7 Channel People Making Waves This Week at HP, IBM, Microsoft, Rackspace, More
“When we started thinking about how we want to engage with AWS, we wanted to do it in a very collaborative way with our resellers.” Who said this?
September 2, 2022
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HP held its annual partner roadshow, HP Amplify Executive Forum, this week, introducing a series of new partner benefits around collaboration, training and community engagement. The company announced the updates to the Amplify Partner Program at the vendor’s annual partner roadshow, HP Amplify Executive Forum, on Thursday.
The face-to-face event was HP’s first in three years. The roadshow opened in Palo Alto, California, with events scheduled for Dubai and Amsterdam.
Kobi Elbaz is general manager of HP’s global channel organization. Elbaz made waves when he told the audience that partners that leverage actionable intelligence experience faster growth versus those that don’t.
“All the studies show that channel partners that put data-driven decisions in front of the customer first, increases conversion. Second, it increases customer satisfaction,” he said.
To learn more from HP Amplify Executive Forum, read Christine Horton’s reporting here.
Channel partners can earn margins when reselling or deploying IBM software via the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Marketplace. An initiative launched by the two companies aims to neutralize conflict between IBM channel partners and AWS.
David La Rose, general manager of IBM’s channel sales organization, made waves for addressing partner concerns.
“They were seeing their topline revenue being impacted by some of the hyperscalers, particularly AWS,” La Rose said. “When we started thinking about how we want to engage with AWS, we wanted to do it in a very collaborative way with our resellers.”
The new program aims to remove friction between channel partners and clients with enterprise commitments with AWS.
Who are the other major IT players eyeing cloud marketplaces? Learn more here.
Rackspace will not divest part of its business, concluding an exploration that included talks with at least one buyer.
The Texas-based cloud services company publicly confirmed the growing sentiment that it would remain a single company. Rackspace chief marketing officer Casey Shilling made waves when she told the San Antonio Express-News this week that Rackspace doesn’t plan to divest or spin off any assets.
“We did evaluate several strategic options, including an inbound interest. We decided that continuing to execute our strategy in the hypergrowth multicloud market as a standalone company is our best path forward for value creation,” Shilling said.
Learn more from the company’s earnings call and about its realignment here.
Snowflake is buying Applica, a small company that offers an AI-based text and document automation platform. The news comes as Snowlake surprises investors with better-than-expected results.
Revenues for Snowflake’s fiscal second quarter topped $497 million, rose 83% and surpassed consensus estimates of $467.5 million. Product revenue of $466 million exceeded expectations in the $435 million-$440 million range. Remaining performance obligations (RPO) grew 78% during the quarter ending July 31, totaling $2.7 billion.
Snowflake expects to recognize approximately 57% of that RPO as revenue during the next 12 months. That represents a 79% increase compared to the same period last year. Like many companies, foreign currency rates have impacted some results, but Snowflake CFO Mike Scarpelli made waves for noting it was negligible.
“Less than 5% of our revenue is invoiced in currencies other than the U.S. dollar,” he said.
Learn more about the Applica acquisition here.
The technology adviser partner, more traditionally known as the telecom agent, is going through an evolution of its model.
Agents have quietly been picking up momentum in the world of business technology procurement over the last decade. These firms historically built loyal client relationships by serving as their carrier-neutral intermediary to a variety of network and voice providers free of charge. Those efforts have helped them amass a wealth of residual commissions from vendors that continue to this day.
But now a succession crisis is occurring, as many agent owners launched their firms more than 20 years ago and now are looking for a way to retire.
Darcee Nelan is CEO of IQ Wired. Nelan made waves for addressing the problem head on.
“The agent model has been changing for years. As the convergence of telecommunications and IT services has progressed in recent years, we no longer have clear swim lanes that guide our positions in the marketplace,” she said. “Customers, now more than ever, are overwhelmed with the amount of choices they have available to them when considering technology changes. This situates us as agents in an enviable position to leverage our roles as trusted advisers in helping customers vet their service options.”
Go here to read more from James Anderson’s interview with Nelan.
This week, VMware CEO Raghu Raghuram provided a brief update on the company’s highly anticipated $61 billion acquisition by Broadcom.
Raghuram said VMware is in the discovery process in terms of how partners, customers and others will be impacted by the acquisition. The company announced the acquisition in May; it should close in Broadcom’s 2023 fiscal year, which starts in November.
Raghuram made waves for his assurances that Broadcom is “spending this time understanding every aspect of the business,” he said. “Obviously the channel is a huge, huge part of our business. And they’re super excited about using that channel in the ways that we are doing today and growing from there. So that’s where we are with this picture, in what we are calling the discovery portion of the integration planning, where they can understand our business.”
Read more from Edward Gately’s reporting.
New Microsoft licensing terms will take effect Oct. 1. Several significant changes, which the software giant recently revealed, apply to the Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) program.
Among them, MSPs can no longer use Microsoft’s Services Provider Licensing Agreements (SPLA) to buy software. Microsoft is changing the SPLA terms because the company never intended partners to use the program outside of their hosting operations. Although the new SPLA rule takes effect in October, partners will have three years to transition outsourced hosting licenses.
Microsoft chief partner officer Nicole Dezen made waves for her enthusiasm about the new licensing terms.
“Traditional outsourcers and data center providers will benefit from this change, and it will help foster the hosting partner ecosystem,” Dezen said. “Partners have asked Microsoft to simplify licensing and to expand the range of products that can be offered to customers at fixed pricing for longer terms, and we’ve responded.”
Learn more about how Microsoft is utilizing partner feedback.
New Microsoft licensing terms will take effect Oct. 1. Several significant changes, which the software giant recently revealed, apply to the Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) program.
Among them, MSPs can no longer use Microsoft’s Services Provider Licensing Agreements (SPLA) to buy software. Microsoft is changing the SPLA terms because the company never intended partners to use the program outside of their hosting operations. Although the new SPLA rule takes effect in October, partners will have three years to transition outsourced hosting licenses.
Microsoft chief partner officer Nicole Dezen made waves for her enthusiasm about the new licensing terms.
“Traditional outsourcers and data center providers will benefit from this change, and it will help foster the hosting partner ecosystem,” Dezen said. “Partners have asked Microsoft to simplify licensing and to expand the range of products that can be offered to customers at fixed pricing for longer terms, and we’ve responded.”
Learn more about how Microsoft is utilizing partner feedback.
Channel people at HP, IBM, Microsoft, Rackspace 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.)
We start with the top story first. This one involved simplifying licensing agreements. Partners demanded changes and got them from this tech giant. Since this was our most-read story the week, we won’t mention which company it was. You probably already know. Regardless, the article is worth looking over and may inspire action among partners seeking change at other organizations.
It wouldn’t be a proper rollout of People Making Waves if there weren’t at least one acquisition to mention. Snowflake, known for its data platform, has acquired Applica, an AI-based text and document automation platform. We can’t cover every acquisition imaginable, but this one was notable because of the company’s recent earnings report.
Finally, the traditional telecom agent is going through an evolution of its model. At play is that fact that many agent owners launched their firms more than 20 years ago and are looking to retire. Senior news editor James Anderson delves into that and more in his interview with the CEO of IQ Wired.
And, if you didn’t catch our previous edition, 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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