CRN April 2021 - Issue 1402

ISSUE 1402 • APRIL 2021

crn.com

INTERNET OF THINGS 50 Seize the opportunity

PAGE 54

STORAGE 100

Time to talk about data

PAGE 60

TECH ELITE 250

At the top of their game

PAGE 70

NEWS, ANALYSIS AND PERSPECTIVE FOR VARs AND TECHNOLOGY INTEGRATORS

NadellaVision Nadella Vision Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella views every business program or business model change through a channel lens: How does it impact partners and how will it help them drive technology acceleration?

PAGE 10

PARTNER PROGRAM GUIDE Forging a path to partner success PAGE 18

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Computer Reseller News

April 2021

Columns 6 The Final Cut

By Steven Burke

74

On The Record

By Robert Faletra

Features 8 Tech10

NadellaVision Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella views every business program or business model change through a channel lens: How does it impact partners?

For today’s mobile and remote workers, the right devices will help drive efficiency and performance. Here are 10 ideal offerings.

54

70

10

IoT 50

These 50 coolest IoT companies can help solution providers seize the opportunity.

Tech Elite 250

Solution providers that maintain the highest level of training and certifications with their vendor partners will always be top of mind with customers.

A Path To Partner Success Channel executives are looking past the emergency measures they took to help solution providers during the pandemic to renewing their focus on partner programs. Our annual Partner Program Guide puts a spotlight on their efforts.

The Data Conversation

For reprints and plaque requests, please contact The YGS Group at 800.290.5460 or http://crnlicensing.com CRN (ISSN 1539-7343), also known as Computer Reseller News, is published 14 times a year (February, April, June, August, October, December and 8 Special Issues) by The Channel Company, One Research Drive, Suite 410A, Westborough, MA 01581, and is free to qualified management personnel at companies involved in the reselling/distribution of computers/networking systems, software and services. One-year subscription rates for all others in the United States are $209.00; Canada $234.00. Overseas air mail rates are: Europe $380.00; Mexico/ South America $380.00; Africa $380.00; Asia/Australia $480.00. Please mail all subscription inquiries along with checks or money orders to The Channel Company, Dept: CRN Subscriptions, One Research Drive, Suite 410A, Westborough, MA 01581. For renewals or change of address, please include the mailing address label appearing on the front cover of the publication. Periodicals postage paid at Worcester, MA, (and additional offices, if applicable). POSTMASTER: Send address changes to The Channel Company, Dept: CRN Subscriptions, One Research Drive, Suite 410A, Westborough, MA 01581. FOR SUBSCRIPTION SERVICES go to crn. com/subscribe Copyright© 2021 by The Channel Company. All Rights Reserved.

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60

Determining the best way to store data and glean insight from it is where solution providers come in. Our Storage 100 vendors aim to be part of the discussion.

4/1/21 8:02 PM

There’s More Online Most-Read Stories

1. Synnex, Tech Data

Merge To Create $57B Distribution Titan

2. McAfee Enterprise

Business To Be Sold To STG For $4B

3. Why Dell’s Stock

Jumped 189 Percent In One Year

Carousels

Videos

Microsoft’s 10 Biggest Azure Announcements At Ignite 2021

Security Leaders Examine Biden’s Policy Priorities Scan here to watch the video on CRN.com

CRN® Magazine Is Now Available Online • Easily accessed from anywhere • Share articles via email or social media

Read Online Now at CRN.com/Magazine 4

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The Future of Marketing is Marketing-as-a-Service As marketing priorities continue to pile up, the pressure to constantly execute successful campaigns and drive results inevitably places an overwhelming burden on internal resources and staff.

Marketing-as-a-Service can ease that burden.

Extend your marketing capabilities and optimize your budget with our PartnerDemand Services subscription-based model today!

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THE FINAL CUT

Security Crisis

PUBLIC CLOUD IS NOT A SECURITY CURE-ALL

By Steven Burke IT’S HARDLY SURPRISING that some public cloud providers are evangelizing a go-all-in public cloud approach to avoid security breaches like the recent Microsoft Exchange on-premises attack or the SolarWinds breach.

