AT&T Partner Exchange: What Makes a Good Convergence Partner?

Selling both IT and telecom services takes a special kind of partner, one who can speak MPLS as fluently as SDN. It’s also a partner who understands the infrastructure is as much the connectivity as it is the hardware.

It’s clear attendees at AT&T Partner Exchange conference this week in are bi-lingual. Otherwise, they probably wouldn’t be here. Companies such as ADCom Solutions, which began as an IT infrastructure solution provider with a healthy business serving also as a master agent through AT&T’s Alliance program, are seeing the conversation shift from telecom and, “Oh, by the way, who do you know that can handle our IT?” to, “I need you to do my IT, and when I say ‘IT’ I also mean telecom.”

“We built a nice business with network infrastructure and the Alliance partnership,” said Mike Champion, executive director, EBM at ADCom. “So when Partner Exchange was conceived, we jumped in with both feet. We see as a shift in marketplace how companies will consume network, cloud solutions and mobility products.”

ADCom feels so strongly about it, in fact, the company started a new group separate from its traditional infrastructure/Alliance business to sell AT&T’s Partner Exchange offerings.

“If we didn’t have the volume going through the Alliance channel we would have considered altering our course midstream,” Champion said. “[The new company] makes a lot of sense because we do see this as a multi-billion dollar market shift, so we want to focus on it as much as possible and drive market share.

“When you’re a solution provider like us, we have the ability to go out on a national footprint rapidly and grab market share where it’s available,” he added.

Other AT&T partners, such as Ancero, is a child of convergence. “We had a heads up on the way the industry was going. It was a 1+1 = 3 equation,” said Fred Barilotti, executive director at Ancero. “Infrastructure was trying to get outside the router and [telecom was] trying to get inside the router. We were ahead of the game.”

So who, then, is better equipped to take on convergence? Telco companies adding IT or vice versa? The answer is both. And neither.

The key to successfully selling convergence is understanding IP networks, which spans both IT and telecom but has transformed both disciplines dramatically. But IP also has shifted the way companies view voice services.

“I think if anything the industry is moving more toward data—voice over IP is an example—and things are shifting away from voice. You just don’t see voice as a separate thing anymore.”

It may have taken longer for convergence to really take hold in the business space, be it large enterprise or small business, but it’s clear convergence has made its mark. The challenge now for players is to find that next big thing.