Top 20 Stories in April: IBM, T-Mobile, Comcast, AWS, Kaseya-Datto, Citrix
But what was No. 1?
![Top stories sign Top stories sign](https://eu-images.contentstack.com/v3/assets/blt10e444bce2d36aa8/blt83015a0ae5016d35/6523fcebc39fc86019dd622a/Top-Stories-Sign.jpg?width=700&auto=webp&quality=80&disable=upscale)
Shutterstock
There’s no business like cloud business. Isn’t that how the saying goes?
We got a one-on-one interview with Sandy Hogan, SVP of VMware‘s worldwide partner and commercial organization. Our article landed just ahead of the company’s Partner Leadership Summit in Texas.
In it, we spent a lot of time on how VMware is taking additional steps to foster a next-generation take on the channel, with cloud front and center.
No matter the subject, our monthly CF20 lists are always a hit. In fact, sometimes one list remains hot from one month to the next.
Such was the case with our “20 Top Threat Intelligence Providers You Should Know,” which we posted in March but kept on roaring through April.
Among those suggested as top contenders by top industry analysts were Mandiant, AT&T Cybersecurity and Cisco. See who else made it.
Synopsys announced it is snapping up WhiteHat Security, which rebranded last year to NTT Application Security, for a cool $330 million. NTT only bought WhiteHat three years ago.
Synopsys said adding WhiteHat to its portfolio expands its application security SaaS capabilities.
Read more about the deal that will impact the companies’ partner communities.
Google Cloud-only partner SADA has a big new goal.
The managed service provider in April has agreed to drive its customers to consume $2.5 billion worth of Google Cloud services over the next three years.
It’s a five-times increase from SADA’s previous commitment, company CEO Tony Safoian told Channel Futures.
Read more about what Safoian thinks this gargantuan number means to the partner community and the cloud race.
It’s the first of a few mentions of the Channel Partners Conference & Expo, which concluded in Las Vegas on April 14.
T-Mobile for Business president Callie Field took to the keynote stage to discuss the company’s plans and commitment to the indirect sales channel.
Field, fairly new to her position, and George Fischer, the Verizon vet who recently made the leap to the “un-carrier,” are leading T-Mobile’s partner program with a focus on 5G.
Learn more about T-Mobile’s channel plans.
Kyndryl, just seven months after spinning off from IBM, expanded its partnership with SAP. The deal aims to support the digital-transformation needs of customers.
The agreement combines SAP’s business technology platform with Kyndryl’s expertise in artificial intelligence.
Learn more about why the companies believe the expanded deal will help customers pursue a more cost-effective path to the cloud.
Published toward the end of March, Red Hat‘s news that it is transferring its direct commercial business over to channel partners caught fire on Channel Futures last month.
The company said it had been evolving in that direction “over the last years.” Now, in 2022, the enterprise software provider is “adjusting our plans to emphasize this and accelerate on it.”
The open source vendor’s enterprise business includes a smaller number of blue chip companies, while commercial covers everything else.
Get the full scoop on why Red Hat is making this important shift.
Awards season kept storming through April as you continued to be interested in who Channel Futures named as its Channel Influencers for 2022.
We published the list in February but thanks to a lot of discussion about it at the recently concluded Channel Partners Conference & Expo, you investigated our digital issue highlighting our honorees.
Comcast Business, which bought Masergy last year, made a number of changes to its channel team and strategy last month as it continued its integration.
Heather Violet-Minnella now leads an advanced sales team for Comcast Business, while Cary Tengler, executive director of national partners, has the company’s portfolio of large technology services distributors under his purview.
The cable company unveiled the changes to us at the Channel Partners Conference & Expo.
A group of private equity investors that want to shell out $16.5 billion for Citrix are a step closer to getting their wish.
Citrix shareholders gave the deal the green light last month. The news came shortly after an investor filed a lawsuit claiming the desktop virtualization supplier should have considered alternative options before agreeing to sell.
Look for the sale to go final midyear, as our article points out.
Meantime, Citrix is seeing a number of high-profile employee departures, including channel chief Mark Palomba, who only took the job six months ago.
You came in droves — 7,400 of you in all — to the 2022 Channel Partners Conference & Expo in Las Vegas. Attendance, the number of speakers, and total sponsors/exhibitors blew away our old record, as you packed the Venetian for four days of education and networking.
Since you probably couldn’t attend every keynote session, we summed up more than a dozen of the best in this roundup.
Do you know Parablu? Apparently a lot of your peers do, enough to make it our ninth most-read story of April.
You were interested to learn that two Commvault veterans are trying to take the SaaS backup startup to new heights.