The public-cloud-at-all-costs approach ignores the reality of the hybrid cloud workplace, said Pat O’Dell, general manager and managing partner for highly respected Clinton, N.J.-based solution provider CPP Associates.

“My father used to say, ‘When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail,’” O’Dell said. “We have to consider the whole toolbox. If you work with someone not considering every tool in the toolbox, you are probably going down a path that is not good for your company.”

The fact is the Exchange and SolarWinds attacks are so far-reaching that more businesses are turning to solution providers to separate fact from fiction, particularly with regard to whether the public cloud is more secure than an on-premises IT environment.

Mike Maher, director of professional services for CPP, took direct aim in a blog post at the naïve and simplistic view that you will get better security by moving to the public cloud rather than relying on a hybrid model. He calls for customers to embrace “freedom of choice” and make decisions based on their own best interest.

“Moving workloads to the public cloud means signing up for their terms and conditions, their service levels and their limitations on security,” said Maher. “If you’re anything like me, you’re probably not comfortable leaving the security of your data in the hands of other people.”

Securing infrastructure takes a multifaceted approach, said Maher. “Best-of-breed solutions have real value,” he said. “You can pick and choose what you need to ensure that the infrastructure meets your businesses requirements, as well as that of any regulatory or governing bodies. Most solutions have support for the hybrid space and that is because it is the most common deployment for businesses of all shapes and sizes.”

Maher said that many customers simply do not apply rigorous security policies when moving to the public cloud. One CPP customer eyeing the public cloud was taken aback by the question: What is your plan to secure that public cloud workload? “We helped them to understand what it takes to secure any public cloud infrastructure and provided the on-premises solutions with a cost-benefit analysis so they could make an educated decision,” he said.

CPP, in fact, is providing the same kind of data gathering and technical analysis on the security front that it has with its Infrastructure Anywhere Assessments aimed at determining whether a workload should go on-premises or in the public cloud.

Maher said putting all of your eggs in one basket is not good for business. “There is inherent danger in that,” he said. “For the very same reason we tell customers don’t back up your primary data to your primary data source, don’t put all your eggs in one basket because it increases your risk exponentially. You have to understand what the risks are in the first place to be able to mitigate them. That is where we come in as a trusted adviser.”

Trusted adviser status is the very heart and soul of the channel model. And that status is now more in demand than ever given the mind-numbing pace of security breaches. What’s heartening is solution providers like CPP are stepping into the fray to cut through the security pandemonium. n

BACKTALK: What are you doing to cut through the security pandemonium?

Let me know at sburke@thechannelcompany.com.

6

Women of the

Channel

Leadership Network

The Women of the Channel Leadership Network is an online community dedicated to helping women across the IT channel thrive professionally and personally.

• Embrace the power of community • Network and foster relationships with women from across the tech industry • Gain peer insight through live discussions, online forums and interactive networking groups • Connect with community members to gather best practices and advice for solving business challenges • Explore content for thought leadership and professional development • Utilize the platform to build your personal brand and establish yourself as an industry leader • Discover how to improve company culture, while unleashing the power of inclusion

Join at: thechannelcocommunities.com/

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How To

Succeed

by Seeing the Whole Story

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Comm100 Finds Opportunity Through Industry Adversity Q. What has led to Comm100’s success over the past year?

A. Our focus on a few verticals. Seeing our growth in the finance, health care, educa-

tion, government and ecommerce spaces has been big. With COVID-19, organizations learned how to digitally transform and become future-proof in this digital age. We grew our market presence because we offer a true omnichannel solution with the ability to manage every digital customer service channel in one place, with bank-level security, 99.9 percent uptime and seamless integrations to other core business systems.

A. From a channel perspective, a lot of businesses already have a go-to IT company or

provider. Those providers partnering with us helped drive more revenue and get our name and product out in the marketplace. Since 2019, more revenue is driving from the channel and we’re becoming more channel-oriented.

The channel for us is that trusted authority. They have a relationship with a buyer that we don’t have. When a channel vendor says they think Comm100 is a solution someone should go with, it’s more inspiring than if that came right from the vendor.

