April's Top 20 Stories: HPE AI, VMware Answers, Lumen Layoffs
April's top 20 stories on Channel Futures feature AI talk from HPE and AWS, answers to ScanSource and VMware questions, and more. But what was No. 1?
![Channel Futures' Top 20 stories in April Channel Futures' Top 20 stories in April](https://eu-images.contentstack.com/v3/assets/blt10e444bce2d36aa8/bltc6665eeda20ac983/6523eb9eb64ed704d906720e/Top-20.jpg?width=700&auto=webp&quality=80&disable=upscale)
Sashkin/Shutterstock
A new software tool from Gradient MSP caught your eye last month.
Designed by the company to give MSPs automated and holistic data insights, "StackTracker" uses more than 60 integrations with PSA and RMM vendors to give partners a full range of data tracking.
No surprise that Gradient MSP is calling it a "game-changer." The company says this SaaS product gives partners real-time visibility into how they and their customers use and consume their tech stack.
Learn more about this new tech.
There are plenty of challenges out there for managed service providers trying to protect their clients from cyberattacks.
ConnectWise released its 2024 MSP Threat Report, highlighting the prevalence of ransomware attacks, endpoint protection for remote workers and the end-of-life for Windows Server 2012.
Here's where you can get into the nitty-gritty of how MSPs can protect their customers from these threats.
Partners don't like to see their margins cut, and that's exactly what happened last month for those selling Google Workspace solutions. They will drop at the time of contract renewal from 20% to 12%.
But is this not a bad thing?
The tech giant at the same time is increasing incentives for acquiring new customers. One analyst told us that Google Cloud Platform is "making a strategic move to empower partners in the AI revolution."
Get the full scoop on what he means.
News of distributor ScanSource's plans to establish a new subsidiary that would sell technology to end users continued to reverberate through the channel in April.
We broke the news in our original article on the company's plans, formally announced at the Channel Partners Conference & Expo, then followed it up by answering 10 burning questions about the deal.
The biggest concerns came from partners of Intelisys, the tech services distributor that ScanSource bought in 2018. Many see this "NewCo" as an entity that would compete with them, but one tech advisor weighed in on the Coffee with Craig and James podcast to say "not so fast."
AI seems to be all the rage, and it's no different at Hewlett Packard Enterprise.
We sat in on the company's recent shareholder meeting where CEO Antonio Neri said it is uniquely positioned to become a leader in artificial intelligence.
He challenged the assertion that HPE's competitors are in the lead, noting that "HPE has a unique portfolio that covers all the aspects of AI, which is training, tuning, and inferencing.”
No doubt HPE's pending acquisition of Juniper Networks and its Mist AI platform will help it keep up with − or perhaps surpass − the Joneses.
Read more about what Neri said.
Google Cloud handed out its annual partner awards at its Next event in Las Vegas last month. So who rose to the top of GCP mountain? Or more appropriately, who had their head in the clouds?
Consultancy Cognizant, for one, which won GCP's Global Breakthrough award. CloudWerx earned the same honor for North America.
There were a lot more, including SADA, recently acquired by Insight, as partner of the year for global sales.
You can check out more of the list here.
Despite kicking off its Kaseya Connect event right at the end of the month, the IT management software provider squeezed into the top 15 in our countdown.
Notably, you were interested in Kaseya 365, the company's new subscription program that CEO Fred Voccola calls a "game-changer" for MSPs. It includes data protection, security, management and automation, to name a few. Voccola says the program will give MSPs a tremendous financial and operational advantage over their peers.
This wasn't the only Kaseya news attracting our readers' eyes last month. You were still checking out an article from last year where Voccola promised news in 2024 that would make the company's massive Datto acquisition "seem insignificant" (we think he was referring to Kaseya 365) and reports of a small staff reduction at Kaseya.
Broadcom CEO Hock Tan, the man at the center of his company's controversial acquisition of VMware and subsequent fallout in the shuttered VMware partner program, addressed some questions "head on," as he put it, in a blog.
The exec, whom Channel Futures named as its Influencer of the Year for his channel-impacting decisions, tackled questions around Broadcom's treatment of VMware, from innovation and pricing, to subscriptions and channel partners.
“Early in this process, I concluded that the previous go-to-market model was too complex and costly for VMware and its customers,” wrote Tan. “It demonstrated that all too often, as innovative companies expand, decisions are made incrementally, not holistically as part of a larger, comprehensive strategy.”
Read what else this controversial CEO had to say.
Enterprise Connect, owned and operated by Informa, Channel Futures' parent company, drew big crowds to check out the latest innovations in communications and collaborations solutions, as well as their impact on customers.
We took you inside the vast expo hall where the likes of Zoom, Verizon, Genesys and many more household names in the industry set up booths. See who was there.
Splunk's lawsuit against Cribl over copyright and patent infringement created a war of words between the companies, with Cribl saying Splunk was "just waging lawfare."
Splunk said former employees took code without permission or a license to their new employer.
A ruling in the case at the end of the month allowed both sides to claim victory. Splunk won, but was awarded just $1 in damages for copyright and contract violations.
One of just two articles about layoffs cracking our top 20 − unfortunately, we usually have more − AWS acknowledged shedding jobs. The cloud giant's SVP told staff via email that hundreds of job cuts would come to the sales, marketing and global services organization, as well as the Physical Stores Technology team.
That same news roundup featured cloud- and colocation-related M&A activity and news of cloud computing associations in Europe pursuing antitrust regulation against Broadcom.
Our monthly review of the biggest tech M&A impacting the channel featured Cisco closing its purchase of Splunk, ScanSource's plans to develop a subsidiary via M&A (which you read more about on slide four, No. 17 on our countdown) and Nitel's WAN Dynamics buy, which boosts its own SD-WAN expertise.
