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Today’s headline news for Canadian IT solution providers:
- Acronis appoints former WatchGuard CEO Prakash Panjwani: Acronis has named Prakash Panjwani chief executive officer, effective immediately. He succeeds Jan-Jaap “JJ” Jager, who will remain a shareholder in the company.Panjwani previously served as CEO of WatchGuard Technologies and SafeNet. During roughly a decade at WatchGuard, he helped transform the company from a firewall-focused vendor into a broader cybersecurity platform provider, expanding its capabilities in endpoint protection, extended detection and response, and managed security.Acronis is highlighting his experience building MSP-focused platforms, integrating security technologies and expanding businesses through organic growth and acquisitions.
The company has increasingly positioned its portfolio around the convergence of data protection, cybersecurity, infrastructure management and service automation. Panjwani’s appointment suggests that strategy will remain central to its next stage of development.
For Canadian MSPs, the important questions concern how Acronis will continue integrating those capabilities, simplifying service delivery and supporting partner profitability.
No immediate changes to the company’s partner program, pricing or product roadmap were announced.
- Virtuozzo introduces smaller infrastructure deployments and updated GPU support: Virtuozzo Infrastructure System 8.0 introduces a lite deployment option designed for environments requiring just one or two servers.The new configuration combines compute, management and storage on local disks, eliminating the need for a separate shared-storage network in smaller deployments. Virtuozzo is targeting service providers, smaller businesses, branch locations and customers that need infrastructure running on their own premises.Version 8.0 also updates Nvidia support to R595 and vGPU v20, allowing dedicated and shared GPU resources on the same host. The company has also made its built-in migration tool for VMware vSphere 8 generally available.
Virtuozzo says a one-server configuration can deliver approximately 53 percent lower total cost of ownership than VMware, although actual savings will depend on configuration, licensing and workload requirements.
The lite deployment is not equivalent to a conventional high-availability cluster. Virtuozzo says customers requiring automatic virtual-machine failover need additional nodes and shared storage.
For Canadian MSPs and smaller cloud providers, the release offers another approach to delivering managed infrastructure and localized AI workloads without requiring customers to commit to larger deployments from the outset.
- Proofpoint expands Microsoft 365 security capabilities for MSPs: Proofpoint’s MSP Platform business is introducing new security and management capabilities designed to help service providers strengthen customers’ Microsoft 365 environments ahead of broader AI adoption.The additions include Tenant Risk Exposure, a new capability within 365 Permission Manager that will highlight excessive sharing permissions, anonymous access, inactive guest accounts, public groups and other potential security exposures across Microsoft 365 tenants.Proofpoint is also introducing greater explainability for AI-powered email-security decisions, allowing administrators to better understand why messages are classified as suspicious or legitimate.
Its Security Awareness Service is expanding adaptive training into Microsoft Teams, while a new AI Cyber Assistant inside the management console will help MSPs with onboarding, configuration, product guidance and customer consultations.
The developments build on Proofpoint’s dedicated MSP Platform business, established following its acquisition of Hornetsecurity and expanded into North America earlier this year.
For MSPs, the opportunity is to address two related problems: securing the data and permissions that AI systems may access, and reducing the technician workload associated with managing those controls across multiple customers.
The new capabilities are scheduled to roll out during the fourth quarter of 2026. Canadian availability of individual features should be confirmed.
- Commvault adds threat hunting to Microsoft 365 backups: Commvault has announced new security capabilities for Microsoft 365 backup data, including scanning protected Exchange, OneDrive, SharePoint and Teams content for malware, suspicious activity and other indicators of compromise. The technology is designed to help organizations identify trustworthy recovery points and reduce the risk of restoring compromised data. Early access is expected in the coming weeks, with general availability targeted for early 2027 as paid add-ons.
- Descope expands identity governance for internal AI agents: Descope has introduced Agentic Identity Hub 3.0, adding controls for organizations deploying internal AI agents and Model Context Protocol servers. The release includes agent ownership and approval workflows, least-privilege access enforcement, authentication and audit trails. The goal is to help organizations govern not just who an AI agent is, but what it is authorized to do.
- Intermedia expands healthcare communications integrations: Intermedia has expanded its healthcare communications offering with AI-powered patient engagement, appointment scheduling, digital forms, payments and connections to 15 electronic health record and practice-management systems. The company says the enhancements respond to demand from its channel partners for more industry-specific solutions. The development gives partners serving healthcare customers opportunities to connect communications with broader administrative workflows.
- VanishID targets AI-assisted help-desk impersonation: VanishID has introduced an automated response playbook designed to counter attackers who impersonate corporate help-desk personnel when contacting employees. The company says its platform evaluates exposed identity information and triggers appropriate countermeasures through existing security tools. The new playbook is available to current External Identity Protection customers.
Welcome to The Buzz from ChannelBuzz.ca, I’m Robert Dutt, today is Friday, October 16, 2026, and here’s what’s happening in the channel today.
There’s a significant leadership change at Acronis, one of the largest technology platform providers serving managed service providers.
The company has appointed Prakash Panjwani as its new chief executive officer, effective immediately.
He replaces Jan-Jaap Jager, who will remain an Acronis shareholder.
Panjwani is a familiar name in the cybersecurity business, particularly for anyone who’s followed WatchGuard over the years.
He spent roughly a decade as WatchGuard’s CEO, helping transform the company from a firewall-focused vendor into a much broader security platform provider.
