7 Channel People Making Waves This Week at NEC, VMware, Cisco, Viakoo, More
AT&T might want to sell the cybersecurity unit that it acquired in 2018 for $600 million.
March 3, 2023
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GigaOm assessed 19 vendors and how they performed in different markets its latest Radar for Software-Defined Wide Area Networks. Nine vendors landed in the analyst firm’s “Leader” quadrant. Aryaka, Cato Networks, Cradlepoint, Fortinet, HPE Aruba, Palo Alto Networks, Nokia, Versa and VMware claimed that honor.
The report’s author said enterprises are seeking to cut down on costs and drive flexibility with “fully integrated networking solutions.” As a result, vendors have brought together security and networking solutions into platforms with terms like secure access service edge (SASE), secure service edge (SSE) and what GigaOm calls secure service access (SSA).
The result is a “blurred” SD-WAN marketplace.
Resourcive president Kyle Hall, who also advises on SD-WAN, made waves when he said SD-WAN has not been undermined by SASE. He pointed instead to a changing customer conversation.
“I would say that technology leaders are having a discussion that is more encompassing than the ones that they were having two to three years ago. At the executive level, they are looking for a secure, reliable, high-performance network that requires as little of their staff’s dedicated time and attention as possible. We see SD-WAN as a component of that, but to maximize the value of the technology organizations need to consider adjacent point solutions that may be deployed or on a road map such as ZTNA, CASB, FWaaS and SWG,” Hall told Channel Futures.
Read more about the SD-WAN debate here.
ChatGPT, or more broadly generative AI, is everywhere these days, including the channel. In the article, we explore its impact on several facets of the industry, including unified communications, or UC.
Marc Hebner, senior vice president and head of enterprise business in the Americas at NEC, made waves for his AI and UC technology predictions. He suggested generative AI could recognize conference call participants verbally making plans for future meetings. The AI-backed tool could then “automatically kick [you] out a meeting invite.” Or the tool could digest massive amounts of information and even make value judgements about the key points of a call. These are just some of the ways Hebner said he sees Microsoft applying ChatGPT to the UC space.
Get more insight here from the experts about his technological revolution.
VMware partners might be feeling a little uncertainty, given all the ups and downs regarding the pending $61 billion acquisition by Broadcom.
But there’s a lot happening at VMware that could assuage those fears, even though some change will inevitably occur once the transaction closes.
Channel Futures sat down with Ricky Cooper, head of the worldwide channel and commercial organization at VMware to get the scoop on what’s been in the works and what’s on the horizon.
What is Cooper planning for partners? For starters, VMware has opened its commercial division to partner-led sales.
Now that VMware has gone through the Dell divestiture and introduced new commercial-level products including vSAN+ and vSphere+, debuting last June, executives decided it was time for a change. So, at the beginning of February, they shifted commercial sales to the partner-led model. Some internal sales experts will stay on the commercial team, but a number of them will move “up the stack a little bit,” Cooper said.
Learn more here about the changes that are in store at VMware.
Cisco is acquiring Valtix, a multicloud network security platform as a service, to increase its cloud security capabilities. The deal should close by April 30.
Cisco isn’t disclosing financial details of the transaction.
“This is a central principle for our vision for the Cisco Security Cloud, a global, cloud-delivered, integrated networking and security platform for organizations of any shape and size,” said Raj Chopra, senior vice president and chief product officer for Cisco Security.
“In alignment with that vision, Cisco is excited to announce our intent to acquire Valtix, a privately held cloud network security company founded in 2018.”
Discover more about Cisco’s role as a prior strategic investor in Valtix.
Dish Network attempted to recover this week from a widespread outage it now attributes to a cyberattack in which personal information was likely stolen by the malicious hacker(s).
In a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing, Dish said the network outage affected internal servers and IT telephony. It also said the threat actor(s) extracted certain data from its IT systems.
Bud Broomhead is CEO of Viakoo, a provider of automated IoT cyber hygiene. He said attacks of this nature where both employees and customers are impacted highlight the need to build in resiliency and enforce network segmentation.
Broomhead made waves when he said:
“That threat actors gained access to a system is one thing,” he said. “But for them to gain near-total control is another. That the attackers got this far is both a testament to the weapons they were using and also to the weakness of the defenses.”
Learn why the Dish outage may have been easier to accomplish due to legacy network access technologies.
European Union antitrust officials plan to slap Broadcom with a warning for anticompetitive practices they believe could come with Broadcom’s acquisition of VMware.
Reuters reported that the European Commission will lay out a statement of objection to the $61 billion merger in the coming weeks.
The massive acquisition, which drastically accelerates the chipmaker’s expansion into software, would come with serious implications from the channel. The integration will reportedly focus VMware’s channel more on SMB customer accounts, as Broadcom seeks to focus on 600 large accounts, from which VMware draws about 70% of its recurring revenue.
That said, the European Commission’s concerns are over Broadcom’s potential ability to undermine competition.
“We are concerned that after the merger, Broadcom could prevent its hardware rivals to interoperate with VMware’s server virtualization software,” said Margrethe Vestager, executive vice president of competition policy. “This would lead to higher prices, lower quality and less innovation for customers and consumers.”
Find out more about what activities the EC has engaged in.
It’s not a surprise if AT&T wants to sell its cybersecurity unit as the carrier has struggled to match industry expectations for the unit following its acquisition of AlienVault in 2018.
Reuters reported AT&T is looking to sell its cybersecurity division. It said AT&T has been working with Barclays to solicit potential bids for its cybersecurity business. AT&T acquired AlienVault in a roughly $600 million deal.
Once the acquisition was complete, AlienVault became AT&T Cybersecurity.
Adam Etherington is principal analyst of digital enterprise services at Omdia. He said there are a vast number of platform, appliance and service companies in the security space.
He made waves when he said: “I believe this possible move by AT&T is just the beginning. Consolidation is inevitable among service providers.”
Find out here why consolidation is expected.
It’s not a surprise if AT&T wants to sell its cybersecurity unit as the carrier has struggled to match industry expectations for the unit following its acquisition of AlienVault in 2018.
Reuters reported AT&T is looking to sell its cybersecurity division. It said AT&T has been working with Barclays to solicit potential bids for its cybersecurity business. AT&T acquired AlienVault in a roughly $600 million deal.
Once the acquisition was complete, AlienVault became AT&T Cybersecurity.
Adam Etherington is principal analyst of digital enterprise services at Omdia. He said there are a vast number of platform, appliance and service companies in the security space.
He made waves when he said: “I believe this possible move by AT&T is just the beginning. Consolidation is inevitable among service providers.”
Find out here why consolidation is expected.
Channel people at NEC, VMware, Cisco, Viakoo 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.
First up, Dish Network. The company is making efforts this week to recover from a widespread outage now attributed to a cyberattack. Personal information was stolen and threat actors extracted data from the company’s IT systems. It may have been easier to accomplish this attack because of the company’s use of legacy technologies.
Regarding security on a different front, the SVP and chief product officer for Cisco Security is excited about the company’s acquisition of Valtix. The multicloud network security platform as a service will increase Cisco’s cloud security capabilities.
Finally, the European Commission made our roundup in the No. 2 most-read story of the week. The EC will lay out a statement of objection in the upcoming weeks to the $61 billion acquisition of VMware.
And that’s a wrap. 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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