One is Randy De Meno, longtime VP and CTO for Commvault’s Microsoft platform offerings. He is Parablu’s new chief strategy officer. He joins Anand Prahlad, founder and CEO.
See what they have in store for the company.
The researchers at MarketsandMarkets unveiled their new list of “visionary” leaders in cybersecurity, part of the firm’s “360 Quadrant.”
Microsoft, Cisco, AWS, Palo Alto Networks and IBM all made it. See who else did and the methodology the research firm used to identify the top dogs in cyber.
It might not have huge channel implications, but we thought you might find it interesting — and you were right.
We reported on Thoma Bravo, which has made a name for itself making huge investments in tech companies doing business in the channel, making a play for Twitter.
Of course, just days prior, mega-billionaire Elon Musk made a $44 billion bid for the social media empire. And it’s tough to beat out mega billionaires, as Musk proved.
Each spring at the Channel Partners Conference & Expo, we honor the inductees into our 2022 Channel Futures Circle of Excellence.
The honorees are some of the channel’s top executives.
Here are our images from the invite-only dinner. You can learn more about the inductees in our profile piece here.
IBM made its presence felt at the Channel Partners Conference & Expo; in particular, at our co-located MSP Summit.
Kate Woolley (pictured), new general manager of the IBM Ecosystem, took the keynote stage alongside Inhi Cho Suh, head of global strategic partnerships at Big Blue. The pair talked about partner opportunities with IBM.
You were also very interested in a separate article discussing Woolley’s new position.
When we started our “CF Lists” a few years ago, they were actually “CP Lists,” as their genesis was on our old Channel Partners Online website. They quickly turned into one of our most popular recurring features — so much so that we made them monthly.
UCaaS, in fact, was the first, when we debuted it five years ago. Since then, the industry has evolved a lot. Polling some top channel analysts, they told us which companies deserved a spot on our 2022 list, and why.
There it is, our steady, reliable old friend landing in the top five once again.
This edition of Channel People on the Move featured new hires and promotions at Windstream, Dattor, Barracuda, Vonage and more.
And if you haven’t yet seen the brand-new edition that dropped on May 2, it’s here.
In one of the biggest blockbuster deals to ever rock the MSP industry, Kaseya said it was buying Datto for a whopping $6.2 billion.
We posted a slew of articles on the topic. The one that generated the most interest was the pulse that we took of the MSP community. Needless to say, there were concerns.
But Kaseya CEO Fred Voccola assured us that the Datto brand would remain intact and the two companies would be better suited to work with MSPs going forward.
We also got some interesting takes from cybersecurity providers during our roundtable at the Channel Partners Conference & Expo.
It’s the biggest cloud, so appropriate that it takes the biggest spot on our countdown.
You flocked to read our signature piece with Ruba Borno, VP or worldwide channels and alliances at AWS, and Stephen Borno, who leads the AWS Marketplace.
It’s AWS’ 10th anniversary this year, but this conversation went way beyond candles and cupcakes. We delved into growth of the AWS partner program, goals for the remainder of 2022, the role of MSPs and much more.
It’s the biggest cloud, so appropriate that it takes the biggest spot on our countdown.
You flocked to read our signature piece with Ruba Borno, VP or worldwide channels and alliances at AWS, and Stephen Borno, who leads the AWS Marketplace.
It’s AWS’ 10th anniversary this year, but this conversation went way beyond candles and cupcakes. We delved into growth of the AWS partner program, goals for the remainder of 2022, the role of MSPs and much more.
Oh April, we hardly knew ye. The month blew by so fast, perhaps because there were so many big channel happenings. Several, including news from IBM, a renewed channel push by T-Mobile and changes to Comcast Business partner compensation, stemmed from the Channel Partners Conference & Expo.
The cloud was a common theme this month. Your readership on the topic welcomed big channel interviews with AWS and VMware to our countdown.
Moreover, to no one’s surprise, M&A was a major factor here. Kaseya’s blockbuster buy of Datto and Synopsys acquiring WhiteHat Security both landed in our top 20.
Furthermore, one thing is clear. Channel Futures readers like awards. For the third straight month, our 2022 list of Channel Influencers cracked our top 20. And our new class of Circle of Excellence honorees also broke through in April.
The slideshow above is no random collection of stories. They are the top 20 of the month as determined by you, our loyal reader. We combine the number of unique pageviews with results from our weekly newsletter, which you can sign up for here.
From T-Mobile to Comcast, IBM to AWS, SADA and more, what story was No. 1?
Did you miss March’s top stories? Take a walk down memory lane here.
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. |
About the Author(s)
You May Also Like