7 Hot Stories: UCaaS Cloud Migration Program, Vonage Rebrand, Extreme Networks Awards

GTT Communications is expanding its channel program, and 8×8, Poly and ScanSource formed a unique partnership.

We assemble a list of the week’s top stories every Friday. There’s an even balance this time around: a service provider team-up, a personnel announcement, a new VAR program, partner awards, and a juicy UCaaS gallery.

Scroll through the seven mini-stories below to catch a glimpse of the channel’s latest escapades.

7. Jenne, Tech Data Win Big at Extreme Networks Partner Awards

Eleven partners earned recognition from Extreme Networks this week.

Extreme, which hosted its Americas partner conference, honored Jenne as the best distributor the Americas and Tech Data as the best distributor in the Americas for managed partners.

See a full list of winners.

6. Comcast Business Partners with iTel Networks

The American cableco and the Canadian converged network company partnered to expand their respective North American footprints.

Comcast sees iTel as an important ally to help customers that have locations in both countries with “custom network connectivity solutions and quality services.”

“Many of our existing enterprise customers and prospects have locations outside the United States; in particular, in Canada. We’re excited to announce that we are leveraging this exciting new relationship with iTel Networks to serve our managed broadband enterprise customers’ Canadian locations,” said the senior vice president and general manager of the Comcast Business Enterprise Solutions unit.

Read our story about the partnership.

5. Bigleaf Networks Hires ShoreTel, Broadvoice Alum as Channel Leader

Eric Brooker, a telecom veteran with experience in UCaaS and SD-WAN, has signed as Bigleaf Networks‘  senior director of national partner programs. The SD-WAN vendor has been putting money into its MSP and agent channels, and Brooker’s presence will specifically go to build the agent side.

“Eric’s experience and relationships will accelerate that growth,” Bigleaf’s co-founder and chief revenue officer said. “His expertise will drive greater engagement with our partners and enable them to find even more success with Bigleaf.”

Learn more about Brooker.

4. Vonage Touts Revitalized Brand, New Logo and Products

Vonage has shifted dramatically from a consumer-oriented to business-oriented go-to-market model over the last six years.

The company announced that it’s calling itself a B2B SaaS company. The new description came alongside a new logo and “brand revitalization” that Vonage unveiled at its user and developer conference

Read about the rebrand.

3. UCaaS-Hosted Telephony Spotlight: 10 Game-Changing Innovations

AI, CPaaS, speech recognition, contact center integration. Those are just a handful of the technology advances in the world of unified communications.

Edward Gately interviewed multiple subject master experts about exciting new UCaaS trends. Analysts and various members of the indirect channel offered up observations on how vendors are making changes to keep pace with an increasingly millennial workforce.

Check out Gately’s gallery.

2. New GTT Americas President Eyes Channel Expansion, SD-WAN

GTT Communications is seeing dividends from its channel program and looking to dig deeper.

Ernie Ortega, GTT’s recently hired division president of the Americas, said the company is hiring new channel managers in an effort to help grow organic business. The plan is to land upward of 15 channel managers and more than 100 salespeople

“The channel candidly is starting to…… flourish within our company. And right now, I couldn’t be happier about it,” Ortega told us.

Ortega detailed some of his ambitions in an interview with us.

1. 8×8, Poly, ScanSource Unveil Cloud Migration Program for VARs

8×8 is contributing a platform, Poly is contributing equipment, and ScanSource is contributing the resellers.

Put them all together, and you have the CloudFuel program, which allows partners to move their customer’s on-prem communication systems to the cloud “quickly without the need to wait for new product offerings to be developed, tested and mature.”

Read about the program.