Comcast's Masergy Buy, COVID-19 Mandate Debate Highlight Big Week in Channel
Get the full scoop on one of the biggest acquisitions of the year; plus, the rest of the week's top stories.
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The cable companies haven’t led the way in channel-impacting acquisitions over the years, aside from consolidation among one another (Charter-Time Warner Cable-Bright House in 2016, to name a biggie.) More often than not, they’ve been merely at the heart of merger rumors that didn’t come to fruition.
In arguably the biggest cable wheeling and dealing since Cox bought RapidScale in 2018, Comcast Business pulled the trigger on an acquisition of Masergy this week.
Comcast, which already touts a hefty software-defined networking platform, ups its game significantly with the Masergy buy, which still needs regulatory approval.
Mike Onystok, senior VP at services distributor TBI, a longtime partner of the companies, told us the deal opens up big opportunities for both the vendors and their partners.
“The ability to combine this position with Masergy’s focus on providing next-gen solutions such as security, white glove service and deployment, and their catering to the global or mid-enterprise client provides a strong foundation to fill gaps for both in existing offering and focus,” Onystok said.
Read what else analysts, partners and leaders at key vendors had to say about the tie-up.
If you missed our Q&A with new Lumen channel chief Dave Young this week, here‘s where to find it.
To summarize, Young covered a bevy of topics of interest to partners as he slides into the new role vacated by Garrett Gee.
Young’s arrival comes about the same time that Lumen, which rebranded from CenturyLink nearly a year ago, sheds its ILEC and Latin America businesses to further hone its focus on the enterprise in the U.S.
On common themes he’s heard from partners: “We need to digitize a lot more than what we have done.”
On the ILEC sale to Apollo Global Management: “My goal is to work with partners like I did before the announcement, until we understand the equation a little bit differently on what the next step is and how that looks. But it’s full-steam ahead the way we’ve always done things.”
In June, we rolled out the MSP 501, the best and most comprehensive list of top managed service providers from around the world, to much fanfare. It’s the biggest reception we’ve ever received for this iconic ranking.
This week, you flocked to our regional lists; in particular, we got your attention with our ranking of the top MSPs in EMEA (including the U.K.) and Canada.
But we U.S.-based 501er by regional and state rank as well. You can link to all of the regional rankings from this page.
Speaking of rankings, another hotshot on our website this week was our look at IDC’s reviews of managed detection and response (MDR) providers.
One of the most-discussed cybersecurity segments in 2021, it’s no wonder that the big research firm took a long, hard look at the companies it considers to be the best in this sector.
We took it a step further for you, not just showing you who IDC thinks is best, but breaking down the areas where these suppliers succeed — and where they have work to do.
You’ll find Alert Logic, CrowdStrike and some other big names on this list, which gives partners help on whom to turn to based on their customers’ needs.
We put some simple queries out to our MSP 501 community about COVID-19 mandates at offices and customer sites. Wow, did they have a lot to say.
Responses ranged from things such as “if you aren’t vaccinated, you won’t work here” to “There’s no way we’re imposing anything on our team.”
It turns out the channel is no different from much of the rest of the country in terms of this debate. Read the strong opinions we got.
This one had you glued to your desktop screens and mobile devices when we first told you about it earlier this month. But that was amplified this week when we unveiled how T-Mobile now faces two class-action lawsuits for a major data breach.
The carrier confirmed that private information compromised in the breach included phone numbers, Social Security numbers, birthdates and more.
Tempering that news, however, T-Mo said it has “no indication that the data contained in [millions of] stolen files included any customer financial information, credit card information, debit or other payment information.”
The two lawsuits stem from the U.S. District Court for Washington state’s Western District, where T-Mobile’s headquarters reside.
The first week of August, we posted our monthly “20 Top” list, where we ask analysts and other industry insiders who lead the way in specific technologies. Our deep dive into concact-center-as-a-service providers saw a resurgence this week.
This is one of the fastest-growing segments in the channel, so its popularity comes as no surprise. In fact, Grand View Research projects its value to be nearly $11 billion by 2018. It’s no wonder partners are scrambling to get a piece of this lucrative pie.
“If you’re using a legacy, premises-based contact center, it’s kind of inflexible,” analyst Jon Arnold told us. “it isn’t scalable and it doesn’t adapt well to short-term changes.”
See who Arnold and some of his industry peers cited as 20 of the top CCaaS providers.
The first week of August, we posted our monthly “20 Top” list, where we ask analysts and other industry insiders who lead the way in specific technologies. Our deep dive into concact-center-as-a-service providers saw a resurgence this week.
This is one of the fastest-growing segments in the channel, so its popularity comes as no surprise. In fact, Grand View Research projects its value to be nearly $11 billion by 2018. It’s no wonder partners are scrambling to get a piece of this lucrative pie.
“If you’re using a legacy, premises-based contact center, it’s kind of inflexible,” analyst Jon Arnold told us. “it isn’t scalable and it doesn’t adapt well to short-term changes.”
See who Arnold and some of his industry peers cited as 20 of the top CCaaS providers.
One of the biggest acquisitions of the year took the channel by storm this week. But it didn’t come from where you might expect. It wasn’t a security giant gobbling up a rival, nor was it a private equity company adding to its massive portfolio. This time, it was a cable company getting into the act, with Comcast Business snatching up Masergy. The deal gives the cable behemoth a bigger enterprise play and access to all of Masergy’s SD-WAN expertise.
ZK Research’s Zeus Kerravala
The deal, which drew rave reviews from much of the industry, could also be a harbinger of things to come. Analyst Zeus Kerravala, who spoke with our James Anderson, expects this move means other MSOs will make similar moves.
“Any of the cablecos that have their eyes on up-market would try and replicate this,” he noted.
The other story making the biggest headlines on Channel Futures this week? We took the temperature of partners to get their take on COVID-19 mandates. As you might expect, some are all for them; others say “no way.” And, not unexpectedly, some of those opinions vary depend on which parts of the country and world they call home.
Take a quick stroll through our slideshow above for more on Comcast-Masergy, COVID-19 and what else had the channel buzzing this week.
Want to contact the author directly about this story? Have ideas for a follow-up article? Email Craig Galbraith or connect with him on LinkedIn. |
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