Monday Morning Impact – February 21

Study: Tech Hiring Off to a Hot Start for 2022

Strong tech hiring momentum continued into January, according to analysis of the latest labor market data by CompTIA, a non-profit industry association based in suburban Chicago, working with data released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

According to the “CompTIA Tech Jobs Report,” Technology companies increased employment by 24,300 workers in January, the 14th consecutive month of tech employment growth at the industry level. IT occupations throughout the economy increased by 178,000, lowering the unemployment rate for tech occupations to 1.7% in January, down from 2% in December.

“By all accounts this was an exceptionally strong start to the year for tech employment,” said Tim Herbert, chief research officer at CompTIA. “The arms race in recruiting and retaining tech talent undoubtedly challenges employers in direct and indirect ways.”

Employer job postings for technology positions reached nearly 340,000 last month, spanning industry sector, geographic location, and skillsets. The January rate of tech job postings continues to track above the 12-month average by approximately 11%.

“Employer job posting analysis confirms the interconnected nature of technical skills across cloud infrastructure, applications, data and cybersecurity, as well as the critical importance of soft skills, project management skills and business acumen,” added Herbert.

More than half of January’s job gains within the tech sector occurred in the IT services and custom software development category (+14,800), an important indicator of business activity, especially among small and medium-sized companies. Tech firms also added workers in data processing, hosting and related services (+7,500), other information services, including search engines (+3,100) and computer and electronic products manufacturing (+2,000). Only the telecommunications employment category was in negative territory (-3,100).

Channel Impact^®
Tech-related hiring contributed to the strong national growth of 467,000 jobs in January, pointing to optimistic expectations within the industry.

Telarus to Offer Cisco Webex

Telarus, a Utah based technology services broker specializing in Cloud, Unified Communications (UC), Contact Center, Network Services, Security, IoT and Mobility, has announced a new alliance supporting the sale of Cisco Webex collaboration products.

“This agreement highlights the value of our channel to Cisco and Telarus’ prominence as a leader in the brokerage community,” said Shane Speakman, VP of UCaaS at Telarus. “Together, we are dedicating resources to assist partners in offering more value to customers. We look forward to a prosperous relationship and complementing the Cisco partner program.”

With the addition of Webex to Telarus’ Unified Communications offerings, Cisco and Telarus partners will have access to the full range of WebEx offerings.

“The global work from anywhere movement is ubiquitous across all industry verticals,” said Dan Foster, Chief Revenue Officer of Telarus. “Our combined acumen in driving go-to-market strategies fueled by intuitive and easy-to-use technology in the communication and collaboration space will be powerful assets for partners.”

The Telarus agreement is also said to complement Cisco’s existing partner-led selling motions, enabling partners to pursue sales opportunities more effectively with SaaS solutions and bundling value-added services together with Webex collaboration technologies.

Telarus boasts a portfolio of 290 leading service providers.

Channel Impact^®
The alliance expands US-based partner access to prominent calling, messaging, and meetings technologies. The joint objective is to accelerate partner growth in the targeted technology areas.

Tackle.io Launches Program for ISVs Pursuing Cloud Marketplaces

Tackle.io, a Boise, Idaho-based software company, has rolled out its new Startup Acceleration Program to help independent software vendors (ISVs) generate revenue through the four major Cloud Marketplaces—AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, and Red Hat Marketplace.

Given that listing a product on a marketplace can be challenging, especially for early-stage companies with limited developer resources, Tackle’s offerings focus on reducing the time to list and sell products on marketplaces while providing granular transaction reporting.

“The Cloud Marketplaces are a fast-growing channel, and early-stage ISVs are in a prime position to take advantage of it,” said John Jahnke, CEO at Tackle. “We created the Startup Acceleration Program so early-stage companies have access to the technology and resources necessary to kick off their Cloud GTM journey the right way.”

To qualify for the Startup Acceleration Program, ISVs must be early-stage (seed, angel, or Series A), have less than $5M in revenue, and have fewer than 30 employees with a market-ready SaaS product. The ISV must also meet the Cloud Provider’s listing requirements.

Once qualified, ISVs have access to Tackle’s Cloud Marketplace Platform, including premium features needed to launch and grow a Marketplace business. Promised benefits include a simplified process for product listing across marketplaces, streamlined seller workflow and order visibility, and access to advanced reporting, aggregated views, and real-time visibility into the purchase cycle. Expert consultations are also available.

Tackle works with more than 350 cloud companies today, including AppDynamics, Auth0, Fivetran, HashiCorp, Looker, McAfee, NewRelic, PagerDuty, and Talend. Tackle is available for purchase on the AWS Marketplace, Azure Marketplace, Google Cloud Platform Marketplace, and Red Hat Marketplace.

Channel Impact^®
Through the program, early-stage ISVs can fast-track a cloud marketplace and further develop their skills and expertise in this area. With a substantial proportion of software buyers stating that they are likely to purchase through the marketplaces in the future, this may become a compelling go-to-market strategy.