7 Channel People Making Waves This Week at Pax8, Canalys, Microsoft, Splunk, More
Over 100,000 unfilled jobs for IT professionals have been eliminated.
February 3, 2023
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The industry’s worst-kept secret is finally out. Rob Rae, longtime channel leader at Datto, has some new digs.
Rae made waves for joining cloud and services distributor Pax8 to head up community and partner ecosystems. It’s a move the company hopes will bring more MSPs into its fold given the strong following Rae created at Datto.
Rae arrived at Datto in 2013 to help build the backup provider’s channel in its pre-IPO days. His move to Pax8 is reminiscent of Datto’s pre-IPO hypergrowth in the mid-2010s. Will lightning strike twice?
Channel Futures first reported Rae’s plans to leave Datto as the company’s $6.2 billion takeover by Kaseya neared the finish line. At Pax8, he will have the freedom to work with partners and vendors as the company works out a corporate structure. He initially will have no direct reports but expects that to change.
Learn more about Rae’s background and his plans at Pax8.
Microsoft Security has now surpassed $20 billion in annual revenue, making the business what one analyst calls a “serious contender” in various parts of the cyber market.
Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s CEO, highlighted the milestone during this week’s third-quarter fiscal year 2023 earnings call. Revenue from Microsoft Security totaled $10 billion in 2021 and $15 billion in 2022.
Vasu Jakkal is Microsoft‘s corporate vice president of security. She made waves by saying that Microsoft has an “unparalleled” view of the evolving threat landscape.
“With industry-leading artificial intelligence (AI), we synthesize 65 trillion signals a day — across all types of devices, apps, platforms and endpoints — a nearly eight times increase from the 8 trillion daily signals captured just two years ago,” she said. “And we apply the learnings from that signal intelligence, as well as from our world-class threat intelligence, into all the products and services we offer. Furthermore, we now have more than 15,000 partners working with us across our security ecosystem helping to bring better solutions and more choices to market.”
Learn why bundled sales packages are the ‘secret sauce’ at Microsoft.
Storage giant NetApp will lay off 960 employees during the next three months, amounting to 8% of its workforce. NetApp announced the planned layoffs in a filing on Tuesday with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
CEO George Kurian made waves when he said NetApp must reduce costs due to declining economic conditions resulting in more “conservative” IT spending. Kurian is the latest in a chorus of CEOs who have announced the need to reduce costs through massive layoffs.
“We are not immune to these challenges,” Kurian said in an email to employees. “Against this backdrop, we must be agile, deliver on our near-term commitments while positioning ourselves for long-term success.”
NetApp has instituted a hiring freeze and is reducing discretionary spending. Learn more here.
Layoffs dominated technology headlines in the first month of the year, and they haven’t spared the channel.
Channel Futures reported on no fewer than 15 companies slashing their workforces in January. TBI, Talkdesk and 8×8 were among those that specifically cut channel positions for one reason or another.
Tech giants Amazon, Google and Microsoft were among the biggest layoffs in pure numbers. Furthermore, layoffs significantly impacted most of their cloud units, where the channel plays prominently.
In a recent LinkedIn post, Canalys CEO Steve Brazier noted: “Channel partners will be relieved that vendors will be poaching far fewer of their staff in 2023. Indeed, the relative stability of the channel makes them attractive places to work right now.”
Alex Smith, VP channels at Canalys, made waves for agreeing that a benefit of the tech layoffs for partners is less employee-poaching by vendors.
“Anecdotally, it is one of the biggest challenges that partners faced during what was otherwise an excellent period (2021-2022). Vendor recruitment exploded during this time and that meant looking to both partners and customers for talent. Vendors can see those individuals that are certified on their products — and they are obvious targets. That activity will be far less this year,” Smith told Channel Futures.
Learn how the layoffs are impacting agents, cybersecurity vendors, the hyperscalers, EMEA and more.
AppDirect executives say their purchase of technology services distributor TBI creates the largest ecosystem in the tech advisor channel.
