Channel Conflict, Controversy: Microsoft Channel Chief Exit, Kaseya-Datto Reaction, Google Cloud
There's always something to buzz about in the channel.
A year after taking over as Microsoft’s global channel chief, Rodney Clark is unexpectedly exiting the company to join Johnson Controls, a provider of building automation technology.
Clark’s departure appeared to have caught Nick Parker, Microsoft corporate VP and president for Global Partner Solutions, off guard, as the company doesn’t have a replacement lined up.
In the meantime, Microsoft is making changes to its partner incentives and investments. It further continues to face the fallout from perhaps its biggest channel-program change in 15 years, the upcoming switch to the Cloud Partner Program. Those plans, of course, have attracted swift and steady pushback from partners.
In April, Kaseya rocked the channel with the announcement of its $6.2 billion Datto acquisition.
Mergers and acquisitions happen every day, but this one certainly sent shockwaves through the industry. Opinions fell on both sides of the fence. Some partners were hardly able to contain their excitement, while others gazed sullenly into the void.
Amid the frenzy, Kaseya CEO Fred Voccola said partners have nothing to worry about.
“I would address it this way,” he said. “Look at Kaseya’s track record of acquisitions. Throughout each integration, we’ve always kept the brand. We’ve done zero layoffs, and we’ve kept the autonomy of the company that we’ve acquired. Obviously now they are part of Kaseya — we integrate the back office system, the HR, the finance, etc. But we’ve kept the autonomy and more importantly, we’ve kept the culture of what makes these companies great.”
Last month, we learned Google Cloud president Rob Enslin is leaving the company and will become co-CEO of robotic process automation (RPA) provider UiPath. Also departing is John Jester, Google Cloud’s vice president of customer experience. He oversaw enterprise support, training, cloud certifications and engagement.
According to a copy of the message shared by a Google Cloud spokesman, neither will be replaced.
Earlier this year, Kevin Ichhpurani replaced Carolee Gearhart, Google Cloud’s channel chief and vice president of global SMB sales. And Jim Anderson was appointed to bring more partners into the direct sales team.
Cisco investors weren’t kind after the company’s third-quarter earnings didn’t meet their expectations. After it reported its earnings, Cisco shares declined about 15%, marking the largest single-day decline in 12 years, according to MarketWatch.
The networking giant posted flat revenue year-over-year growth. The firm’s collaboration business dropped in year-over-year revenue. Cisco also posted a guidance of 1%-5.5% decline in its next quarter.
Executives cited Cisco’s pullout from Russia and Belarus, Chinese COVID-19 lockdowns and supply-chain issues as reasons for the numbers. It also noted that this year’s third quarter contained one less week than last year’s third quarter. CEO Chuck Robbins said the company will overcome the “short-term” challenges.
In February, rumors swirled that Microsoft reportedly was interested in acquiring cybersecurity provider Mandiant, which rebranded from FireEye last fall. Twitter was abuzz with tweets touting Microsoft pursuing an acquisition. However, the buyer turned out to be Google Cloud.
The acquisition would widen the scope of Google Cloud’s security services by bringing in Mandiant’s deep threat intelligence resources. Google is spending $23 per Mandiant share, which totals about $5.4 billion. The companies said they expect the deal to close later this year, following stockholder and regulatory approvals.
Upstack signed a partnership with Lumen Technologies in a move that could shake up the channel.
It marks the largest direct agreement Upstack has signed with a supplier — and a name like Lumen carries clout. The deal means partners operating under the Upstack umbrella can leverage their Upstack contract to sell Lumen rather than work with the technology services brokerages (TSBs) they have traditionally used to sell Lumen products and services.
Reaction in the channel was swift, varying from “this could get ugly” to “this is a normal course of business.” Most TSBs (formerly known as master agents) have been mum on the topic, but sources have told Channel Futures that feathers are ruffled.
Lacework, the cloud security company, last month confirmed layoffs that slashed 20% of its workforce, saying a “a seismic shift has occurred in both the public and private markets.”
The layoffs are part of a restructuring. In March, Lacework said it had more than 1,000 employees, 85% of which were hired after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Last November, Lacework raised $1.3 billion in growth funding at a valuation of $8.3 billion. The vendor said that’s the largest funding round in security industry history.
Ancora Holdings Group is engaging in an ongoing battle with Everbridge, the critical event management provider. Ancora is a key Everbridge stockholder.
Last month, Ancora officials said they would withhold support for board chairman Jamie Ellertson and members Bruns Grayson, Richard D’Amore and Kent Mathy at the Everbridge annual meeting of stockholders. Ancora said these members were unwilling to advance Everbridge stockholders’ best interests, or embrace and act on stockholder feedback.
