Top 20 Stories in July: Cisco Layoffs, IBM and Microsoft AI, Google Cloud Program Changes
Meantime, traditional telco partners will learn about Viasat's uncertain future and why Avaya's bankruptcy emergence remains popular.
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This installment of our “Faces of the Partner” series, focusing on top women in the channel, was a big hit.
Thirteen women, including Bluewave’s Kate Jaffe, IQ Wired’s Darcee Nelan and Upstack’s Angie Tocco shared advice for up-and-comers on how they became successful.
The European Commission granted conditional approval for Broadcom to buy VMware in a landmark $61 billion acquisition that will have long-term ramifiications in the tech space, including the channel.
In what’s been a long drawn-out process, there’s now a good chance the tie-up will be complete before the end of the year.
News of the EC’s support came more than six months after it opened an investigation to see if there were antitrust considerations.
Read more about the decision.
Avaya, a repeat customer on our top 20 countdown, once again made it for its emergence from chapter 11 bankruptcy.
We know what you’re thinking — that happened in May.
Indeed it did, May 1 to be exact, when Channel Futures reported on the news. The article has subsequently landed on our monthly countdown for three consecutive months.
Avaya frequently made it over the past year while it was going through the Chapter 11 process as well.
Just how big is Microsoft Azure?
Most research slots the cloud giant in at No. 2 behind AWS, and ahead of third-place Google Cloud. But when a court website posted some internal documents on the financial state of Azure, it raised questions.
The documents showed that Azure brought in only half the revenue that AWS did in a 12-month period from mid-2021 to mid-2022.
There’s a lot of complicated math here to determine who ranks where. That’s why we broke it down for you.
Speaking of cloud, the cloud marketplace gold rush is on, and it looks like security provider Trend Micro is taking full advantage.
Channel Futures profiled the company’s massive surge in sales in the AWS Marketplace, heightened by the pandemic. The result, of course, significant for channel partners.
Canalys analyst Jay McBain told us that security solutions in marketplaces are growing in the “triple digits.”
Learn more about marketplaces and the sales acceleration many vendors are seeing.
In what could be the start of a major shift in partner ecosystems and programs, Microsoft announced its AI Cloud Partner Program during the company’s annual Inspire conference.
Partners who are already certified in the Microsoft Cloud Partner Program are automatically enrolled in the new program. It provides training, additional partner designations and other enablement capabilities.
Look for the new program to arm Microsoft’s entire partner ecosystem with the company’s emerging AI offerings and to leverage its underlying platform.
Learn more about this potentially tectonic shift.
Microsoft isn’t the only one making big ripples across the channel landscape. Google Cloud also shook up its partner program — Partner Advantage — in July.
The changes actually began earlier this year when the company introduced new certifications. Now, effective Aug. 1, Google Cloud is rewarding partners in different ways and offering a slew of new resources.
Get the full scoop on the breakdown.
Layoffs reared their ugly head in July, with a number of companies doing business in the channel making cuts to their workforces. One of them was Anaplan, the business planning software provider.
Anaplan, which let go of about 300 employees, was just bought last year by private equity firm Thoma Bravo. The layoffs reportedly are in both the U.S. and the U.K.
Get more info about the cuts.
Two components of IBM‘s Watsonx.AI and data platform are now available, with a third on the way, said CEO Arvind Krishna at the company’s Think conference in Orlando.
Watsonx allows partners to train, tune and distribute models with generative AI and machine learning capabilities.
The company also said that 150 enterprise clients participated in its beta and tech previews.
Read more about how the channel will benefit.
Tech advisory firm Bridgepointe Technologies, which has made a flurry of investments in partner businesses over the past year, just made another., thanks to significant funding it has from Charlesbank.
The latest is Parallel Technologies, which is a voice MSP and tech advisor. It’s a 40-year-old company based in Dublin, Ohio. The legacy company will now go as “Parallel Technologies powered by Bridgepointe.”
Get more information on Bridgepointe’s investment endeavors, and particularly, this venture with Parallel.
July was a big month for news, as you might be able to tell by the fact that Channel People on the move, usually in the top five, sits at No. 10.
This edition featured HPE’s Lorena Little (pictured), as well as new hires and promotions at Lumen, 8×8, D&H and more.
IT giant Cisco had to deal with a security alert last month that impacted users of its Nexus 9000 series switches. The vulnerability could have potentially allowed unauthenticated attackers to intercept and modify traffic.
Malicious hackers could have intercepted encrypted traffic and used craytanalytic techniques to break the encryption.
At the time, Cisco said there were no updates to the software. Security insider John Bambenek of Netenrich suggested users unplug the device and find a replacement product.
The 2023 Channel Futures telecom-IT layoff tracker, which we update on a regular basis, is growing more rapidly than anyone would like to see.
