Monday Morning Impact – January 7

D&H Distributing Forecasts Growth in Key Categories

D&H Distributing has released a list of growth areas that the Harrisburg, Pennsylvania-based company believes will gain the most traction in the new year.

The distributor believes “Everything-as-a-Service” will fully emerge in 2019, and resellers will more frequently deliver hosted services to address business requirements, capitalizing on platforms such as Microsoft Office 365, Cisco Webex Teams, and Azure. The company believes this trend will encompass functions such as hosted printing, web-based services, collaboration, storage, and document management, on through larger capabilities like hosted email XChange and data center services.

Growth categories are led by Pro AV/digital signage, which saw 112% year-over-year growth, and cloud solutions with 108% growth. Other projected growth areas include unified communications/collaboration (55%), network security (41%), mobile workstations (41%), laser printers (39%), premium notebooks (31%), server/datacenter (26%), and wireless networking (19%).

D&H plans to expand its solutions portfolio in burgeoning areas such as pro AV, lifecycle management, and Device-as-a-Service. The distributor will also be working with major vendors in 2019 to address SMB infrastructure refresh opportunities for VARs, including education and resources around end-of-support deadlines, plus device- and cloud-based services that resellers can administer in the SMB space.

“We not only plan to identify areas of opportunity, we plan to invest in those categories by way of training and deep support,” said co-president Michael Schwab. “It’s our job to test the waters in areas like AR, DaaS, collaboration, the connected office, and the evolving world of cybersecurity. We arm customers with the tools they need to attack these markets, positioning themselves for growth.”

D&H Distributing has sustained 21% growth for the 2018 calendar year (through November, as per the latest available figures).

Channel Impact^®
The announcement provides allied channel partners with guidance regarding planned investments by the distributor for 2019.

Cylance Launches GDPR Assessment Service

Cylance has announced that it is now offering General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) assessments, providing advisory and supporting services to help companies establish provable GDPR compliance. Through this service, Cylance consultants will also help identify security gaps that fall outside the compliance chain.

“The launch of GDPR in Europe, the signing of the Japanese Act on the Protection of Personal Information (APPI), and the Brazilian Lei Geral de Proteção de Dados (LGPD) started a global shift toward comprehensive data privacy regulations,” said Cylance Chief Privacy Officer Greg Silberman. “This is just the beginning. With the California Consumer Privacy Act set to go into effect in 2020 and the possibility of national U.S. data privacy regulations looming on the horizon, now is the time for organizations to take data protection seriously, regardless of whether or not they’re required to comply with GDPR.”

In addition to short-term GDPR compliance, organizations of all sizes need programs to address data privacy rules in multiple jurisdictions to enable them to effectively mitigate reputational and financial costs of a breach.

Channel Impact^®
This service provides needed resources for organizations that don’t have the IT and personnel budgets to meet compliance regulations on their own. Many global organizations still fail to adhere to the regulations, mistakenly believing that compliance only affects large organizations.

Seceon Rolls Out Cybersecurity Features for Managed Security Service Providers

Seceon, a Westford, Massachusetts-based security vendor, has introduced new features for its aiMSSP solution designed to enable MSSPs to deliver custom-packaged, security services to enterprises and SMBs.

The solution provides MSSPs with the ability to offer outsourced security operations center (SOC) services for SMBs and enterprises, including 24×7 security monitoring, threat intelligence, and real-time detection and remediation, at nominal and predictable linear costs.

The new capabilities give MSSPs increased flexibility to offer tiered managed security services, including detection and response. Features include dashboards that enable MSSPs to visualize and analyze data contributing to the Key Performance Indicators, and also log analytics and archiving.

“Enterprises and SMBs who are overwhelmed by the breadth, depth, frequency and complexity of cyber threats, are increasingly turning to MSPs/MSSPs to deliver the capabilities, skills, time and resources they lack,” said CEO Chandra Pandey. ”Seceon aiMSSP gives MSSPs and MSPs the ability to address a wide range of client cybersecurity requirements at speed and scale, delivering data protection and differentiated services on their path to profitability.”

Channel Impact^®
This service supports MSSPs that provide a shared services environment with end-to-end data separation and reporting, and accelerates revenue generation from new customers. The vendor’s strategy is to help MSSPs grow in size and revenue, and become a Master MSSP by acquiring new MSP customers and help those MSPs to generate new revenue streams.