7 Channel People Making Waves This Week at Canalys, VMware, Forrester, Check Point, More
AWS Marketplace will make the hyperscaler a top 10 global distributor by the year 2025.
December 23, 2022
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Channel Futures has confirmed that Frank Rauch, one of the channel’s most visible, prominent and longest-running leaders, is making waves by leaving Check Point Software Technologies at the end of December.
He’s ending his run as the company’s head of worldwide channel sales to build the channel program for an emerging player in the communications and technology industry. Rauch spent four years at Check Point.
Rauch did not want to comment on his exit. However, one source said that Rauch “changed the game, pivoting from network security to cloud security, to end user security and formalizing a managed services program and introduced professional services to partners of Check Point.”
Learn more about Rauch’s experience, including his time at VMware and HP.
Organizations can navigate next year’s anticipated weak economy by implementing AI and automation, and protecting themselves from cyber threats.
Such optimism was the prevailing view among attendees at last week’s Disruptive Innovators CIO Winter Forum in New York.
Jay Modh, CEO of managed services provider Intuitive.Cloud, is among those that are bullish. Modh made waves when he told the audience that despite the macroeconomic situations of layoffs in the tech industry, “we’ve got the call for unlimited hiring. There are not enough people I can hire to deliver engagement and projects that we have, given the amount of customers are putting to us.”
Learn what other tech executives had to say at the forum about economic projections.
The CF lists are popular features at Channel Futures. Our No. 5 story of the week is “2022’s 20 Zero Trust Security Providers You Should Know”.
Cybersecurity providers have been busy this year. More organizations have adopted zero trust security, including zero trust network access (ZTNA), with the continuing onslaught of cyberattacks against companies of all sizes.
Heath Mullins is a senior analyst with Forrester. He made waves when he said zero-trust security adoption has increased this year.
“The U.S. federal market is rapidly adopting zero trust principles, strategies and architecture,” Mullins said. “This adoption has primarily been driven by executive orders and Office of Management and Budget (OMB) memos. Highly regulated industries (infrastructure, energy, financials and medical) are taking a closer look as they may have to follow suit in the next three-to-five years.”
He added: “It seems that every security vendor has a zero-trust story. And they are not shy about sharing it. This is both a blessing and a curse. Zero trust is an all-encompassing architecture. So I don’t consider vendor alignment with zero trust principles to be a bad thing. It does, however, create confusion for the client.”
Learn more about zero trust and how vendors are increasingly entering the zero-trust market.
As the Broadcom-VMware merger efforts march on, VMware this week officially named the replacements for the three top R&D execs who just left the amid the pending acquisition. The company also has added a fourth leader.
For example, Jason Rolleston, vice president and general manager, now leads the company’s Security Business Unit. He hails from vendors including McAfee, Cisco and Symantec. He has worked for VMware for three years. Rolleston made waves for taking on ownership of VMware’s security strategy and the Carbon Black portfolio.
“Excited and honored to take over as the General Manager for VMware Carbon Black,” Rolleston wrote on LinkedIn. “I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the past 15 months leading product management and working with my peers to accelerate our innovation. Looking forward to making a broader impact and helping to chart the path forward for Carbon Black.”
Catch Kelly Teal’s reporting to find out who left VMware and who is replacing them.
Broadcom’s pending VMware acquisition has hit a temporary snag.
The European Commission, the competition branch of the European Union, will indeed launch a full-scale antitrust investigation into the $61 billion deal.
It’s a delay Broadcom was working to avoid. Broadcom had hoped regulators would give the company an early thumbs-up for the VMware acquisition based on the dominating presence of Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud in Europe. The company said it would offer a competitive option to those firms.
It seems Broadcom didn’t quite quash regulators’ fears. As such, sources close to the matter told Reuters that a four-month-long investigation will take place. The fear is that Broadcom will raise prices and make it harder for customers to move off VMware platforms, in terms of both money and time.
Hock Tan, Broadcom’s CEO, has made waves by addressing the pricing issue in two blogs so far.
“Following the close of the transaction, we will invest in and innovate VMware’s products so we can sell even more of them and grow the VMware business within enterprises, deepening and expanding the footprint instead of potentially raising prices,” Tan wrote.