Q. How will your partners play a role in your future success?

A. Our partners will be a big part of our success, as we expand our partner network

and reach more deeply into our key verticals. We have partners that fit in a digital transformation space, digital web agencies, global system integrators, all the way down to something that’s a bit smaller that focuses on AI chatbots for finance companies. Each one of our partners brings something unique. They will be a massive part of growth going forward, especially in the next two to five years.

Q. What are Comm100’s big plans for the next 12 months?

A. We will focus on finding where our sweet spot is within our core verticals and drive partnerships within those verticals because that’s where we’re seeing the accelerated growth within the company. Understanding how we best suit those companies and how we tweak our product to ensure that we’re seen and have those differentiators that put us at the forefront for our partners will help us grow for the next 12 months and beyond.

Ty Rottare

VP, Global Channels

“

We orchestrate a clever blend of human agent, bot and self-serve customer engagement.

You must build a system that fits your brand, message and structure you want. We will help you build the customer engagement approach that suits you.

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Q. How has the channel played a role in Comm100’s success?

Let’s Talk https://www.comm100.com/partners/#letstalk

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3/28/21 6:38 PM

T E C H 1 0 : MOB I LITY

10 Key Devices That Go Wherever The Workforce May Be For mobile and remote workers, these laptops, tablets and accessories are ideal for a variety of situations

By Kyle Alspach

SAMSUNG GALAXY S21 ENTERPRISE EDITION The 6.2-inch Samsung Galaxy S21 sports a three-camera system on the rear, support for 5G connectivity and strong performance via Qualcomm’s new eight-core Snapdragon 888. For business users, the S21 offers wireless connectivity to the DeX Android desktop environment. And with the Enterprise Edition capabilities, the smartphone includes a year of free access to the Knox Suite, which provides tools for mobile enrollment, setup and endpoint management.

MICROSOFT SURFACE PRO 7+ Business-friendly updates with Microsoft’s Surface Pro 7+ include optional LTE Advanced connectivity and a removable SSD to help enhance security and data retention—as well as longer battery life (up to 15 hours on a charge, compared with 10.5 hours on the Surface Pro 7). The 12.3-inch tablet also moves up to 11th-generation Intel Core processors for a performance boost of more than 2X, according to Microsoft.

APPLE IPAD PRO With the latest update to the iPad Pro, Apple has introduced a trackpad to the detachable keyboard for the first time while also enhancing the keyboard’s design. The “Magic Keyboard” design uses a scissor mechanism and offers 1mm of key travel for an improved typing experience. The latest iPad Pro, available with 11-inch and 12.9-inch display sizes, also features the A12Z Bionic chip for faster performance.

BELKIN BOOST CHARGE 3-IN-1 WIRELESS CHARGER SPECIAL EDITION FOR APPLE DEVICES For mobile workers who rely on their iPhone, Apple Watch and AirPods, this Belkin device can charge all three—and do so fast. The Boost Charge 3-in-1 Wireless Charger features a 7.5W charging pad specially made for charging the iPhone, while also featuring a 5W pad for charging AirPods and a magnetic charging module for powering up an Apple Watch.

HP ELITE DRAGONFLY G2 With the Elite Dragonfly G2, HP Inc. has added 5G connectivity, integrated Tile tracking and HP Tamper Lock intrusion detection technology. The 2-in-1 notebook continues to offer a 13.3-inch display and a weight of just 2.2 pounds, making it the “world’s lightest compact business convertible,” according to HP.

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LENOVO THINKPAD X1 FOLD The world’s first foldable PC, the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Fold features a 13.3-inch display that when unfolded can be used as a tablet or as a screen connected to a Bluetooth keyboard.

When folded, the X1 Fold can serve as a dualdisplay device with numerous options for multitasking across the two screens. The X1 Fold is also highly portable—with a weight of 2.2 pounds and the capability to fold up into a compact form factor—and offers optional 5G connectivity.

SAMSUNG GALAXY TAB ACTIVE3 With the Galaxy Tab Active3, Samsung has upgraded the resolution on the 8-inch display while maintaining its military-grade ruggedness and ability to use the tablet with most gloves.

The Tab Active3 also includes a larger battery and a new “no battery mode” meant for in-vehicle use. Other additions include a programmable key that enables users to quickly access push-to-talk, scanning or other business apps.