Ancora issued the following statement after the meeting:
“We feel stockholders sent a clear message to the board this year that the status quo is unacceptable, and we hope this serves as a catalyst for a shake-up in the boardroom and a credible review of sale options. As we have repeatedly stated, we believe Everbridge is dramatically undervalued at current share price levels and contend a sale to a well-capitalized acquirer could deliver more than $70 per share. Having engaged with a large number of stockholders, we believe stockholders would strongly favor a sale of the business at the right price versus continuing to allow the company to proceed with its standalone plan, which would expose stockholders to the continued risk of poor governance and subpar execution. One thing is evident: the current board can no longer dismiss stockholder feedback and ignore acquirer interest. In light of this year’s narrow vote and our strong belief that there is demonstrated acquirer interest in Everbridge, we expect the board to thoroughly evaluate any bona fide sale offers for the company.”
In March, the Federal Communications Commision (FCC) deemed Moscow-based Kaspersky a threat to national security. This was the second time the federal government singled out Kaspersky.
The FCC added Kaspersky to its national security threat list. It also added China Telecom (Americas) and China Mobile International USA. These additions come amid the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Kaspersky said it’s disappointed with the FCC’s decision to prohibit certain telecommunications-related federal subsidies from being used to purchase it’s products and services.
The FCC didn’t base its decision on any technical assessment of Kaspersky products, the company said. Instead, it made its decision on “political grounds.”
March 8 marked International Women’s Day, when the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women are celebrated. The day also marks a call to action for accelerating women’s equality.
And nowhere is that acceleration needed more than in the tech industry.
Two-thirds of recruiters admit that bias, either unconscious or deliberate, is an issue when it comes to tech hiring. So says a joint survey by developer recruitment platform CodinGame and online technical interview platform CoderPad. CodinGame and CoderPad surveyed 4,000 tech recruiters from 131 countries around the globe.
Despite efforts to attract more women into the tech sector, and make it more inclusive, less than 20% of employees working in tech are female. And it’s clear that talented women are missing out on tech positions because of ingrained bias during the recruitment process.
Last month, T-Mobile confirmed yet another data breach, this time by the Lapsus$ extortion gang, which used stolen credentials and gained access to internal systems. T-Mobile said the hackers didn’t access any customer data.
However, this latest breach prompted questions about T-Mobile’s cybersecurity. Mark Lambert is vice president of products at ArmorCode, an application security provider.
“While T-Mobile did a great job making sure the ‘intrusion was rapidly shut down and closed off,’ you must ask yourself, how did they get access in the first place?” he said. “As organizations like T-Mobile race to deliver features to customers to gain competitive advantage, cracks appear in their security posture. Leveraging cloud with dynamically created container-based infrastructure enables organizations to instantaneously deploy and scale software delivery, but exponentially increases the volume of security findings that are from application security and infrastructure security tools. Organizations need to be leveraging AppSecOps practices as well as DevSecOps to operationalize application security and ensure that they can scale the team’s response to security findings to the same level they have scaled their software delivery.”
Malicious hackers leaked information they got from a cyberattack on artificial intelligence (AI) computing giant Nvidia in February.
According to The Telegraph, Nvidia experienced a “devastating” cyberattack that “completely compromised” the company’s internal systems.
Despite reports that the Lapsus$ ransomware gang carried out the attack, Nvidia said there’s no evidence of ransomware. It also said there’s no evidence that this is related to the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
Malicious hackers leaked information they got from a cyberattack on artificial intelligence (AI) computing giant Nvidia in February.
According to The Telegraph, Nvidia experienced a “devastating” cyberattack that “completely compromised” the company’s internal systems.
Despite reports that the Lapsus$ ransomware gang carried out the attack, Nvidia said there’s no evidence of ransomware. It also said there’s no evidence that this is related to the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
Forget the midterm election drama. There’s plenty of channel conflict and controversy involving Microsoft, Kaseya and Datto, Google Cloud and Cisco.
New hires, changing channel programs, security breaches and M&A are typical Channel Futures fare. But there also are plenty of eye-opening controversies that draw you to the watercooler. There have been quite a few since our last roundup of channel conflict and controversy in December.
Recent hubbub involves Rodney Clark’s sudden departure from Microsoft, partners’ shock over Kaseya acquiring Datto, and Google Cloud losing its president and its vice president of customer experience.
In addition, T-Mobile is rocked by a cyber breach again, the Federal Communications Commission declares Kaspersky a threat to national security, and recruiters admit bias against women in tech hiring.
So grab some popcorn and click through the slides above. Revisit the controversies and conflicts that have impacted the channel over the past several months.
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