7 Channel People Making Waves This Week at Barracuda, IBM, TPx Communications, More
Individual comments were forthcoming about the channel.
February 11, 2022
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Online marketplaces aren’t going anywhere. In fact, research shows that more than 75% of B2B buyers say that they prefer buying online. Importantly for partners, they prefer remote interactions with sales representatives over traditional in-person interactions. In one of our most-read stories this week, our Christine Horton interviews Chris Hill, RVP public cloud and alliances at Barracuda. Hill made the week for his assessment of this world of online marketplaces.
He says: “The online marketplace was always going to be a big opportunity for the channel. But, pre-pandemic, none of us could have predicted that opportunity would knock at our door quite so suddenly.”
Read more of what he and others in the channel said.
Channel Futures reporters interviewed eight executives for our piece about record-setting M&A pace. All of the channel leaders we spoke to had something valuable to add, but we chose Frank Rauch, head of worldwide channel sales for Check Point software Technologies, for this week’s Channel People Making Waves. His insight into MSPs and private equity contributed to the larger discussion of whether an influx of deals in the channel is helpful.
“New money flowing into the channel is always a good thing,” Rauch said. “Consolidation is interesting when it makes sense, but when there is [customer] overlap, it is not interesting to vendors. It is so much more valuable from a vendor perspective if it expands the total addressable market with the partners and expands the offerings we can sell.”
Tune into what the other experts thought about the surge of M&A.
David La Rose, general manager of IBM partner ecosystem sales, makes the week for giving us the best insight into IBM’s partner program. He shared the growth the IBM partner ecosystem generated in 2021 and other priorities for the PartnerWorld modernization.
“We are doing a couple of things differently this year,” La Rose said. “We’re investing across the globe with more than 500 client-facing individuals in our channel organization. They are specialized in brands including data, automation, security and our infrastructure brands, and they are measured completely on the success of our partner community.”
Read more from Jeffery Schwartz’s interview.
This was one of our most popular stories on social media: AppDirect Buys Canadian Cloud Distributor, Expands AppSmart Microsoft Capabilities.
Renee Bergeron, senior vice president and general manager at AppSmart, made waves this week for keeping the explanation of the ITCloud.ca acquisition simple. In fact, she laid out three primary reasons for the purchase. One of the reasons included that AppDirect can bring its relationships with 600-plus vendors to Canada because of the acquisition. ITCloud’s partners will see their technology line card expand dramatically.
Read more from the experts about this acquisition.
Readers love lists and this week’s “20 Top XDR Security Providers You Should Know” didn’t fail. Several security experts were interviewed for this story, but we feature Forrester’s Allie Mellen for keeping things real surrounding the hype.
“Given that XDR is such a new market, customer expectations have not yet solidified on this,” Mellen said. “The term was coined back in 2018. But actual offerings didn’t start hitting the market in the mainstream until 2020. Customers want an offering that will protect their remote workforce and give them visibility into the cloud.”
Link here to read Edward Gately’s roundup.
Market development funds (MDF) at their essence connect suppliers and partners to one another for the purpose of reaching the end customer. However, partners have expressed worry about inefficient – and even recklessly wasteful – spending, poor return on investment and a lack of focus on the end customer, writes our James Anderson.
Nevertheless, this MDF motion has gained a strong foothold in the channel. Hilary Gadda, TPx Communications’ director of national channel sales and development, reviews sponsorship proposals from partners, with the largest coming from TSBs. She said most of these projects won’t tangibly help TPx and its partners expand their market.
Gadda made the week for telling us what she really thinks.
“I’m trying to see what this has anything to do with growing business, with us coming together and uplifting the channel. And I’m not,” she said. “I’m seeing more cornhole tournaments with a purse of $10,000. I am seeing parties. I’m seeing golf.”
It shouldn’t be a surprise that our No.1 most-read story involved Microsoft. In fact, Microsoft reportedly is interested in acquiring Mandiant, which rebranded from FireEye last fall. Both Microsoft and Mandiant declined to comment. But Forrester’s Jeff Pollard didn’t hesitate and that’s why he made waves this week.
“Mandiant spent years locked into all the FireEye ecosystem of technologies, and only just opened up its services to non-FireEye technologies in the last year or so,” he said. “Mandiant finds itself with strong services offerings, but needs to play catch-up. Expanding its stable of intellectual property, marketing and sales efforts for the ‘new Mandiant,’ and scaling services on a global basis are expensive endeavors.”
Read the rest of the article here.
It shouldn’t be a surprise that our No.1 most-read story involved Microsoft. In fact, Microsoft reportedly is interested in acquiring Mandiant, which rebranded from FireEye last fall. Both Microsoft and Mandiant declined to comment. But Forrester’s Jeff Pollard didn’t hesitate and that’s why he made waves this week.
“Mandiant spent years locked into all the FireEye ecosystem of technologies, and only just opened up its services to non-FireEye technologies in the last year or so,” he said. “Mandiant finds itself with strong services offerings, but needs to play catch-up. Expanding its stable of intellectual property, marketing and sales efforts for the ‘new Mandiant,’ and scaling services on a global basis are expensive endeavors.”
Read the rest of the article here.
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 Barracuda, IBM, and TPx Communications.
We thought that the comments made by Hilary Gadda to be forthcoming about the channel. Check out the slideshow above to find Gadda’s remarks about market development funds (MDF). She doesn’t hold back.
This year is turning out to be a record breaker for M&A. Frank Rauch’s opinion about this surge is direct and gives a holistic view of how M&A activity is shaping the channel. Read further to find out what others have to say about deals, online marketplaces, cybersecurity and further topics. Also, don’t miss out on the most-read story of the week.
And 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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