AT&T Partner Exchange: New Mobility Tools Mean Revenue Opportunities

(pictured above: New AT&T Partner Exchange leader Randall Porter on stage at the AT&T Partner Exchange Summit in Dallas on Oct. 11.)

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AT&T PARTNER EXCHANGE SUMMIT — AT&T Partner Exchange launched new mobility tools for its portfolio Wednesday.

The reseller program closed out the Partner Exchange Summit in Dallas by announcing a backup plan for wireless wide area networks (WWAN). AT&T executives say the new offering helps partners transition into selling wireless solutions.

“Many of our solution providers – not all of them but many of them – are really strong in wireline networks. They are wireline network-centric, so this gives those who are wireline-centric a great entry point to tap into wireless and the growth opportunity around wireless,” said Sue Galvanek, vice president of marketing, pricing and product solutions for AT&T Partner Exchange.

In addition, Partner Exchange announced an updated WWAN solution guide, designed to give partners more background on wireless routing. The program also launched an application programming interface (API) for mobility port management. As a result, solution providers get improved speed and agility in activating, checking and updating port requests. The product announcements follow Tuesday’s unveiling of new collaboration and network virtualization tools.

AT&T’s Brooks McCorcle

Brooks McCorcle, the retiring president of AT&T Partner Solutions, tells Channel Partners that the new mobility enhancements open up new revenue opportunities for partners.

“We have solution providers that only do wireline and some that only do wireless … if you do wireless and wireline together, your revenues are about two times those who aren’t,” McCorcle said.

Summit attendees gave an emotional McCorcle a standing ovation Wednesday afternoon. She handed the reins of AT&T Partner Solutions to Zee Hussain on Tuesday and announced Randall Porter as the new leader of AT&T Partner Exchange. Hussain will report to Anne Chow, AT&T’s president of national business.

Porter, McCorcle’s lieutenant over the course of Partner Exchange’s history, formally introduced himself to the keynote audience Wednesday.

“As we’re aligning these channels together under Zee and under Anne’s leadership, this truly is the culmination of everything that we have worked for, really for the last five years. It is signaling to the market a shift into driving distribution and driving service consumption through the indirect channel.” Porter said.

AT&T Business CEO Thaddeus Arroyo presented the morning keynote. Hussain told Channel Partners that Arroyo’s appearance stressed AT&T’s commitment to the channel. Arroyo himself told the audience that the company is doubling down on its resources to support its partner programs.

“Our path to the market through these indirect channels is so important for us right now. We’re bringing all this together, whether we look at Alliance or whether we look at our other way to reach the market through a flanker brand with ACC,” Arroyo said. We want to bring all this together and make sure we manage this much more logically, because we’re going bigger.”

Read more about the personnel changes and product announcements from the summit.