7 Channel People Making Waves This Week at Airtable, Proofpoint, Dell Technologies, More
One company is expected to hit $11 billion in revenue by fiscal year 2024.
June 3, 2022
![Making Waves Making Waves](https://eu-images.contentstack.com/v3/assets/blt10e444bce2d36aa8/blt98e65ae99539d1f4/6523eba87a0cbd1e3854d48a/Making-Waves.jpg?width=700&auto=webp&quality=80&disable=upscale)
Shutterstock
There are improvements coming to the Microsoft Store which promise to make apps easier to discover and for developers to promote and sell.
The new Microsoft Store Ads will let developers create advertising campaigns for their apps. In the coming months, developers will also be able to create advertising campaigns within the store using Microsoft Advertising. Microsoft said the program is set to roll out “soon,” but developers can sign up on the waitlist now. The ads will also provide analytic reports on how a campaign is performing, once it is live.
Microsoft principal program lead Nitya Mallikarjun made waves when she said the new policies allow app developers to keep 100% of revenues earned through the store when they use their own commerce platform.
“Developers that choose the Microsoft Commerce platform get competitive rachet-downs as well. [That’s] 85% for apps and 88% for games, when distributing through the Microsoft Store,” she said.
Read more from Jeffrey Schwartz’s piece here.
Is ransomware good for business? And what aren’t we talking about that we should be talking about in cybersecurity?
These were some of the questions posed to a roundtable of cybersecurity experts at the 2022 Channel Partners Conference and Expo. Proofpoint’s senior vice president of worldwide channels and partner sales made waves when he asserted that ransomware does, in fact, help business.
“I think most people in the cyber industry, if you look at our results, stock prices, how we’re doing, everything else, I would say that it does help as far as that. But I don’t think that’s necessarily anything that we want. I think none of us want that. We’re here to help the good guys from the bad guys. We continue to do a lot of collaboration among each other. We do integrations, and so we try to help with that. You combine that with our MSP partners and other partners out there … a lot of them, that’s why they’re doing services. If it’s an SMB play, there are 100,000 MSPs out there right now.”
Learn more about what other experts said at the roundtable here.
ReliaQuest is buying Digital Shadows, which delivers threat intelligence for security teams, for a cool $160 million. ReliaQuest increases visibility, reduces complexity and manages risk with its cloud-native security operations platform, GreyMatter.
Combined, the two companies will make security operations more effective, said Brian Murphy, founder and CEO at ReliaQuest. He also made waves for his comments about how this deal will affect the channel.
“This acquisition will offer the channel partner ecosystems of both ReliaQuest and Digital Shadows even more opportunity to drive value to their customers through effective partnerships focused on delivering meaningful outcomes in cybersecurity,” Murphy said.
The company’s new offerings will drive down response time and provide context around threats. They will also allow for an end-to-end view, all while decreasing the cost of visibility. Security operations teams can use automation with confidence to focus on the specific areas that matter the most.
Learn more about ReliaQuest’s GreyMatter, a cloud-native platform, here.
Zoom vet Laura Padilla has had a good week. She made waves for joining Airtable, an enterprise software company, to formalize its channel strategy and partner program. Airtable — valued at $11 billion in December — has a connected apps platform that enables teams to modernize their business processes. Padilla made waves for her assertion that Airtable offers a “huge” opportunity for partners.
“Airtable customers will look to partners to help them maximize their Airtable deployments through integrations and services, and get even more value from the platform. We’ve just scratched the surface on developing this ecosystem, and I’m excited to work with our partners to create it.”
Read the rest of the interview here.
Partners are key to ServiceNow reaching its ambitious revenue goals; the company is expected to hit $11 billion in revenue by fiscal year 2024.
“We’re seeing more and more partners who are using the ServiceNow platform to be able to deliver their managed services,” said Erica Volini, ServiceNow’s senior vice president of partner go-to-market (GTM) operations.
Volini made waves for leaving Deloitte after 23 years as a senior partner because she wanted to evolve ServiceNow’s GTM strategy with partners.
“We need partners to actually co-create the market with us. And when I say co-create, that means we need to marry the partners’ thought leadership, the partners’ IP, the partner sales motions around transformation alongside the power of our platform to help educate the market on what ServiceNow can do.”
Read more about Volini’s vision for partners.
It’s all about the multicloud, at least according to Dayne Turbitt, Dell Technologies’ senior VP and U.K. GM. He made waves for saying that the ecosystem is more than just cloud-first.
“It’s now multicloud, and that puts [Dell Technologies] in a really great position to help our clients,” he said.
Partners are instrumental to that vision because 45% of the company’s U.K. business goes through partners. Turbitt said partners’ experience selling public cloud alongside Dell Technologies means they are “the glue that sticks it together.”
Read more about the company’s partner opportunities here.
The IT industry has been all abuzz about the $61 billion acquisition of VMware by Broadcom. Most channel partners say the move surprised them. Moreover, many are anticipating changes in the way VMware engages with them. They remained optimistic in their comments to Channel Futures. However, Richard King, chief strategy officer at Tennessee-based MSP Keystone Solutions, made waves for being less PR-friendly.
“Acquisitions are becoming routine, literally weekly, in tech right now. When it’s smaller entities, nobody notices. However, when a company the size of VMware is consumed, it is noticed; by the industry, by investors, and by the channel,” King told Channel Futures. “Broadcom is at about $27 billion in annual revenue, swallowing VMware at roughly $12.5 billion. When a big fish swallows another big fish, you get a whale.”
Get more reaction to this big story here.
And to read additional coverage of the deal, visit here, here and here.
The IT industry has been all abuzz about the $61 billion acquisition of VMware by Broadcom. Most channel partners say the move surprised them. Moreover, many are anticipating changes in the way VMware engages with them. They remained optimistic in their comments to Channel Futures. However, Richard King, chief strategy officer at Tennessee-based MSP Keystone Solutions, made waves for being less PR-friendly.
“Acquisitions are becoming routine, literally weekly, in tech right now. When it’s smaller entities, nobody notices. However, when a company the size of VMware is consumed, it is noticed; by the industry, by investors, and by the channel,” King told Channel Futures. “Broadcom is at about $27 billion in annual revenue, swallowing VMware at roughly $12.5 billion. When a big fish swallows another big fish, you get a whale.”
Get more reaction to this big story here.
And to read additional coverage of the deal, visit here, here and here.
Dell Technologies, Proofpoint and Airtable are among the companies we feature this week in Channel People Making Waves. Each week we highlight our top news stories and the people behind them.
Take Laura Padilla for example. She left Zoom to take on the role of VP of partners at Airtable. Click on the slideshow above to learn more about her vision for partners.
Our most-read story will be obvious to anyone in the industry. It involves a major, multibillion-dollar acquisition that stunned the channel. The opinions surrounding the deal are mixed. Read on to find out what partners had to say about Broadcom buying VMware.
Then, Edward Gately, senior news editor at Channel Futures, posed a somewhat controversial question to his sources at a company roundtable. He asked: Is ransomware good for business? Readers may find some of the answers surprising from the experts. We particularly liked Proofpoint SVP Joe Sykora’s response.
That sums up this week’s edition featuring Dell, Proofpoint and more. Click here to catch last week’s roundup in case you missed it.
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. |
About the Author(s)
You May Also Like