Read more our reporting about how Tan said his company is making progress.
Channel Futures’ mega trends is an exciting new editorial initiative we’ve designed to identify the biggest issues confronting the channel in the coming year. These are the trends that matter most to those who sell IT and communications solutions to customers. At the same time, we expect them to offer guidance to the senior-most leaders of technology suppliers and other vendors on how to steer their partner networks.
We’ve derived these mega trends from discussions with partners, key channel analysts, IT and technology services distributors, vendors and more.
For one of those trends, we interview Jay McBain, chief analyst at Canalys.
Research firm Canalys is predicting growth in the AWS Marketplace will make the hyperscaler a top 10 global distributor by the year 2025. Also, there’s the rise in cybersecurity vendors selling in cloud marketplaces.
McBain made waves when he predicted that several are reporting 600% growth year over year, and by 2025, “cloud marketplaces will grow to over US $45 billion — double our pre-pandemic forecast, representing an 86% CAGR.”
Go here to read about the 10 predictions Channel Futures has made for the coming year.
Avaya could be nearing a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing. This is in a bid to revamp its business and to overcome accounting problems.
People familiar with the matter said there was substantial doubt about the company’s “ability to continue” considering a debt maturity next year, the Wall Street Journal reported.
As part of the conversation around restructuring, Avaya has not made any indications that it would abandon its on-premises client base for a cloud-only option for customers. However, some businesses are concerned about the cloud-centered, subscription-focused model as the answer to financial woes.
Scott Graham is CIO for Continuant, an MSP and systems integrator operating in the enterprise unified communications and collaboration space. Continuant services many of Avaya’s on-premises customers and has done so for 27 years.
Graham made wave when he said Avaya’s financial concerns are hanging over clients’ heads.
“It has caused them to think, ‘Do we need to start changing our plans and look for an exit ramp here?’” he said.
Read more about the circumstances that surround the company’s potential Chapter 11 filing and what sources had to say.
Avaya could be nearing a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing. This is in a bid to revamp its business and to overcome accounting problems.
People familiar with the matter said there was substantial doubt about the company’s “ability to continue” considering a debt maturity next year, the Wall Street Journal reported.
As part of the conversation around restructuring, Avaya has not made any indications that it would abandon its on-premises client base for a cloud-only option for customers. However, some businesses are concerned about the cloud-centered, subscription-focused model as the answer to financial woes.
Scott Graham is CIO for Continuant, an MSP and systems integrator operating in the enterprise unified communications and collaboration space. Continuant services many of Avaya’s on-premises customers and has done so for 27 years.
Graham made wave when he said Avaya’s financial concerns are hanging over clients’ heads.
“It has caused them to think, ‘Do we need to start changing our plans and look for an exit ramp here?’” he said.
Read more about the circumstances that surround the company’s potential Chapter 11 filing and what sources had to say.
Channel people at Canalys, VMware, Forrester, Check Point and more are among the individuals making waves this week. Channel Futures’ Channel People Making Waves showcases those who have made an impact over the last seven days. (See our slideshow above.) It’s also a recap of the most-read stories on our website.
Our No. 1 story of the week follows up on reporting from the Wall Street Journal that a prominent UCaaS company may be filing for chapter 11. If true, this would be the second time in matter of five years that this firm has filed for bankruptcy. For the article, we examined our reporting from previous years to see if it would provide any insight into the company’s current circumstances. There were definitely some parallels.
Another one of the stories to make the roundup involves a longtime channel leader leaving Check Point Software this month. The company is losing a tremendous asset, said sources, as the leader “changed the game, pivoting from network security to cloud security, to end user security and formalizing a managed services program and introduced professional services to partners of Check Point.”
Speaking of leaving, top executives have departed VMware. However, the company promoted Jason Rolleston to take ownership of VMware’s security strategy. He’ll be responsible for the company’s Carbon Black portfolio.
From Forrester to Canalys and more, that’s a wrap for the week. And, if you didn’t catch our previous edition, you can find it here.
Lastly, happy holidays.
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