AT&T Commits to $300M Investment in Channel

Telecom giant AT&T is experiencing significant growth through its solution provider partners, and the company is putting its money where its mouth is to further grow that aspect of its business. AT&T is investing $300 million over three years—an investment the company noted actually began in 2013 and will be most spent this year and next year.

The investment is intended to accelerate AT&T's work with solution providers. Specifically, the $300 million is intended to drive more API deployment, as well as build out and enhance several programs and services that will have an impact on solution providers' go-to-market models. AT&T hopes to transition more of its solution provider partners from the traditional upfront sales compensation model to a recurring revenue stream model of doing business.

To make this happen, AT&T has inked agreements with GE Capital, Commercial Distribution Finance, Wells Fargo Capital Finance and AT&T Capital Services. According to AT&T, the agreements will help AT&T Partner Exchange solution providers with stronger capital and the ability to grow their businesses.

"Response to AT&T Partner Exchange has been overwhelmingly positive—it's all about collaboration and innovation between AT&T and resellers. We learned early on that mutual success is driven by a solution provider's ability to serve their customers end-to-end," said Brooks McCorcle, president of Emerging Business Markets at AT&T, in a prepared statement.

In addition to financing plans and a rather sizeable investment in its solution providers, AT&T announced new technology, programs and services to help accelerate solution providers' sales, including APIs that enable competitive service level agreements (SLAs), a new multimedia platform for training, third-party billing and taxation offerings from BillSoft and SureTax and access to market development funds.