Top 20 Stories in October: Layoffs and More Layoffs, Broadcom-VMware, Top Agents
Our top stories countdown also includes updates on Avaya, Dell and Rackspace. But what was No. 1?
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Despite “substantial doubt,” as one analyst expressed, that Avaya can continue as a viable business, the company is determined to rebound from some serious financial trouble.
Still attracting readers after we published this story on Aug. 9, the company’s stock price fell to just 61 cents per share that day, down from $10 back in May. It has since rebounded to $1.49 as of Nov. 1.
Revenue was down 20% year over year in the third quarter, leading to the quick decline. Avaya has been criticized for a slow evolution to the cloud.
The company recently brought in seasoned veteran Alan Masarek to turn things around.
Learn more about Avaya’s challenges and its efforts to overcome them.
You continue to show interest in the Channel Futures 2022 MSP 501, the most comprehensive survey and ranking of managed service providers worldwide.
This year’s list, published back in June, drew more eyeballs than any previous year, and for good reason.
You can download the full rankings here.
Kaseya wrapped the integration of its ConnectBooster acquisition. Expect the purchase to enhance Kaseya’s IT Complete platform by adding automated billing and collections.
ConnectBooster reconciles accounts and billing while streamlining back-office activities.
Read why Kaseya CEO Fred Voccola says the acquisition will “make life easier” for the company’s MSP customers.
Dell’s Apex portfolio of consumption-based servers, storage and hybrid cloud infrastructure has something new.
Dell’s new Apex offers feature data storage and cloud services on the VMware cloud. The company says the additions aim to let partners tack on their own services. Partners can offer the new Apex data storage services with or without Dell’s managed services.
Here‘s what else you need to know.
Insight Enterprises CEO Joyce Mullen spoke out on the company’s five-year strategy to transform how it sells and delivers IT solutions.
Speaking at the company’s investor day in New York, Mullen described Insight’s new solutions integrator partner category. The strategy leverages onf ot the largest IT product reselling businesses with it global systems integration capabilities.
The move made Mullen boldly declare that Insight “will become the leading solutions integrator.”
Take a deeper dive on this topic.
Kevin Jones’ three-and-a-half year reign as CEO at Rackspace, the multicloud solutions provider, is over. Amar Maletira, who has been president and CFO of the company for two years, slides into the role.
Rackspace has had its ups and downs over the past few years. The company is realigning to better set itself up for success. Rackspace previously positioned itself to compete as a rival to AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud, but it couldn’t keep up with those firms. So it switched to a managed services model.
Now the company ranks as a top partner for the hyperscalers as it tried to determine its next steps.
Get more background on moves at Rackspace.
In October, we introduced the first of our new Channel Leaders lists, this one focusing on cybersecurity.
These are the channel leaders who are the most future-minded, influential and impactful.
Future lists, which we will reveal before the end of the year, focus on cloud; communications and collaboration; managed services; distribution and EMEA.
We just this week unveiled our leaders in networking and connectivity.
When we released our inaugural DE&I 101 list in 2021, we wanted to honor those technology and channel leaders who were educating, advocating and demonstrating a dedication to promoting diversity, equity and inclusion both inside and outside the channel.
This year, the list took a big step forward, generating five times the traffic to Channel Futures as the year prior. The impact of DE&I is on your mind.
Go here to see the Channel Futures DE&I 101 for 2022.
Here’s one that flipped quickly.
A story we ran on Cybereason reportedly ditching its IPO plans and instead looking for a buyer got your attention last month.
In fact, we asked Omdia (sister research company to Channel Futures) analyst Rik Turner who might make a good suitor for the company. He suggested Gigamon, ExtraHop and even possibly Palo Alto Networks.
But alas, just days later, we learned that Cybereason indeed planned to stay an independent company. It also confirmed laying off 200 more workers, or 17% of its staff.
As we sullenly promised, here’s the first of five stories about layoffs in just our top 11, not withstanding the mention of layoffs by Cybereason on the last slide.
Cloud-native application security provider Snyk said it would cut nearly 200 jobs. That’s 14% of the company’s workforce.
Noting significant market shifts, even though its business has continued to grow, Snyk said “we are restructuring and reducing our global workforce.”
Learn more about Snyk’s organizational changes.
The next layoff story to get your attention was that of Seagate Technology, which said it would cut a whopping 3,000 workers. That’s 8% of its worldwide workforce.
Seagate, the storage provider, announced a restructuring plan of its own. But unlike some other companies, its earnings missed Wall Street projections and helped lead to the decision.
Read what the company’s CEO had to say about “near-term industry demand and Seagate’s financial performance.”
A break now from the gloom and doom of layoffs …
We learned that Nutanix, the enterprise cloud computing company, might be the next big tech company to sell to either a private equity firm or another big tech company.
So said the Wall Street Journal, citing people familiar with the matter.
Nutanix went public in 2016, and is coming off a great quarter where it reported nearly $386 million in revenue.
Indeed, the company sounds like an attractive acquisition target. Learn more about why here.