That included expansion into endpoint security, extended detection and response, and managed detection and response.
Before WatchGuard, Panjwani also served as CEO of SafeNet.
And that background is particularly interesting given the direction Acronis has been taking.
The company has been steadily bringing together data protection, cybersecurity, infrastructure management and service automation.
The objective is to give MSPs more of the capabilities they need through a single platform, reducing the number of separate tools and management environments they have to operate.
That’s a familiar strategy across the MSP technology market.
But the challenge is making the different components work together well enough that partners actually become more efficient.
Acronis says Panjwani’s experience integrating security technologies, building channel businesses and driving growth through acquisitions makes him well suited to its next stage of development.
For MSPs, there are several questions worth watching.
Will Acronis accelerate its expansion into managed security?
Will it continue adding capabilities through acquisitions?
And how will it balance a broader platform strategy with the need to keep its products straightforward and profitable for service providers?
The company hasn’t announced specific changes to its partner program, pricing or product roadmap.
But the choice of CEO offers a pretty clear indication of the experience Acronis wants leading its business.
And incidentally, if Panjwani’s former employer sounds familiar, yesterday’s In The Channel featured current WatchGuard CEO Joe Smolarski.
More on that conversation in a moment.
Virtuozzo, meanwhile, is making it possible to deploy its cloud infrastructure platform on considerably smaller systems.
The company has released version eight of Virtuozzo Infrastructure System, with a new lite deployment option that can operate on just one or two servers.
That may sound like a relatively small technical change.
But it has potentially significant implications for the economics of delivering managed infrastructure.
Traditional infrastructure deployments can require multiple servers and shared storage, even when the customer’s actual workload is fairly modest.
That can make it difficult to justify the initial investment for smaller organizations or individual locations.
Virtuozzo’s new option combines compute, management and storage on the same server, using local disks rather than requiring a separate storage network.
The company is targeting smaller businesses, branch offices and customers that need infrastructure running on their own premises.
Version eight also updates Nvidia GPU support, allowing providers to run dedicated and shared GPU workloads on the same host.
And Virtuozzo’s built-in migration tool for VMware vSphere eight is now generally available.
That makes the release particularly relevant to partners looking for alternatives to VMware.
Virtuozzo says a one-server configuration can deliver approximately fifty-three percent lower total cost of ownership than VMware.
Of course, that’s a vendor-provided comparison, and the actual economics will depend on the customer’s requirements.
There’s also an important distinction between a smaller deployment and a highly available one.
A single-server configuration doesn’t provide the same resilience as a multi-node cluster.
Customers that need automatic virtual-machine failover will still require additional infrastructure.
But for MSPs and smaller cloud providers, this could create opportunities to offer managed infrastructure, private cloud services and localized AI workloads at a lower entry point.
And in a market where both infrastructure costs and data-location requirements are getting more attention, that flexibility may be increasingly valuable.
Proofpoint is also expanding its security platform for managed service providers, with a new set of capabilities focused on Microsoft 365.
The company says the additions are designed to strengthen the security foundations organizations need before expanding their use of AI.
And the most interesting part is that many of those foundations involve problems MSPs have been dealing with for years.
Things like excessive permissions, outdated guest accounts and files that are shared more broadly than they should be.
Those problems become more significant when AI applications can access and work with the same information.
Proofpoint is introducing a capability called Tenant Risk Exposure within its 365 Permission Manager.
It will give MSPs and administrators a clearer picture of risky sharing settings and permissions across customer environments.
That includes anonymous access, external users, public groups, inactive guests and accounts that no longer have an appropriate owner.
The company is also adding more explanation to its AI-powered email-security assessments.
The idea is to help technicians understand why a message was classified as suspicious or legitimate, making it easier to investigate unusual decisions or false positives.
And Proofpoint is extending its adaptive security awareness training into Microsoft Teams.
It also has a new AI Cyber Assistant coming to its management console, designed to help MSPs with product configuration, support and customer consultations.
These additions build on the dedicated MSP business Proofpoint established after acquiring Hornetsecurity.
The larger story is that securing Microsoft 365 increasingly involves more than stopping malicious email.
MSPs also need to understand how information is shared, who can access it, and what happens when AI systems start working with that data.
And they need to manage those controls efficiently across multiple customer environments.
Proofpoint says the new capabilities will roll out during the fourth quarter.
In Brief – Commvault is adding threat-hunting capabilities to Microsoft 365 backups, helping organizations identify compromised data and determine which recovery points are safe to restore.
Descope has launched Agentic Identity Hub three-point-oh, with new governance and access controls for internal AI agents and the systems they connect to.
Intermedia has expanded its healthcare communications offering with AI-powered patient engagement and connections to fifteen electronic health record and practice-management systems.
And VanishID has introduced an automated response playbook designed to counter attackers who impersonate corporate help-desk personnel when contacting employees.
Full details and links in the show notes or the blog post.
If you haven’t heard it yet, yesterday’s In The Channel features WatchGuard CEO Joe Smolarski, discussing how AI governance is becoming a new managed-service opportunity.
We talk about how MSPs can help customers identify and secure the AI tools employees are already using, why Joe believes AI governance should become a separately monetized service, and how WatchGuard is adapting its roadmap to support those opportunities.
That’s how we’re seeing the headlines today. I’m Robert Dutt for ChannelBuzz.ca, thanks for listening. Have a great day.