We break down those three and more here.
I'd say you're probably tired of hearing about generative AI, yet here's another post about it in our top stories countdown, so apparently not.
This time it's hyperscaler AWS telling a collection of partners at its summit in London that they are critical to the company's generative AI aspirations.
"Our generative AI strategy is 'partner-first'; if you look at every layer of the generative AI stack, we’ve got partners that we have launched and gone to market with. We do not launch solutions in generative AI without our partners," said Ruba Borno, VP of worldwide channels and alliances at AWS.
We dove deeper in this article.
Rubrik, the data security provider, filed paperwork with the Securities and Exchange Commission indicating its desire to become a public company. It's a move many had been anticipating since last summer.
But is it the right move? The company incurred heavy losses in its past two fiscal years.
[Rubrik's] current net losses will be a concern, especially given the focus of other publicly trading cybersecurity vendors to reduce costs by headcount and office space reductions," Matthew Ball, chief analyst at Canalys, an Informa company, told Channel Futures. "This could lead to a lower valuation. It will also face greater scrutiny on a quarterly basis to deliver short-term results.”
That said, Ball noted that a Rubrik IPO could wind up being a smart move since an IPO "can raise significant capital to accelerate its growth, while increasing its exposure to attract new customers and talent."
Distributors Arrow, Exclusive Networks and Promark Technology (part of Ingram Micro) are Rubrik's largest channel partners, accounting for three-quarters of Rubrik's sales.
The application for the 2024 Channel Futures MSP 501 just closed, whipping up your appetite once again to download the list of winners in the 2023 edition.
Here's where you can see those honorees. We will start to unveil the world's most comprehensive managed service provider rankings for 2024 on June 17.
Legislation in the European Union forced Microsoft to unbundle its Teams communications and collaboration service from its broader Microsoft 365 offering, meaning that it's no longer "free" within that bundle. The software giant said it would follow suit in North America.
This means a separate pricing agreement for 320 million Microsoft Teams users. New customers will have to buy Teams separately for $5.25 per user, per month.
Get into the pricier details and the channel impact here.
Who's getting hired and promoted where? As usual, you turned to Channel Futures for the answers.
Our monthly feature once against cracked the top five. This edition featured Channel People on the Move at Five9, Dell, ConnectWise, Intelisys and many more.
Many partners are starting to ask questions about low-Earth orbit satellites and the opportunity to sell internet connectivity from them.
While Viasat and Hughes have been well-known names in the channel for years, brands such as Elon Musk's Starlink are beginning to generate interest — and some tech services distributors such as Avant are sitting up and taking notice. That's because low-Earth orbit satellites promise more access (so more potential customers) and dramatically lower latency.
We investigated the channel opportunity in this article.
C1 (formerly ConvergeOne) filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in a move it hopes will reduce 80% of its debt and attract $245 million in new equity commitments.
C1, which sells IT, communications and collaboration solutions to enterprise customers, has focus areas that include cloud, security and networking. An S&P Global Ratings report downgraded the company last year, noting its struggle with supply chain problems, high interest rates and cash-flow issues.
The company made headlines in the channel last year for hiring John DeLozier, former Intelisys president and 8x8 channel leader, as chief revenue officer. DeLozier has since brought on several high-profile execs who are colleagues from his previous career stops.
Here's everything you need to know about the C1 bankruptcy filing.
The most-read article on Channel Futures in April was about layoffs − 1,000 in all − at channel stalwart Lumen Technologies. That amounts to about 7% of its workforce in "select parts of the company." Lumen said the majority of the cuts are "voluntary."
The reason for the cuts, according to the company, is to improve its debt positioning.
"Lumen is transforming itself and that often includes difficult changes. We are taking steps to reshape and right-size our business through automation and AI, aligning our resources to our new service delivery models and growth-oriented priorities," a Lumen spokesperson told Channel Futures.
New CEO Kate Johnson has been active in efforts to modernize the company and improve free cash flow. A restructuring last fall impacted 4% of employees.
You can find our full article here.
The most-read article on Channel Futures in April was about layoffs − 1,000 in all − at channel stalwart Lumen Technologies. That amounts to about 7% of its workforce in "select parts of the company." Lumen said the majority of the cuts are "voluntary."
The reason for the cuts, according to the company, is to improve its debt positioning.
"Lumen is transforming itself and that often includes difficult changes. We are taking steps to reshape and right-size our business through automation and AI, aligning our resources to our new service delivery models and growth-oriented priorities," a Lumen spokesperson told Channel Futures.
New CEO Kate Johnson has been active in efforts to modernize the company and improve free cash flow. A restructuring last fall impacted 4% of employees.
You can find our full article here.
April was a month in the channel once again dominated by talk of AI, cybersecurity threats, M&A and cloud.
One thing we continue to see less of, however, are stories about layoffs. While two feature prominently in our countdown this month, the tech industry seems to be stabilizing a bit from where we were earlier in the year.
AWS and HPE were at the forefront telling partners about their leadership in artificial intelligence.
Broadcom's CEO finally acknowledged some of the ramifications of his company buying VMware, answering some burning questions about it. ScanSource's CEO did the same concerning a controversial plan to establish a new subsidiary that some worry could compete with Intelisys.
Rubrik initiated plans to go public and the channel dealt with fallout from a ruling that will separate Microsoft Teams from the Microsoft 365 bundle.
Those are just a handful of the topics that comprise Channel Futures' top 20 stories from April. If you want your opinion heard in our countdown, it's simple. First, obviously, read Channel Futures. Second, subscribe to our newsletters. We compile our list by combining online traffic with results from our weekly and daily newsletters.
See the slideshow above to see what was most popular in April; then, if you missed it, check out our top 20 stories from March.
About the Author(s)
You May Also Like