DELL LATITUDE 9420 Available as a 2-in-1 or a clamshell, Dell’s new Latitude 9420 notebook features a 14-inch display, a starting weight of 2.9 pounds and a thickness of just 0.55 of an inch. The notebook offers optional support for high-speed 5G or LTE, while key collaboration features include a built-in speakerphone along with a dedicated mute key and an enhanced webcam.

LENOVO THINKPAD X1 NANO As Lenovo has touted, the ThinkPad X1 Nano is the “lightest ThinkPad ever” with a starting weight of just 1.99 pounds. The 13-inch notebook features a new 16:10 aspect ratio—offering a larger workspace area on the screen—along with 17 hours of battery life and optional 5G.

HP ELITE WIRELESS EARBUDS HP Inc.’s first-ever earbuds product, the HP Elite Wireless Earbuds, are targeted at enabling collaboration for business users. The earbuds offer Active Noise Cancellation; presets for different environments; and the ability to connect to multiple devices—across Windows 10, iOS, macOS and Android—with simplified switching between devices. They also offer customized sound tuning via an app that calibrates the earbuds to the user’s profile. ■

APRIL 2021

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How To

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by Seeing the Whole Story

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Cysurance 360Protect Builds MSP Customer Relationships

Alleviate Financial Risks When Protecting Customers Q. Why did Cysurance create 360Protect and why do MSPs need it?

A. We found a gap in the market between general service support and incidents that

would trigger a cyber liability insurance policy, and this gap particularly impacts MSPs. MSPs are the first line of defense for their customers, but often are not reimbursed for the initial expenses in dealing with a breach.

MSPs are really stepping up to support their customers with added cybersecurity products. We wanted to give them a product that can differentiate their services through a service guarantee, while adding strong value to their products and customer relationships.

Q. What benefits do MSPs get with Cysurance’s 360Protect?

A. 360Protect is designed as a service guarantee to reimburse MSPs for up to $500,000

when they’re called to remediate a cyberattack that circumvented the security controls put in place for their customers. The program provides protections for compliance and privacy fines up to $100,000, fees for ransomware and business email compromise costs up to $100,000, $50,000 business interruption costs and an additional $250,000 for legal liability resulting from these incidents.

The MSP can choose to provide the recovery services or use our 24/7 breach response provider, MoxFive. This includes technical remediation and data breach support.

Q. How does Cysurance’s 360Protect build business for MSPs and take customer service to the next level?

A. Because 360Protect is not insurance, it can be bundled and resold with current

security offerings to differentiate services and add revenue. One of the important factors for MSPs to consider is the complete value proposition of security services and the enhancement that this product provides. This product not only can provide initial increases in revenue, but it also allows the MSP to expand their services fees for true cyber risk management offerings.

Kirsten Bay

”

CEO

MSPs are really stepping up to support their customers with added cybersecurity products. We wanted to give them a product that can differentiate their services through a service guarantee, while adding strong value to their products and customer relationships.

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Cyber risk management is not just about solving technology problems. It’s about creating 360-degree protection to account for the risks we currently understand and for those that are evolving as the adversary improves attack techniques. 360Protect is your financial backstop for all of the risks that cannot be anticipated.

With 360Protect from Cysurance, now you can offer a $500,000 service guarantee for those services that you just can’t guarantee. www.360Protect.cysurance.com

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C O V E R S T O RY

NadellaVision Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella views every business program or business model change through a channel lens: How does it impact partners and how will it help them drive technology acceleration?

By Donna Goodison

M

icrosoft CEO Satya Nadella, who’s been absorbed in the technology giant’s “partner-first” culture for nearly 30 years, spends a lot of time contemplating how solution providers are impacted by every decision the company makes.

“One of the things that I want to design in our core is— whether it’s the move from license to consumption or license to subscriptions—what is the partner opportunity,” Nadella said in an exclusive interview with CRN. “We want to [know] from day one in any change we make, whether it’s a program change or business model change, what does it mean for partners?”

Nadella’s vision for Microsoft is filtered through a channel lens.