The B2B subscription commerce platform announced the acquisition of Chicago-based TBI on Wednesday. The deal unites one of the channel’s longest running tech services distributors (TSDs) in 32-year-old TBI with CDPQ-backed AppDirect, which has acquired a handful of tech services distributors (TSDs) over the last four years. The deal also represents another domino falling in the field of national TSDs, after PlanetOne and TCG agreed to deals last year. AppDirect beat out a competitive field of suitors, including multiple national TSDs and one IT distributor, to purchase TBI.
In the meantime, dozens of layoffs have already taken place at TBI.
When asked how AppDirect is handling duplicate roles, chief operating officer Renée Bergeron made waves when she told Channel Futures that AppDirect’s “tremendous growth base” will keep the company from having to choose in many cases. She pointed to StrataCore’s recent decision to move all of its operations to the AppDirect platform.
“There’s plenty of opportunity for people from TBI and from AppDirect,” she said. “The sheer size of the company and the pace at which we’re growing will really help us navigate through this.”
Link here to see more comments on the sale of TBI.
Splunk is another in a long line of tech companies initiating layoffs. These will affect approximately 325 employees, or 4% of its global workforce. Most of the cuts at the enterprise software provider will impact employees in North America.
Gary Steele is president and CEO at Splunk. He made waves when he noted that the layoffs are a difficult decision.
“Decisions of this nature have a significant human impact, and I don’t take that lightly,” Steele said, whose remarks were part of an SEC filing. “The people leaving the company are our fellow Splunkers, our friends, and have helped drive our success. I want to express my gratitude for the important contributions they’ve made to Splunk and to our customers.”
Find out more about whether the company will be hiring this year.
January saw tech companies announcing layoffs impacting thousands of workers as economic uncertainty continues with no light at the end of the tunnel.
Our layoff trackers are normally a biannual gallery, but in just one month nearly 20 companies doing business in the channel have announced layoffs. Salesforce, Amazon, Cisco, Microsoft and RingCentral are among companies that greeted the new year by pink-slipping workers. The cuts are in the hundreds, and in some cases, the thousands.
According to Janco and Associates, in a startling turn of events, over 100,000 unfilled jobs for IT professionals have been eliminated.
“The drop was unexpected,” said Janco CEO Victor Janulaitis. “The initial reports of positions eliminated were that they were focused on administrative and non-technical individuals. Reviewing the data, we now see that CIOs and hiring managers not only eliminated those non-technical positions but have also started putting the break on IT projects.”
Visit our layoff tracker to view the many job cuts that have occurred this year.
January saw tech companies announcing layoffs impacting thousands of workers as economic uncertainty continues with no light at the end of the tunnel.
Our layoff trackers are normally a biannual gallery, but in just one month nearly 20 companies doing business in the channel have announced layoffs. Salesforce, Amazon, Cisco, Microsoft and RingCentral are among companies that greeted the new year by pink-slipping workers. The cuts are in the hundreds, and in some cases, the thousands.
According to Janco and Associates, in a startling turn of events, over 100,000 unfilled jobs for IT professionals have been eliminated.
“The drop was unexpected,” said Janco CEO Victor Janulaitis. “The initial reports of positions eliminated were that they were focused on administrative and non-technical individuals. Reviewing the data, we now see that CIOs and hiring managers not only eliminated those non-technical positions but have also started putting the break on IT projects.”
Visit our layoff tracker to view the many job cuts that have occurred this year.
Channel people at Pax8, Canalys, Microsoft, Splunk 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.
This week was, again, about layoffs. There were so many occurring in the tech space that Channel Futures senior news editor Edward Gately created a layoff tracker just to keep all of them straight. What’s happening? Among other things, CIOs and hiring managers not only eliminated non-technical positions but have also started putting the brakes on IT projects, according to our sources.
Our third most-read story of the last seven days was about AppDirect’s purchase of technology services distributor TBI. The deal unites one of the channel’s longest running tech services distributors (TSDs) in 32-year-old TBI with CDPQ-backed AppDirect. As a result, dozens of layoffs have already occurred at TBI.
Finally, in news outside of the layoff world, we discussed how Microsoft has now surpassed $20 billion in annual revenue, making the business a serious contender in parts of the cyber market.
That’s a wrap. 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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