Saturday read. Dell’s Vegas roadshow wrapped, the security tools on your clients’ endpoints are now the attack surface, PDQ rolled up to the RMM table with a knife, and Tenable wants to be the connective tissue for exposure management. Let’s go.
🥷 PDQ Connect goes MSP-native and points the gun at Ninja, Kaseya, and ConnectWise
PDQ on Monday rolled out an MSP-focused expansion of PDQ Connect: multitenant architecture, centralized user management across tenants, reusable deployment packages, global scripts, and fresh integrations with Freshworks, Jira, and Zapier. Per the company’s announcement and ChannelE2E’s writeup, the pitch is clean — context-switching between client portals is a margin tax, and PDQ wants to take it off your P&L.
Why it matters to your stack: this is the first time PDQ has credibly shown up to the MSP RMM fight. The classic positioning was “PDQ Deploy and Inventory for in-house IT teams” — fine for a 200-seat internal shop, useless if you ran 40 tenants. Multitenancy plus reusable packages plus global scripts is the table-stakes trio that’s kept NinjaOne ($500M+ ARR), Kaseya, and ConnectWise charging what they charge. PDQ’s pricing starts at 100 devices and scales linearly, which is materially cheaper than what most of you are paying per endpoint on your incumbent.
The move to make this week: ask your PDQ rep for a side-by-side cost-per-endpoint against your current RMM at your actual tenant count, then ask whether their patch coverage maps to your Windows-heavy mid-market book. If it does, you have leverage on your next Ninja or Kaseya renewal even if you don’t switch.
🔑 Your security tools are the attack surface this week
Two of them, actually. CISA added Trend Micro Apex One (on-premise) CVE-2026-34926 to the KEV catalog on May 21 after Trend confirmed active exploitation — it’s a directory traversal in the Apex One management server that lets an authenticated attacker with admin context plant code on the box that’s supposed to be protecting every endpoint downstream. Per BleepingComputer and SecurityWeek, Trend has shipped patches; on-prem deployments are the affected SKU, SaaS Apex One is not.
At the same time, Microsoft acknowledged two actively-exploited Defender zero-days — CVE-2026-41091 (link-following EoP to SYSTEM, CVSS 7.8) and CVE-2026-45498 (Defender DoS) — both fixed in Malware Protection Engine 1.1.26040.8 / 4.18.26040.7, per Help Net Security and The Hacker News. Microsoft says the engine auto-updates and most customers don’t need to lift a finger. Trust but verify.
Why it matters to your channel business: the two stories rhyme. Your customers are paying you to run their security stack, and this week the security stack itself is the foothold. If you have Apex One on-prem anywhere — manufacturing, healthcare, anything air-gap-adjacent — patch it today, then turn it into a QBR slide for every cyber-insurance attestation you’ve signed in the last 18 months. On the Defender side, pull a one-line PowerShell report Get-MpComputerStatus) across your fleet and confirm engine version on every endpoint. “Microsoft says it auto-updates” is not what you tell a client when their CFO asks if you checked. ✅
🌐 Tenable opens up — OPEN Partner Exchange wants to be exposure management’s plumbing
Tenable on Thursday launched the Tenable Open Partner Exchange Network (OPEN), a technology-partner ecosystem plus a new Tenable One Open Connector designed to pull third-party, custom, and internal data into the Tenable One Exposure Management Platform. Translation: instead of fighting CrowdStrike, SentinelOne, Wiz, and ServiceNow for the single pane of glass, Tenable wants to be the pane the others feed.
Why it matters to your channel business: Tenable’s been one of the cleaner channel-first plays in the security space, and the Assure program already pays predictably. OPEN is interesting because the value prop now leans on integrations — which is partner work. If you’re running exposure management or vCISO retainers, this gives you a credible architecture story that doesn’t require ripping out the EDR or SIEM the client already loves. There’s also a tells here for the rest of the space: every vendor with a “platform” pitch now has to either become the connector tier (Tenable’s bet) or the data tier (CrowdStrike, Wiz). The middle is being squeezed. Tighten your roadmap accordingly. 📈
🤖 Dell wraps Vegas: agentic AI on the desk, partner incentives on the docket
Dell Technologies World 2026 closed Thursday with the usual Vegas flex — Michael Dell and Jensen on stage, liquid-cooled PowerEdge XE servers, Dell Exascale Storage, and the headline product Dell Deskside Agentic AI, a workstation-plus-NVIDIA-NemoClaw bundle aimed at running governed multi-step agent workflows locally instead of in someone else’s cloud. Per Channel Dive and Dell’s release, the channel piece includes two new incentive schemes tied to specific products and account performance, plus the previously-teased “integrated partner experience” hub that’s supposed to collapse Dell’s tool sprawl.
Why it matters to your channel business: Deskside Agentic AI is the first credible “sell the agent on-prem” SKU from a Tier 1 OEM, and it’s tuned for exactly the customers who keep telling you they want AI but won’t put data in OpenAI’s tenant — regulated mid-market, defense-adjacent, anyone with a compliance officer who reads. The margin question is the same one you’re already asking on the AI Factory line: does Dell pay you enough on the hardware to actually fund the Services wrap that makes the deal land? Get your named partner-experience rep on the phone next week, ask exactly how the two new incentives stack with VxRail-to-PowerFlex transition rebates, and benchmark against your HPE-via-Ingram numbers before you commit your AI quota.
⚡ Quick hits
• Computex kicks off in Taipei this week — Nvidia’s Vera Rubin NVL72 took home a Golden Award and the Sustainable Tech Special, with Jensen’s GTC Taipei keynote on June 1. Vera CPUs are expected to debut with analyst forecasts pegging ~1.5x performance over comparable x86 parts. If you sell GPU servers, the next-gen rack is now on the roadmap your customers are reading.
• Microsoft Build runs June 2–3 in San Francisco — “no-fluff” billing, but the session catalog is heavy on Copilot Studio, agents, and Foundry. If you have a Modern Work practice, that’s the week your SKU list moves.
• Pax8 Beyond is June 7–9 in Salt Lake City. Microsoft FY26 incentive guidance, Beyond’s annual partner program reveals, and the usual hallway track where vendors hand out deal-reg favors. Register if you haven’t.
• M-TECH repositioned ThreatClarity this week as a full CTEM platform branded for MSPs — continuous monitoring, automated compliance mapping, AI-guided remediation, all white-labelable. If you’re building a managed exposure service to ride the Tenable trend above, this is a lower-cost stack to evaluate.
That’s the week. Patch the security tools first, then go renegotiate something. 🛠️