Our last update, published on June 15, featured cuts at Red Hat, F5, CDW and more.
The 2023 Channel Futures NextGen 101, revealed in early July, is an MSP 501 list honoring some of the most innovative IT service providers in the world.
You wanted to see which 101 companies are offering cutting-edge services to their clients. If you missed it, here’s where to find it.
If the NextGen 101 landed at No. 7, it should come as no surprise that its big sister, the 2023 Channel Futures MSP 501, came in at No. 6.
The MSP 501, revealed in June, honors the top managed service providers from around the globe. Here’s a link to the top 50.
Winners are invited to the MSP 501 gala at the Channel Futures Leadership Summit, Oct. 30-Nov. 2, in Miami.
We at Channel Futures made our own news last month when parent company Informa Tech announced its intent to buy research giant Canalys. Look for the purchase to close by the end of the quarter.
The tie-up creates the largest provider of research and insight, events and media focused on the future of the entire ICT channel.
Look for plenty of Canalys insight to come on Channel Futures, along with significant participation in our events — the Channel Partners Conference & Expo and the Channel Futures Leadership Summit.
Another slide, more layoffs. This one revolves around cuts at distribution giant Ingram Micro.
The company didn’t say exactly how many jobs were lost, but acknowledged the layoffs, citing local and global market conditions.
We caught up with Pamela Miranda, owner of MSP Triella, who was disappointed by the news, hoping that her new account rep, who focuses on business development, would be spared the axe.
“I love him; he’s amazing,” Miranda told Channel Futures.
Read more about the layoffs.
While we’ve known about Cisco‘s impending layoffs and restructuring plan for some time now, details started to trickle out in terms of who’s being impacted.
Cisco officials confirmed to Channel Futures that layoffs indeed kicked in sometime around July 20. It turns out that employees from the company’s business and collaboration groups were let go. Notably, Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI), data center and collaboration/Webex units were affected.
See what else led to the cuts.
It’s a hat trick for layoff news in the top five of our countdown. Trellix, the cybersecurity company that formed from the combination of FireEye and McAfee Enterprise last year, cut an undisclosed amount of employees.
Several of the affected employees took to social media to announce their sudden departures. They included people with long tenures at the company.
Omdia analyst Eric Parizo simply told Channel Futures that Trellix is “in trouble.”
Do you agree? Here’s where you can learn more.
This was a bit of a stunner to us, and apparently to you as well since it landed at No. 1 in our countdown.
Just days after our interview with Tessley Smith, Viasat‘s director of business sales, and before we published our Q&A with him, it was revealed that the mission to unfurl the large mesh antenna on the ViaSat-3 Americas satellite went awry, seriously impacting the potential performance of the satellite.
The satellite costs $700 million, and the company is only insured for $420 million. This is a saga that no doubt will continue for some time.
Still, we got some great insight into the satellite’s capabilities in our sit-down with Smith. Read it here.
This was a bit of a stunner to us, and apparently to you as well since it landed at No. 1 in our countdown.
Just days after our interview with Tessley Smith, Viasat‘s director of business sales, and before we published our Q&A with him, it was revealed that the mission to unfurl the large mesh antenna on the ViaSat-3 Americas satellite went awry, seriously impacting the potential performance of the satellite.
The satellite costs $700 million, and the company is only insured for $420 million. This is a saga that no doubt will continue for some time.
Still, we got some great insight into the satellite’s capabilities in our sit-down with Smith. Read it here.
Some of the biggest players in channel – and all of tech for that matter – populate our top 20 stories countdown for July.
How’s this for big: Microsoft unveiled its new AI Cloud program that could set the stage for partner programs going forward as artificial intelligence starts to take hold in the channel. Not to be outdone, IBM made its own AI splash by making its Watsonx.AI and data platform available to its partner ecosystem. The technology allows partners to train, tune and distribute models with generative AI and machine learning capabilities.
Furthermore, another powerhouse, Google Cloud says it’s taking its partner program to “new heights” with a flurry of changes.
Beyond the IT and cloud channels, Viasat made a big splash when it acknowledged problems with its recently launched Viasat-3 satellite. The company had just done an interview with Channel Futures about the satellite’s potential and how partners might benefit.
And it wouldn’t be a top 20 without Avaya. The communications giant has a nice little streak going on our countdown as news of its emergence from bankruptcy keeps humming with our audience.
Those are just a handful of the stories that were the most popular on Channel Futures and to our newsletter audience in July. You have a chance to weigh in on our rankings simply by visiting our website or by choosing stories to read in our daily and weekly newsletters. You can sign up for those here.
Our slideshow above offers up our top 20 stories countdown for July. If you missed our top 20 stories from June, you can see that countdown here.
Want to contact the author directly about this story? Have ideas for a follow-up article? Email Craig Galbraith or connect with him on LinkedIn. |
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