Monday Morning Impact – September 21

Study: US Tech Sector Employment Rebounds in August

U.S. technology employment in August continued its up-and-down trend that has characterized much of 2020, according to an analysis by CompTIA, a suburban Chicago-based industry association.

Reversing a stretch of several down months, technology companies returned to hiring by adding an estimated 9,200 net new workers, according to CompTIA, which leveraged data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Employment Situation report.

Conversely, after a strong start to the year, information technology (IT) occupations with employers across all sectors of the economy experienced a second consecutive month of losses with a net decline of 323,000 positions. On the year, IT occupations had positive gains in five months, offset by losses in three months, resulting in a net positive of 271,000 new jobs through August.

“On the tech industry employment side, it’s encouraging to see the pick-up in hiring among IT services and software firms, especially given the large number of small and medium-size businesses in that sector,” said Tim Herbert, executive vice president for research and market intelligence at CompTIA. “On the tech occupation employment side, the data does run counter to expectations, so we have to be careful not to read too much into any single month.”

The categories of IT services and custom software development (+12,800) and computer and electronic products manufacturing (+2,300) saw employment growth. Those numbers were offset somewhat by job reductions in data processing hosting and related services (-3,200) and telecommunications (-2,700). Employment in other information services, including search engines and portals was unchanged.

The unemployment rate for IT occupations inched up in August to 4.6%. By historic comparison, IT occupation unemployment peaked at about 6.5% during the Great Recession (2007-2009) and the dotcom bust (2000-2002).

U.S. employer job postings for IT occupations totaled nearly 228,000 in August, a slight decline from July. Software and application developers (67,200 job postings), IT support specialists (22,100), systems engineers and architects (17,300), systems analysts (15,300) and IT project managers (13,900) led the list of positions companies were looking to fill.

Among specific industry sectors, professional, scientific and technical services (41,084), finance and insurance (19,656), manufacturing (15,855), and information (12,173) had the highest numbers of August job postings for IT positions.

Florida, Colorado, New Jersey, Illinois and Alabama recorded the highest month-over-month increase in IT job postings among states.

Channel Impact^®
The data suggest that companies, in a sincere attempt to move past the effects of Covid-19, are beginning to reinvest.

Nutanix Announces New Partner Program Emphasizing Simplicity

Nutanix, a San Jose-based company focused on enterprise cloud computing, has rolled out “Elevate,” a global partner program designed to bring VARs, VADs, SPs/Telcos, Hyperscalers, ISVs, integrators and other channel constituents into a single unified program.

The program leverages a consistent set of tools, resources, and marketing platforms provided in a new portal. Further enhancements include a new deal registration initiative, and a unified badging structure.

“Our vision has always been about simplicity, from the technology we innovate to the way we do business, and Elevate will deliver that vision to the entire partner ecosystem – enabling them to leverage market shifts toward subscription-based, multi-product, multicloud delivery of IT for their customers,” said Christian Alvarez, Senior Vice President of Worldwide Channels at Nutanix. “Our new Elevate partner program significantly deepens our commitment to all partner types around the world, and the enhancements we are rolling out today are just the beginning of many more exciting updates to come so we can partner even more effectively.”

The program includes a grandfather clause to ensure there are no interruptions to existing incentives from the previous Channel Charter program. Additionally, Nutanix has launched the new Americas Partner Support Center (PSC) – a team of channel sales, system engineers, and marketing resources – who will be available to assist the partner community with presales support.

Channel Impact^®
The new program is intended to bring together all types of channel partners with a single program architecture that delivers simplification, profitability, and an accelerated multi-product, multicloud roadmap.

Securonix Updates its Global MSSP and MDR Program

Securonix, Inc., an Addison, Texas-based SIEM vendor, has announced updates to its MSSP and MDR program.

Securonix delivers SIEM, UEBA, SOAR, Security Data Lake, NTA and vertical-specific applications as a pure SaaS solution.

The updated program features dedicated channel support teams, free training, professional services, tiered pricing, and a refreshed, Salesforce-based partner portal.

“It’s incredible what the global MSSP and MDR program has contributed to overall company growth in just over a year,” said David Wagner, Vice President of the Global MSSP Business at Securonix. “The big data architecture that the Securonix Next-Gen SIEM platform is built upon is ideal for partners as it allows them to scale across numerous customers while controlling costs.”

The program also provides access to Securonix SearchMore, delivering a community-powered threat hunting capability and providing the ability to search on real-time, streaming data, as well as long-term data. This feature leverages Securonix multi-tenant architecture to enable live and long-term searches that can be executed simultaneously across multiple tenants.

The company claims more than 30 partners and over 100 customers from 12 countries around the world.

Channel Impact^®
The updates are expected to further accelerate record growth and accommodate demand.