7 Channel People Making Waves at HPE, Mandiant, Microsoft, More
Tech companies are helping Ukrainians in a variety of ways.
March 4, 2022
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Richard Band made the list for his explanation of the technology. He’s HPE’s Communications Technology Group’s head of mobile core and 5G. Band said while the solution is designed to serve enterprises, HPE’s preferred route to market is via service providers, telcos and SIs.
“The private 5G market is developing quickly including new market entrants, such as hyperscale cloud providers,” he said. “Service providers, telcos and SIs are looking for simple ways to deploy private 5G networks in order to meet growing customer expectations for the connected edge.”
Read more from Edward Gately’s story here.
Colletta Vigh is head of worldwide channel strategy at Check Point Software Technologies, where she drives channel enablement around managed security and cloud security initiatives. She made the week for outlining the cloud-native application protection platform, or CNAPP, as not just the next shiny new security object. It’s a platform intended to replace multiple tools with a single holistic security solution for enterprises with cloud-native workloads.
To learn why organizations should implement CNAPP, read Vigh’s editorial.
There have been multiple efforts by tech companies to contribute to the war effort in Ukraine. Microsoft is helping the Ukraine government protect against cyberattacks from Russia, including the identification of a new malware package. The Ukraine government, as well as organizations and individuals there, are Microsoft customers.
Microsoft wouldn’t say whether it has partners in Ukraine or how they are being impacted by the crisis. Brad Smith is Microsoft’s president and vice chair and made The Week for his passion to help the people of Ukraine.
“All of us who work at Microsoft are following closely the tragic, unlawful and unjustified invasion of Ukraine,” Smith said. “This has become both a kinetic and digital war, with horrifying images from across Ukraine as well as less visible cyberattacks on computer networks and internet-based disinformation campaigns.”
Read more about how Microsoft is assisting the Ukraine government against mounting Russia cyberattacks.
Dave Feliu is the relatively new channel chief at SupportLogic, a company that has created technology to predict and prevent customer escalations. However, Feliu is certainly not new to the channel, having more than 20 years’ experience in the field.
Since he took the SupportLogic role in October, he’s wasted no time in developing, as he describes it, a “boutique” partner initiative. This is why Feliu made The Week.
“I really want [partners] to feel like they’re being paid attention to. And over the years, I’ve found that gets difficult to do the larger your organization is. So, we’re going to do a lot with fewer, more focused partners that we can really work with day in and day out.”
Learn more about the technology behind SupportLogic.
No one likes a price hike. However, it’s been 11 years since Microsoft increased prices for its core SaaS portfolios, which includes Microsoft 365.
Microsoft alerted partners in August that it planned to raise M365 pricing for commercial customers effective March 1. The Microsoft 365 price increases coincide with the rollout of the company’s New Customer Experience (NCE) seat-based offers promotion. NCE went into effect in January. Under that program, customers can commit to a full year and pay upfront for those subscriptions for a 20% discount. But the caveat is customers can’t cancel those subscriptions in the middle of the year after an initial 72-hour window.
Frank Lusko is VP of sales and service at Red River, a Chantilly, Virginia, MSP, and made The Week for his candor about Microsoft’s changes.
“So you’re stuck with whatever you commit to at that point for the entire year,” Lusko said. Also, organizations that now budget their software as operational expenses may not have the capital to lay out. For large organizations, it could amount to an outlay of hundreds of thousands of dollars or more, Lusko said.
Read Jeffrey Schwartz’s article to learn more about Microsoft’s changes.
Another day, another cyberattack. This time it was carried out against AI computing giant Nvidia by the Lapsus$ ransomware gang. Nvidia experienced a devastating cyberattack that completely compromised the company’s internal systems.
Bloomberg reports that the Nvidia cyberattack appears to have been a ransomware attack that’s not connected to the crisis in Ukraine. The hack looks to be relatively minor and not fueled by geopolitical tensions.
Pan Kamal is head of product at BluBracket, a provider of code security solutions. He made The Week for his assessment of the attack.
“Nvidia produces the most widely used computing accelerators used for everything from gaming to crypto mining, to industrial and scientific supercomputing applications,” he said. “This makes them a high-profile target for attacks of all types.”
Processor, chip and board-level design today are largely completed in software prior to committing to silicon or other physical forms, Kamal said. The lines between application, system and infrastructure are blurring as infrastructure as code (IaC) becomes the norm.
Read more about the full impact of the attack.
As Ukrainians attempt to fight off Russian forces, American tech companies are trying to do their part to respond to the crisis. Companies such as Intel have halted sales of processors to Russia. RingCentral has enabled free phone calls to Ukraine.
And Mandiant CEO Kevin Mandia was on CNBC addressing cybersecurity concerns related to the crisis. Mandiant has created a task force and initiated a global event to track the escalating crisis.
Learn more about what other tech firms are doing to help.
As Ukrainians attempt to fight off Russian forces, American tech companies are trying to do their part to respond to the crisis. Companies such as Intel have halted sales of processors to Russia. RingCentral has enabled free phone calls to Ukraine.
And Mandiant CEO Kevin Mandia was on CNBC addressing cybersecurity concerns related to the crisis. Mandiant has created a task force and initiated a global event to track the escalating crisis.
Learn more about what other tech firms are doing to help.
Our weekly Channel People Making Waves counts down the top stories of the past seven days. We highlight the individuals behind the stories, this week featuring HPE, Mandiant, Microsoft and more.
Understandably dominating the news this week is the crisis in Ukraine. Two stories about Ukraine topped our list of most-read articles. They discuss what tech companies are doing to assist Ukrainians, including helping with cybersecurity.
In addition, we feature the new channel chief at SupportLogic and his goal to offer partners a boutique partner initiative. The article also delves into AI, machine learning and other unique technologies SupportLogic is utilizing.
And don’t fall out of your chairs, but Microsoft is raising the price of M365. It’s the first time in 11 years. We examine the repercussions of that as well. Our countdown of top stories is in the slideshow above.
Finally, in case you didn’t catch last week’s roundup, you can find it here.
Want to contact the author directly about this story? Have ideas for a follow-up article? Email Claudia Adrien or connect with her on LinkedIn. |
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