7 Channel People Making Waves This Week at Kaseya, AT&T, Cohesity, More
Cloud-managed service is the fastest-growing area one analyst said in response to an MSP acquisition this week.
August 5, 2022
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Sanjay Poonen made waves for leaving VMware as its COO to become Cohesity’s CEO and president. He had spent seven years at VMware and had prior leadership positions at SAP, Symantec and Informatica. Poonen was tapped to take Cohesity to its next phase of growth and some experts suggest that the company is considering a major venture such as an IPO.
Go here to read more from Jeffrey Schwartz’s reporting.
Kaseya has dominated the news cycle since its acquisition of Datto. And news that Dan Tomaszewski has been appointed the company’s executive vice president of the channel also made waves this week. The role he fills is a new one for Kaseya. Tomaszewski will work on various new programs to support the MSP community. He will take their feedback and ensure a persistent focus to amplify their voice, the company said.
Read what Kaseya’s CEO had to say about the appointment.
Huntress has discovered more evidence that MSPs remain an attractive supply chain target for hackers.
Most recently, Huntress researchers discovered an ad posted on July 18 on an exploit[.]in forum from a user with the name “Beeper” looking for a partner to help process stolen data from over 50 MSP customers, 100 VMware ESXi servers and more than 1,000 servers. The hacker boasted a “high profit share,” with only little left to do before exploiting the data.
Harlan Carvey is Huntress’ senior incident responder for research and development and made waves for identifying details of the ad, which appeared in Russian.
“When the Russian was translated into English, it was pretty clear that somebody had gained access to what they described as an MSP. And it appears that they had access to the customer management portal or something similar, and were able to identify up to 50 customers,” Carvey said.
Read more about the international warnings urging MSPs to prepare for malicious hackers.
As a former Vonage executive with prior experience at Google, Alan Masarek is a well-known name in the channel. Now he’s the new president and CEO of Avaya, and the reason Masarek made waves this week.
Bill Watkins is chairman of Avaya’s board.
“We are thrilled to welcome Alan as president and CEO,” Watkins said. “Alan is a proven transformational leader, and after a rigorous search process, the board is confident that Alan is the ideal choice to lead the company into the future. We look forward to benefiting from his decades of industry expertise as we take the next steps to position the company for long-term success.”
There are a lot of expectations.
Read here to learn more about Masarek ’s UCaaS, CCaaS and CPaaS experience.
Google Cloud recently announced the Cloud Analytics project by the MITRE Engenuity Center for Threat-Informed Defense.
Security analytics is complex. It requires knowledge of diverse security signals from different cloud providers along with their specific schemas. In addition, it demands familiarity with adversary behaviors in cloud environments.
Roy Arsan is cloud solutions architect at Google. He made waves for attempting to simplify the topic.
“The Cloud Analytics project aims to make cloud-based threat detection development easier while also consolidating collective findings from real-world deployments.”
Need more details? Read about the project here.
AT&T Business CEO Anne Chow, a 32-year veteran of the carrier and an advocate for the channel, is retiring. Chow was the company’s first woman of color CEO and often proclaimed AT&T’s commitment to the channel. She made waves for many things throughout her career, including always supporting partners. She was quoted once as saying:
“Our growth strategy is one which is based on expanding our coverage of the market. We want to do that not just through our direct sales force, but we want to do that through channel partners.”
Learn more about Chow’s three decades of service to AT&T.
ATSG has acquired Vology, both MSPs. Officials from the companies could not be reached for comment by publication time this week but ATSG was likely attracted by Vology’s robust cloud practice.
Anurag Agrawal is founder and chief global analyst at Techaisle. Anurag made waves for his assessment of the deal, placing it in a larger context.
“Cloud-managed service is the fastest-growing area, especially cloud assessment, optimization and migration services,” said Agrawal. “[The rumored acquisition] is an excellent strategic initiative by ATSG to diversify its security and communications managed services.”
He added it is a play to address the needs of upmarket segments and drive services revenue.
Learn more about the deal and the background of both companies here.
ATSG has acquired Vology, both MSPs. Officials from the companies could not be reached for comment by publication time this week but ATSG was likely attracted by Vology’s robust cloud practice.
Anurag Agrawal is founder and chief global analyst at Techaisle. Anurag made waves for his assessment of the deal, placing it in a larger context.
“Cloud-managed service is the fastest-growing area, especially cloud assessment, optimization and migration services,” said Agrawal. “[The rumored acquisition] is an excellent strategic initiative by ATSG to diversify its security and communications managed services.”
He added it is a play to address the needs of upmarket segments and drive services revenue.
Learn more about the deal and the background of both companies here.
Channel people at Kaseya, AT&T Business, Cohesity 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.
There’s something that feels good when someone retires after three decades with a company. It demonstrates grit, tenacity, loyalty and leadership. We feature a woman who spent 32 years at AT&T. She wasn’t just dedicated to the company. She was a champion for the channel. Check out our slideshow above to find out who and about her legacy.
Speaking of legacy, there’s a new CEO in town who will need to craft a vision for Avaya. Read on to find out how his background may be an asset to the company.
Also, we would be remiss if we didn’t talk about cybersecurity and MSPs. The industry has never been immune to cyberattacks but it appears that MSPs may be more vulnerable to them now. An expert at Huntress discusses in this roundup one recent target and how MSPs should prepare for malicious hackers.
Finally, if you didn’t catch our last edition, you can find it here.
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