Monday Morning Impact – March 27

Flexera Cloud Report: Economic Uncertainty Refocuses Priorities

Flexera, an Itasca, Illinois-based SaaS-based IT management company, has released its 2023 State of the Cloud Report. Among the highlights, managing cloud spend has overtaken security as the top cloud challenge, according to the report. As in previous years, a lack of resources/expertise also continues to be a significant challenge.

Economic uncertainty is growing cloud usage. Nearly half (45 percent) of respondents said economic uncertainty would have very little impact on cloud usage and spend; nine percent said they would lower cloud spending somewhat, and one percent said they would lower cloud spending significantly.

“This is a watershed year for cloud usage, as the report findings demonstrate,” said Brian Adler, Senior Director, Cloud Market Strategy at Flexera. “We saw FinOps continue to gain traction, cost management challenges pass security as the top cloud challenge for the first time, and artificial intelligence (AI) lead all plans and experimentation of public cloud services. As economic uncertainties wane in the months or years to come, companies will continue to lean into the cloud to transform their businesses, with the goal of finding competitive advantages.”

Optimizing existing use of cloud is the top initiative. This is the seventh year in a row that optimizing existing use of the cloud (cost savings) is the top initiative (reported by 62 percent of all respondents).

Respondents indicated a slight drift toward single public cloud usage, with multi-cloud decreasing from 89 percent last year to 87 percent this year. Single public cloud usage has increased to 11 percent, up from nine percent last year. Across the board for all organizations, multi-cloud security tools continue to lead, followed closely by tools for multi-cloud cost optimization (FinOps). However, large enterprises reverse the order, with 68 percent using multi-cloud FinOps tools and 63 percent using multi-cloud security tools.

Siloed apps and disaster recovery (DR)/failover are the top multi-cloud implementations. Apps siloed on different clouds and DR/failover between clouds have remained the top two multi-cloud implementations. Intelligent workload placement is increasing the fastest (up 20 percent year over year).

Similar to last year, data warehouse is the most commonly used PaaS offering, followed by DBaaS (relational). Machine learning/artificial intelligence is being experimented with more than any other service; not surprisingly, it’s also the leading PaaS offering that is being planned for use.

The twelfth annual Flexera State of the Cloud Report explores the thinking of 750 respondents from a survey conducted in late 2022. It highlights year-over-year (YoY) changes to help identify trends. The respondents—cloud decision-makers and users from around the world—revealed their experiences and insights about the public, private and multi-cloud market.

Channel Impact^®
The findings can be useful to channel partners in determining where to place their sales emphasis during the current year and beyond.

CompTIA: Pullback in Tech Employment Modest Relative to Expectations

Technology-related employment declined in February, although at a relatively modest rate versus expectations, according to analysis by CompTIA, a suburban Chicago-based industry trade association.

Based on CompTIA’s analysis of recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, tech sector employment fell by more than 11,000 positions in February. Among tech subsectors, tech manufacturing added a net new 2,800 jobs, the fifth consecutive month of positive gains. All other tech subsectors experienced net employment losses for the month. As a percentage of the tech sector’s total base of employment the losses represent a fraction of one percent (0.2%).

“As expected, the lag in labor market data means prior layoffs announcements are now appearing in BLS reporting,” said Tim Herbert, chief research officer, CompTIA. “Context is critical. The recent pullback represents a relatively small fraction of the massive tech workforce. The long-term outlook remains unchanged with demand for tech talent powering employment gains across the economy.”

Employer job postings for tech positions declined by about 40,000, to just over 229,000 in February. Most metropolitan markets experienced fallbacks from January to February, with a few exceptions. Seattle saw job postings increase by just over 10%, to nearly 4,100 for the month. The CompTIA report also shows that there were modest gains in “below the radar” markets such as Salem, OR, and Little Rock, AR.

The largest number of job postings for tech positions occurred in the professional, scientific and tech services industry sector (35,257). Finance and insurance (24,735) and manufacturing (20,246) also had healthy numbers. Tech job postings in finance were dispersed across major metro areas, led by New York City (2,295), Chicago (1,407), Dallas (1,230), Boston (1,088), and Washington (1,051).

Channel Impact^®
The employment numbers, although better than many people had expected, underscores an environment in which many companies are less willing to spend money than was previously the case.

Cradlepoint Unveils New Global MSP Program Targeting 5G Enterprise Growth

Cradlepoint, a Boise, Idaho-based company specializing in cloud-delivered LTE and 5G wireless network solutions, has rolled out significant channel program updates to accommodate managed service providers (MSPs). Key points include enhancements to NetCloud functionality and licensing benefits, specialized support, and the development of an “MSP Playbook.”

Specific new enhancements include updated benefits and requirements that align with the company’s MSP practice, MSP-optimized training, a new MSP-only subscription model and pricelist, and upgraded logistics support.

The upcoming “MSP Playbook,” set to launch in the second half of this year, is expected to provide partners with guidance on market opportunities, as well as use cases, marketing/sales tools, training support, and a full program review.

“5G is an essential WAN infrastructure, and we are seeing firsthand how our partners are leveraging the technology to enable agile and secure connectivity for their customers while creating new market opportunities for their own business,” said Tony Puopolo, vice president of MSP sales at Cradlepoint. “As our channel program has grown globally, we have listened and worked with our partners to evolve and enhance our programs, including this very important step of supporting their managed service offerings.”

Channel Impact^®
Organizations across industries increasingly turn to wireless solutions, such as 5G, to deliver agile, secure, and reliable wide-area network (WAN) connectivity. The updated partner program is expected to increase benefits and align more with the MSP business model.