5 Hot Stories: Zoom, VMware Challenged in Market Share

The 2021 Channel Partners Virtual conference drew vendors, agents, MSPs and other partners from across the industry.

In a perfect world, the Channel Partners Conference would have occurred in Las Vegas, and that goes for both 2020 and 2021. However, in the interest of safety, we took to a virtual format and embraced the new way of event hosting. But don’t fear — we are working hard to bring you an in-person gathering this fall.

In the meantime, we’ve assembled to you a recap of the five most popular stories on our site this week. Happy reading!

5. American Tower Launches First Data Center Channel Program with ‘Pure Channel’ Approach

The real estate investment trust is targeting the agent channel with its new program.

XaaS1 has joined the data center program as the first partner. American Tower is targeting all sizes of master agents, who will assist in collocation at the company’s six edge data centers. The company also released a partner relationship management (PRM) tool.

Edward Gately has the scoop.

4. Channel Partners Virtual Recaps

The Channel Partners Virtual conference went off without a hitch in 2021.

Our editors covered the show, which contained a long list of profound and influential speakers. That includes a roundtable of mobility experts who dished on the viability of the 5G market. The event also featured some cool entertainment, like the famous Chicago improv troupe The Second City.

Check out the Day 1, Day 2 and Day 3 recaps that we posted on the event website.

3. For Zoom, ‘All Good Things Must Come to an End’

An analyst predicted Zoom to lose market share to SMB-focused solutions.

Don’t let that prediction overshadow the staggering numbers that Zoom revealed in its fourth quarter earnings report. For example, the video conferencing giant works with more than 467,000 customers of 10 or more employees. However, a Nucleus Research analyst said that free and freemium platforms could upend Zoom in the realm of smaller customers.

Read about why the landscape is changing.

2.Cisco, VMware, Fortinet, Versa, HPE Top Latest SD-WAN Market Share Report

A new leader emerged in Dell’Oro Group‘s leaderboard.

Cisco leapfrogged VMware in Dell’Oro’s quarterly report on the SD-WAN market. In addition, the research firm noted that market growth sped up in the fourth quarter of 2020 after COVID-19 significantly hampered deployments throughout the year.

Read Dell’Oro Group’s comments on the market.

1. Channel People on the Move: TPx, TBI, Avant, T-Mobile

The consultancy JS Group announced yet another big-name hire.

Meredith Caram joined an impressive list of influential women who moved to new roles recently. Another such person is Pat Watkins, who assumed leadership of the T-Mobile channel partner program.

Craig Galbraith recapped a whopping 25 companies that hired, promoted or lost personnel in February.

See the popular “People on the Move” gallery.