As the days wind down in 2016, solution providers have their eyes on next year. Last week was a particularly eye-opening week for partners of IBM and Oracle as the vendors made big announcements. Meanwhile, one solution provider, Trace3, doubled down on its commitment to managed security services in 2017.

6,000 – Number of new U.S. employees IBM is planning to hire in 2017. In a piece she wrote for USA Today, CEO Ginni Rometty said Big Blue will hire 25,000 over the next four years and spend $1 billion in employee training and development. That came a day before she and other technology industry leaders met with President-elect Donald Trump.

36 – Number of months Cisco's Intercloud strategy will have lasted before the company discontinues it in March 2017. The company, which once had great ambitions of competing in the public cloud market against Amazon Web Services, confirmed last week in a statement to CRN that it will discontinue its Cisco Intercloud Services public cloud.

20 to 30 – Number of people solution provider Trace3 hopes to hire for its managed security services practice in 2017. Amid increasing demand from customers, Trace3 intends to make its newly-launched security practice the company's largest by the end of next year through a focus on consultative, high-level strategic conversations. The $500 million company's newest business unit will focus on identity and access management, data security, security operations and security strategy, with industry leaders recently hired to run each practice area, said Tony Olzak, vice president of security.

3 to 5 percent – Expected 2017 fiscal third-quarter revenue growth for Oracle Corp., Co-CEO Safra Catz said last week. For the second quarter, which ended Nov. 30, Oracle reported total revenue of $9.04 billion, up a fraction of 1 percent from $8.99 billion in the same quarter one year earlier. Net income, meanwhile, was $2.03 billion, down 8 percent year over year from $2.2 billion. Earnings per share were 48 cents compared with 51 cents a year ago.

$17.5 million – New round of funding that Nasuni, a developer of technology allowing data stored in public and private clouds to be easily and safely accessed from anywhere, has closed in what it expects will be its final round of funding. Nasuni, based in Natick, Mass., plans to expand its go-to-market strategy in the first half of 2017 and hopes to grow its staff by close to one-third – from 115 to 150 – next year.