7 Channel People of the Week at AWS, Dell, Telarus

AWS' current leader announced that he is stepping down. The Amazon cloud service provider announced on Tuesday that CEO Adam Selipsky is leaving the company in early June. His successor, Matt Garman, will take over soon after.

In an email to AWS employees Selipsky wrote, "Leading this amazing team and the AWS business is a big job, and I’m proud of all we’ve accomplished going from a startup to where we are today. In the back of my head I thought there might be another chapter down the road at some point, but I never wanted to distract myself from what we are all working so hard to achieve.

"Given the state of the business and the leadership team, now is an appropriate moment for me to make this transition, and to take the opportunity to spend more time with family for a while, recharge a bit and create some mental free space to reflect and consider the possibilities."

Learn more about Selipsky's decision to step down.

Partners continue to become more vocal about their excitement about and support for generative AI, with the technology taking a prominent place among many channel leaders.

“Each conversation we have with our partners includes a generative AI discussion,” said Ian Heath, Dell’s U.K. channel and distribution lead. “The momentum in the channel absolutely matches the enthusiasm we’re seeing everywhere else. Gen AI is an industry game-changer and brings so many new growth opportunities to our partners.”

Heath noted that many partners are eager to see how the technology affects productivity and innovation.

Learn more about how Dell is viewing partner interest in generative AI.

Citrix rivals have accused the company of abandoning its NetScaler load balancer customers. They claim the company's decision to end perpetual licensing for the series of programs in 2023 has confused customers and caused price increases.

They also allege that the licensing changes led to the end of standalone sales of NetScaler products, which left many customers without support.

“Over recent weeks and months, we’ve had a lot of NetScaler customers reach out to us regarding these changes. A lot of them were as confused as the rest of the market and it’s quite hard to pinpoint exactly what’s going on. We’ve had 10 or so in the last month alone,” Joshua Turnbull, head of strategic partnerships at Loadbalancer said.

Learn more about NetScaler and the effects of the software's licensing changes.

A new report from cybersecurity partner BeyondTrust revealed a steadily growing number of vulnerabilities. The report, built on data from publicly issued security bulletins released by Microsoft, identified vulnerabilities in the company's software.

James Maude, director of research at BeyondTrust, said that despite decades of focus and investment in improving security, “we are still finding vulnerabilities," like an exploit that hackers can use to access Outlook by sending a specially crafted email.

The vulnerabilities fall into several categories including remote code execution, spoofing, denial of service and others.

Read more about BeyondTrust's list of Microsoft vulnerabilities.

A new report found that Kaseya 365, a recently launched subscription model that provides remote monitoring and management (RMM), cybersecurity and backup to partners, could significantly impact how MSPs engage with vendors and platforms. It could even force Kaseya's competitors to adapt.

A report from Canalys noted that the new service would give Kaseya an advantage over its competitors. It would change the economics of the marketplace and offer several services for cheaper prices.

The pricing model is "a unique approach. It’s going to bring our costs of goods down dramatically, especially if you’re a ConnectWise shop," said Kevin Damghani, CEO of ITPartners+. "As we add new customers at $4 per month for your core COGS versus what you were paying before, it is a game-changer."

Learn more about Canalys' report and its implications for partners.

Dell Technologies and the Catholic hospital chain Ascension both experienced cyberattacks this week. A threat actor claims they stole Dell customers' information, while Ascension alleged their clinical operations were disrupted. Both breaches are under investigation.

While details around both investigations are limited, some are claiming that Dell's breach was because of security misconfiguration and unencrypted exposed data. At least one executive had suggestions for how to fix these issues.

“Pen testing and data classification/management with encryption would have easily prevented this from happening, costing the company a couple of million dollars to remediate beyond brand and revenue impacts," said Narayana Pappu, the CEO of Zendata.

Learn more about the cyberattacks of these two major companies.

US Cellular appears to be considering two separate sales of operations and wireless spectrum. The wireless provider is considering the sale of its resources to T-Mobile and Verizon, according to the Wall Street Journal. A split sale like this would help the deal avoid excess scrutiny from regulators like the Federal Communications Commission, who want to ensure that the wireless market stays competitive.

Some partners are eager for the deal in view of its potential positive impact on their their bottom lines.

"In our experience, acquisitions like this, if executed well, can give organizations the ability to scale and offer tremendous benefits for our technology advisors," Graeme Scott, Telarus' vice president of advanced networks and mobility said. "We saw this several years ago when Charter acquired Time Warner Cable to create Spectrum. That acquisition provided a strong offering to our advisors, and they're now a top supplier in our portfolio. Verizon and T-Mobile have both shown a commitment to grow with the channel and thus have added resources which can provide great value for our ecosystem."

Learn more about this possible deal between US Cellular, T-Mobile and Verizon.

US Cellular appears to be considering two separate sales of operations and wireless spectrum. The wireless provider is considering the sale of its resources to T-Mobile and Verizon, according to the Wall Street Journal. A split sale like this would help the deal avoid excess scrutiny from regulators like the Federal Communications Commission, who want to ensure that the wireless market stays competitive.

Some partners are eager for the deal in view of its potential positive impact on their their bottom lines.

"In our experience, acquisitions like this, if executed well, can give organizations the ability to scale and offer tremendous benefits for our technology advisors," Graeme Scott, Telarus' vice president of advanced networks and mobility said. "We saw this several years ago when Charter acquired Time Warner Cable to create Spectrum. That acquisition provided a strong offering to our advisors, and they're now a top supplier in our portfolio. Verizon and T-Mobile have both shown a commitment to grow with the channel and thus have added resources which can provide great value for our ecosystem."

Learn more about this possible deal between US Cellular, T-Mobile and Verizon.