Broadcom‘s acquisition of VMware might get done sooner than later.
That’s because reports surfaced that Broadcom might try to fast-track antitrust approval fro the European Union. This comes from those trusty “people familiar with the matter,” only this time courtesy Reuters.
Broadcom will reportedly cites competition from the big cloud giants as a reason why acquiring VMware will not create a competitive unbalance.
Get the full scoop on where this acquisition stands.
Describing as-a-service in a rather crude manner on stage at Canalys Forum 2022 in Barcelona, Computacenter CEO Mike Norris didn’t hold back.
“As a Microsoft shareholder, as-a-service is brilliant. As a vendor, as-a-service is brilliant. As a channel partner, as-a-service is pretty good. [For] a corporate customer, I think it’s sh**,” said the exec.
Canalys analysts did acknowledge that as-a-service might be a bit overhyped.
“Subscription, consumption product-led growth, as a service, will make up less than a third of our industry,” said Jay McBain, Canalys’ chief analyst for global channels.
No doubt you’ll now want to read Norris’ reference to as-a-service and “smoking dope.”
Two private equity firms completed their $16.5 billion acquisition of Citrix and put it into part of a newly formed Cloud Software Group, a portfolio of six privately held software businesses.
Citrix now joins forces with Tibco, the application and data integration provider, under one umbrella. The new Cloud Software Group divides Citrix into three business units: Citrix (virtual desktops and digital workspaces), NetScaler and ShareFile.
See how it all breaks down here.
Our brand-new awards program, and the first-of-its-kind in the channel, recognizes the top 101 technology advisors (agents).
This vendor- and distributor-agnostic list highlights top agent channel leaders who have demonstrated their commitment to business success, customer experience and thought leadership.
It was a busy week at Google Cloud Next, which was held both in-person and virtually.
You wanted to know the top announcements that the third-largest cloud provider was making. So it was convenient that we broke down eight of them, from an Accenture partnership to addressing the IT talent shortage.
We sheepishly now get back to layoff news, this one in the form of 8×8.
The UC and contact center software provider acknowledged letting go of 200 workers. It represents about 10% of its workforce.
8×8 cited “greater operational efficiency” in making the reduction.
The company had two rounds of layoffs in pandemic-year 2020.
Read the employee reaction we grabbed from LinkedIn.
Oracle said it cut hundreds of jobs in just the latest round of layoffs for the company.
Who’s out?: a VP of alliances, app developers, app sales reps, data scientists, marketing directors, software developers and more.
Oracle didn’t comment on the layoffs.
Then there was Salesforce, which laid off “a number” of workers and implemented a hiring freeze through January. So said Protocol.com.
Salesforce told us that “while limited hiring continues, most departments have reached their hiring goals for the fiscal year. As a result, we have ended contracts with some temporary recruiting contractors.”
Get the full story here.
And we close with one final layoff story, our most-read article from October.
We followed up on a Bloomberg report saying that a layoff announcement impacting thousands of employees in response to the PC market slowdown was coming.
Intel didn’t comment specifically on the report, but CEO Pat Gelsinger acknowledged after the company’s recent earnings report that “we must and will do better.”
Intel’s revenue was down 22% during its fiscal second quarter when compared to the year-ago quarter.
Take a look at our most-read story from October.
And we close with one final layoff story, our most-read article from October.
We followed up on a Bloomberg report saying that a layoff announcement impacting thousands of employees in response to the PC market slowdown was coming.
Intel didn’t comment specifically on the report, but CEO Pat Gelsinger acknowledged after the company’s recent earnings report that “we must and will do better.”
Intel’s revenue was down 22% during its fiscal second quarter when compared to the year-ago quarter.
Take a look at our most-read story from October.
Halloween might be in the rearview mirror, but we’ve still managed to scare up the top 20 stories from October. (We know, that was lame.)
One trend in technology, however, truly is frightening. It’s the increasing number of layoffs and companies that do business in the channel. So much so, that no fewer than five stories about job cuts cracked this month’s countdown. From Intel and Oracle on the traditional IT side of the channel to 8×8 on the telco agent side, it seems no one was immune to a pink slip. While some companies are dreading potential hard times in the near future, others are succeeding financially; sometimes the cuts are merely a result of “restructuring.”
But it’s not all glum news. Channel Futures lists naming the best technology advisors, cybersecurity and DE&I leaders are among the top 20 stories from October.
And probably no surprise: There’s plenty of M&A news here to whet your appetite as well.
We thank you for making this countdown possible. That’s right — you selected the top stories by visiting our website and reading articles in our daily and weekly newsletters. If you haven’t signed up for any Channel Futures newsletters yet, we encourage you to do so.
You can see the Channel Futures ’ top 20 stories from October in the slideshow above. What do you think was No. 1?
It’s not too late to check out last month’s top stories countdown.
Want to contact the author directly about this story? Have ideas for a follow-up article? Email Craig Galbraith or connect with him on LinkedIn. |
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