Last week, IT Europa attended the Acronis #CyberFit Summit in Miami, to see how the cloud data management vendor was doing in the growing MSP space.
It turned out it was the largest conference Acronis had ever held, with over 50 sessions, 100-plus speakers, and over 1,100 attendees, including MSPs and their end-user clients, and Acronis’ own technology partners like ConnectWise.
We covered a number of key discussion points and news items from the conference last week [https://www.iteuropa.com/news/acronis-reaches-out-partners-crowded-market], but here are a few more.
Katya Ivanova was introduced as Acronis’ new global chief sales officer, and CEO Patrick Pulvermueller explained why and how the market - from SMB’s to enterprises - was being switched onto consolidated data solutions covering backup, disaster recovery and security.
And Acronis founder and chief research officer Serg Bell discussed the technology trends MSPs need to follow, including the continued competition for IT talent, global localisation, data sovereignty, machine intelligence, and the future of smart devices and edge computing.
The “global localisation” referred to dictates where the firm plans to add to its growing number of data centres, which currently stands at 52. A year ago, it publicly targeted 100 data centres by the end of 2022, with the new ones mainly at the edge and a big chunk of them in the US. So that growth has stalled for whatever reason.
Localisation also drives Acronis’ claim that its products are available natively in more languages, other than English, when compared to some of its rivals, and that they are better tailored to local or regional technical and data governance standards. The last point also feeds into its newly chosen data centre deployments.
The company announced new products at the event, including Acronis Advanced Security + EDR and Acronis Advanced Automation, and the Cyber Scripting feature in Acronis Advanced Management.
The firm stepped up its equality efforts with its #CyberWomen programme, moderated at the conference by Claire Jedrek, Singapore’s only female racing car driver.
From a panel of women technology leaders it was heard that aspiring women in the industry must sometimes seek men mentors, as they were often the ones in the leading positions already, and that they couldn’t always rely on fellow women in leading positions to actively help them.
We have had “green washing” when it comes to a large number of companies’ false claims around their sustainability efforts. IT Europa wanted to know if there was much “women washing” going on in the technology sector, when it came to equality claims?
We were told there was a “lot of talk” and that change was “not happening fast enough”, and that equality moves were still a “skill to learn” for many.
For its part, when it comes senior-level appointments, Acronis puts at least one woman on the short-list from those that have applied for the position, but with no guarantee they will get the job.
In a coup for the vendor, basketball legend Earvin “Magic” Johnson joined other international sports stars at the event, mingling with attendees to talk business and sports.
Hurricane Nicole, the first hurricane to hit the US in November for about 40 years headed towards Miami. As a precaution, the conference was cut short after “Magic’s” talk, and the Acronis #CyberFit Academy training at the conference was converted to a series of virtual events to happen later this year.
As it happened, the eye of the hurricane missed Miami and went further up north, but sometimes business continuity and disaster recovery capabilities are necessary, but not used.
Next year’s Summit will again take place in Miami, but earlier in the calendar, on October 16–18, 2023.
