7 Channel People of the Week at Intelisys, OpenText, Cisco

Artificial intelligence has been a major focus of vendors who play in the channel for the past year, and some claim to have been dabbling in it for much longer.

Cisco is posturing itself as being ahead of its time when it comes to AI and collaboration. Kristyn Hogan, VP of global collaboration partner sales at Cisco, noted how her company took advantage of AI's potential in 2020 when it used it to cancel out noise over VoIP transmissions.

AI is one of the company's "big buckets," Hogan emphasized, one of two that help its customers. The other is the "contact center, driving customer experience. And since every one of our customers has customers, we want that to get powered by a Cisco contact center," Hogan said.

Check out Hogan's interview with Channel Futures.

Canada-based information management and security company OpenText stated in a recent filing that it was laying off 1,200 of its 24,000 staff, or an estimated 5% of its workforce. The layoffs will reportedly help the company save more than $150 million in fiscal year 2025, but OpenText has vowed to add 800 jobs in the near future. By the end of the company's reorganization., OpenText expects only a 1.7% reduction in workforce.

“In further support of OpenText 3.0, today we announced a business optimization plan focused on placing the right talent in the right locations of our business, funding growth and innovations, and completing these objectives with higher productivity, lower cost and expanded margin,” OpenText CEO Mark Barrenechea wrote in a blog.

Learn more about OpenText's layoffs.

Juniper Networks is fired up to better compete with Cisco. That should come via all the benefits it gets from its pending acquisition by HPE.

Tom Wilburn, global VP of campus and branch networking at Juniper, at an event in London this week said HPE hopes to leverage Juniper's cloud-based AI structure to beat Cisco.

“This is not just software,” he said. “This is a system. Its purpose-built hardware and software, designed to get the right telemetry from the user experience. And then to have AI to do something smart with all that data.”

Hear more of Wilburn's thoughts and Juniper's work to compete against other networking behemoths.

IBM Consulting and Microsoft have teamed up to bolster their cybersecurity collaboration and help clients strengthen their security technology. The two companies began combining their products and investing in joint go-to-market initiatives that will support their new offerings.

"As digital transformation accelerates across every industry, organizations require a comprehensive, unified approach to cloud security that protects their entire enterprise from the chip to the cloud," said Alym Rayani, Microsoft’s vice president of security marketing. "Our partnership with IBM Consulting makes it easier for clients to securely harness the power of the cloud and AI to drive business innovation."

Learn more about the companies' partnership.

Broadcom's acquisition of VMware has left many in the channel worried about, among many things, fallout arising from changes in products. Other partners in the space have already begun the process of seeking alternatives. HPE and Veeam are offering alternatives in order to replace the gap left after the deal.

“This is almost like discussing ransomware or cyber threats. There's no organization on the planet that isn't considering how they should respond. What do they do?” said Dave Russell, Veeam SVP and head of strategy. “That's true even if you're a large organization that made a multiyear renewal with either VMware directly before the acquisition closed, or now after Broadcom closed the deal. Our activity has really been around offering choice, reminding people we are the most deployed protection solution on vSphere. We have the majority of backed up data from vSphere under Veeam management.”

Learn more about the channel's adjustments

VMware's End User Computing unit is now Omnissa, a rebranding that comes after KKR bought the division from Broadcom post VMware acquisition.

“We are now an independent software company, with a unique combination of talent, technology and ecosystem assets exclusively focused on empowering transformative workspace experiences for customers and partners around the world,” Omnissa CEO Shankar Iyer wrote in a blog.

Get the full scoop from Iyer about Omnissa's plans.

Intelisys, a ScanSource company, has appointed Ken Mills as its new president. Mills is a former Epic iO executive. This comes nine months after the tech services distributor's last president left his role.

Mills will bring nearly 25 years of experience managing technology companies like Dell Technologies and Cisco, as well as a period at at the State Department.

"I've always been a very big proponent of the channel and how it can really help the suppliers scale," Mills told Channel Futures. "I spent the last four years at a supplier, working very closely with Intelisys and with the advisory channel, and helping grow that business significantly since 2020. But when this opportunity came about, I have liked where the channel is and where ScanSource is, and the culture that ScanSource has built, and the way that ScanSource is running as a company. It really appealed to me to want to be a part of the organization and help us get to the next chapter."

Read our interview with Mills and ScanSource CEO Mike Baur.

Intelisys, a ScanSource company, has appointed Ken Mills as its new president. Mills is a former Epic iO executive. This comes nine months after the tech services distributor's last president left his role.

Mills will bring nearly 25 years of experience managing technology companies like Dell Technologies and Cisco, as well as a period at at the State Department.

"I've always been a very big proponent of the channel and how it can really help the suppliers scale," Mills told Channel Futures. "I spent the last four years at a supplier, working very closely with Intelisys and with the advisory channel, and helping grow that business significantly since 2020. But when this opportunity came about, I have liked where the channel is and where ScanSource is, and the culture that ScanSource has built, and the way that ScanSource is running as a company. It really appealed to me to want to be a part of the organization and help us get to the next chapter."

Read our interview with Mills and ScanSource CEO Mike Baur.