Partner Program Updates at Dell, 8x8, VMware, Others

Are you a technology vendor that has recently launched a partner program for managed service partners? Join the club.

Managed service providers (MSPs) are a hotly pursued market for IT and telecommunications vendors who want to tap into MSPs' sticky customer relationships. IBM last month headlined a list of vendors who announced a new program to help MSPs sell.

The health of the MSP market is unquestioned, as more and more businesses lean on these firms to support their IT operations. And as layoffs occur at some of the world's largest IT vendors, vendor leaders are more and more often publicly pointing to MSPs as an area to shift their sales resources.

Whether MSPs can deliver on those sales goals remains to be seen. MSPs have propelled remote monitoring and management (RMM) vendors like Kaseya and ConnectWise to great success, but in those cases, the MSP themselves are the end customer. In the case of IBM and other mainstream tech vendors, MSPs will need to resell software and hardware to their own clients. And many MSPs report that they struggle with sales. Many vendors have learned the hard lesson of forcing MSPs to interact with them in the manner of traditional VAR partners.

Partner Program Roundup

Channel Futures' monthly channel changes recap features vendors and distributors all across the technology world. There's even a sales platform company in the latest roundup.

Related:See the Top Managed IT Service Providers in the Inc. 5000

There are many partner types impacted by these changes, but they tend to be value-added resellers, system integrators, managed service providers and technology advisors.

In the slideshow above, read stories of 11 different providers in the channel that changed or launched a partner program last month.