strategic plans for continued innovation and automation, laser-focused on providing unparalleled service to customers and partners, will position AireSpring for even greater success, Shipley said.

Learn strategies and industry best practices for protecting your MSP and your customers from ever-present security risks in this robust eBook, which covers:

• The different types of security assessments available to MSPs
• How to determine which security assessment is right for you
• The latest security tips to protect your company and your customers
• How to continue protecting your MSP in the future

Download the eBook today.

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With service in such high demand, competition becomes stiff as more providers flood the market and MSPs looking to gain an edge are focusing on marketing and messaging that speaks to the unique needs of their target audience.

A more personalized approach to marketing your MSP can be powerful.

Download this 12-page eBook which details best practices on how to create an effective marketing framework.

You will learn how to:

• Define the ultimate goals of your MSP
• Identify the type of customer you want to attract
• Show your value by way of smart product marketing

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Learn strategies and industry best practices for protecting your MSP and your customers from ever-present security risks in this robust eBook, which covers:

• The different types of security assessments available to MSPs
• How to determine which security assessment is right for you
• The latest security tips to protect your company and your customers
• How to continue protecting your MSP in the future

Download the eBook today.

Brought to you by: 

Learn strategies and industry best practices for protecting your MSP and your customers from ever-present security risks in this robust eBook, which covers:

• The different types of security assessments available to MSPs
• How to determine which security assessment is right for you
• The latest security tips to protect your company and your customers
• How to continue protecting your MSP in the future

Download the eBook today.

Brought to you by: