8 Channel People Making Waves This Week at Amplix, Shield IT, Veritas, Salesforce, More
A recently formed agency tie-up just made its first acquisition.
January 6, 2023
![Making Waves Making Waves](https://eu-images.contentstack.com/v3/assets/blt10e444bce2d36aa8/blt98e65ae99539d1f4/6523eba87a0cbd1e3854d48a/Making-Waves.jpg?width=700&auto=webp&quality=80&disable=upscale)
Shutterstock
New England-based technology advisor Amplix bought Net7, bringing on a company and a team that will bolster private equity-backed Amplix’s account management services.
Net7 is a nine-year-old company that consists of two entities — Net7 Solutions and Net7 Total Care. Amplix didn’t say how much it’s paying for Net7. The deal pairs Net7 with an Amplix leadership team its owners know well, as well as funding to scale.
The entire Net7 team will join Amplix.
Dan Gill(pictured above, right), Amplix’s president, said there’s highly valuable talent at Net7. He pointed to Cary Stallings, who has been functioning as Net7’s technology consultant.
“There’s a ton of really good sales and account management talent that is really additive to our team and allows us to expand the support we can provide,” Gill said.
For Chris Checksfield (pictured above, left), Net7’s president and CEO, retaining all employees means that very little (if anything) will change for Net7 customers.
“The teams aren’t going to change. The talent isn’t going to change. The account management isn’t going to change and the customer’s day-to-day point of contact isn’t going to change. What is going to change is that we’re going to go from 10-person organization to a team of 50 with what I deem as the most talented folks in our industry, especially if you look at the Northeast,” Checksfield said.
Go here to read more about the acquisition.
Channel Futures’ mega trends is an exciting new editorial initiative we’ve designed to identify the biggest issues confronting the channel. We highlighted the areas we cover as a publication and laid out predictions for those topics in 2023, including for digital transformation.
Len DiCostanzo, CEO of MSP Toolkit, made waves when he said the next couple of years should be banner years.
“COVID accelerated this digital transformation, but the work MSPs did was a Band-Aid. You must now complete the digital transformation for your customers,” DiCostanzo said. “You must make this permanent for the law firms, accounting firms and other customers. Make SMBs as agile as a corporate enterprise.”
Learn more about our Mega Trends here.
IBM is kicking off the new year by replacing the longstanding PartnerWorld program with IBM Partner Plus. Big Blue’s new program is the manifestation of IBM’s focus on expanding its ecosystem.
One partner that participated in developing IBM Partner Plus, Evolving Solutions, has benefited from the company’s increase in specialized and technical resources.
“IBM’s program really allows us to help our sellers, upskill and enhance their skills, [and] it does the same for our technical teams with their abilities,” said Evolving Solutions president Bo Gebbie. He made waves stating that “it really helps us expand our focus around hybrid cloud and where our technology ecosystem is going as a company in support of our clients.”
Get more from Jeffrey Schwartz’s reporting about the program here.
Channel Futures’ 2023 MSP predictions highlight cybersecurity, cloud computing and automation shifts. Experts gave a range of outlooks, including Scott Hagizadegan, CEO of Shield IT.
“Cybersecurity, cybersecurity, cybersecurity. Nothing is a bigger threat to shutting down a business’ day-to-day operation and just gets worse every day,” Hagizadegan said.
He made waves with his forecast.
“Annual vulnerability assessments will also be a must (most insurance policies starting to require). And lastly, MDR and cybersecurity staff training/phishing simulation will be two of the most important next-gen components.”
Read more from our roundup of expert opinions.
Our 2023 cloud predictions also made the top of the list of most popular stories for the week. This included prognostications from Mike Walkey, channels and alliances chief at Veritas Technologies.
“Widespread cloud adoption has triggered a rapid pace of innovation across the IT industry, setting the stage for GSIs to extend their capabilities and have a major seat at the table in the new year,” Walkey said.
He made waves with the following prediction:
“Cloud providers are continuing to innovate at a breakneck pace and as a result, organizations are struggling to keep up with the latest developments. To keep pace with competitors on their cloud transformation journeys, businesses will look to outside influencers with the experience, knowledge and connections to help implement transformational IT strategies across their organizations in a timely manner. With solid reputations in the industry and with the experience to back it up, GSIs will play a larger role in providing strategic counsel and services capabilities to empower their customers to choose the right cost-optimized solutions and design successful modern architectures. In 2023, GSIs are well-positioned to step up and help organizations capitalize on their cloud initiatives.”
Kelly Teal lays out several more cloud outlooks here.
Channel Futures’ 2023 TA (Agent) outlook tackled several issues, including partners getting certified and performing more implementation services.
MaryTom Hofer, director of operations at Kairos Data Communications, predicted that more technology advisors will obtain the training required to perform professional services on behalf of their UCaaS and CCaaS vendor partners.
Hofer made waves when she said that it stems in part from the money partners can save their clients.
“Some of these suppliers are charging between $5,000 and $15,000 for what they call ‘professional services’ on deals that are less than 100 seats, and some aren’t very complex solutions,” Hofer told Channel Futures.
Not only can partners save customers money on implementation, they can do a much better job.
“If agents actually looked at what these implementation packages include – or rather, what they don’t include – they’d be shocked. ‘Guided implementation’ sounds fancy and helpful, but most of the time that just means the customers get a link to 600 videos and are expected to build the platform themselves,” she said.
Read more from James Anderson’s reporting.
Salesforce layoffs are earning the company the dubious distinction of being the first major cloud company to shed workers in the new year. And some impacted staff are getting the word electronically, rather than directly from their managers.
Marc Benioff, Salesforce CEO, made waves when he said, “the macroeconomic environment remains challenging and our customers are taking a more measured approach to their purchasing decisions. With this in mind, we’ve made the very difficult decision to reduce our workforce by about 10%, mostly over the coming weeks.”
The news does not come as a complete surprise. In December, Salesforce told its managers to identify employees who weren’t performing so well. And that instruction arose a couple months after a previous round of layoffs; those took place in October.
Learn more here about the additional reasons Benioff cited for the layoffs.
Photo courtesy Salesforce
Salesforce layoffs are earning the company the dubious distinction of being the first major cloud company to shed workers in the new year. And some impacted staff are getting the word electronically, rather than directly from their managers.
Marc Benioff, Salesforce CEO, made waves when he said, “the macroeconomic environment remains challenging and our customers are taking a more measured approach to their purchasing decisions. With this in mind, we’ve made the very difficult decision to reduce our workforce by about 10%, mostly over the coming weeks.”
The news does not come as a complete surprise. In December, Salesforce told its managers to identify employees who weren’t performing so well. And that instruction arose a couple months after a previous round of layoffs; those took place in October.
Learn more here about the additional reasons Benioff cited for the layoffs.
Photo courtesy Salesforce
Channel people at Amplix, Shield IT, Veritas, Salesforce and more are among the individuals making waves this week. Channel Futures’ Channel People Making Waves showcases those who have made an impact over the last seven days. (See our slideshow above.) It’s also a recap of the most-read stories on our website.
It may be a new year but habits die hard, including for tech companies with a propensity to lay off workers. It appears 2022 has bled into 2023 as 10% of one cloud giant’s workforce will be reduced shortly. This particular layoff was our No.1 most-viewed story of the week.
However, it’s not all gloomy. IBM seems to have started the year on a positive note with its new IBM Partner Plus program. The focus: to expand its ecosystem. Read what partners have to say about how they’ve benefited from the initiative.
Finally, Channel Futures made several predictions lists going into 2023 for the various beats our editors cover. Our cloud outlook was among the more popular ones and our third most-read story of the week. To peruse the rest of our predictions, go here.
And that’s a wrap. If you didn’t catch our previous edition, you can find it here. Happy New Year!
Want to contact the author directly about this story? Have ideas for a follow-up article? Email Claudia Adrien or connect with her on LinkedIn. |
About the Author(s)
You May Also Like