“I’ve grown up in Microsoft since ’92, in some sense marking all of our programs and events as a platform and partnerfirst company,” Nadella said. “That’s the ethos that I live and breathe.”

Nadella’s strategy to keep partners at the center of all things Microsoft is a message that he has constantly reinforced since replacing Steve Ballmer as Microsoft’s third CEO in 2014.

And it’s helped him engineer a remarkable turnaround of the 46-year-old company’s business model and fortunes as a hybrid cloud computing force with its Azure platform.

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And now Nadella is poised to drive further Microsoft cloud gains as the company urges partners to sell its full technology stack with the goal of longer customer engagements and more consumption. Microsoft wants partners to transform from pure resellers focused on a single product to trusted advisers delivering managed services and creating innovative solutions atop multiple offerings from Microsoft’s increasingly intertwined portfolio.

With some 300,000 partners globally having a hand in 95 percent of Microsoft’s commercial revenue, the Redmond, Wash.-based company’s success hinges on the channel, according to Nadella.

“What I think is unique about the way we approach our business, our business model and the partner ecosystem is we fundamentally wouldn’t exist as a company if not for the partner ecosystem taking what we build, adding value to it and then, most importantly, jointly being as obsessed about how do the outcomes of it help the world get better one business at a time, one community at a time,” Nadella said.

Helping Nadella carry out his partner-led worldview is Rodney Clark, the 23-year Microsoft veteran who was named channel chief and corporate vice president of global channel sales at the end of March.

“The key message from Satya is consistent not only with

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[me], but with others, and that is … partners are critical to our “I would do anything for Satya,” Stypula said. success—always have been and will continue to be—and we The next channel revolution is centered on driving more cloud need to continue to invest in their tech capability and enable consumption with partners leveraging the full depth and breadth them to leverage our platform,” Clark said. “And we have to find of the complete Microsoft portfolio. ways to make it easier and simpler to engage and to transact.”

“The market has spoken on that one,” Clark said. “The comWhen Nadella meets with his senior leadership team each panies that have been successful in this transition have made that Friday, the conversation—no matter what part of the business is commitment to their digital transformation, they’ve made that being discussed—always comes around to how the company can commitment to their business transformation. And I think it’s critihelp partners drive tech acceleration and customer outcomes. cal to the success of our ecosystem for others in the ecosystem to “The biggest thing in those meetings is ultimately how we really understand.” integrate the partner conversation and discussion into everything Approximately 30 percent of the Microsoft partner ecosystem has that we do,” said Clark, who previously served as Microsoft’s crossed the cloud chasm.They’ve transformed their businesses with corporate vice president of IoT and mixed reality sales. “What Microsoft, or the principals of longtime Microsoft partners went Satya is consistent about—in fact, emphatic about—is ensuring on and started new cloud-first companies, according to Corporate that when we talk about our capability, we’re also talking about Vice President Gavriella Schuster, a 25-year-plus Microsoft veteran. how we are enabling that same capability in the ecosystem.

“They’re leading-edge,” said Schuster, who passed the chanYou can hear him going through that type of assessment: How nel chief baton to Clark after five years in the role. “Probably a are we going to enable this third of them have managed community, this ecosystem services, have value-added to support our broader cusservices, have unique [inteltomers and ultimately help lectual property] and repeat‘We fundamentally wouldn’t exist as a with larger goals and, more able services and are really in company if not for the partner ecosystem specifically, company-specific the process of embracing that or country-specific [goals]. consumption economy. About taking what we build, adding value to it That’s kind of his hierarchy.” a third of them through that and then, most importantly, jointly being journey are … reshaping their The Cloud Shift business models. They are deas obsessed about how do the outcomes of Microsoft’s shift to a more livering the value to the cusit help the world get better one business at open and collaborative cloudtomers. They’re working with first strategy under Nadella— us as value-added services a time, one community at a time.’ backstopped by key sales or[partners] and not just resale, —Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella ganization and compensation but they’re still in the process changes—has fueled customer of transitioning their compenconsumption of Microsoft’s sation systems, their teams, to Azure cloud computing serbe more like customer success vices and its cloud-based Microsoft 365 productivity and Dynamics managers rather than just salespeople.”

365 business application lines.

Microsoft is trying to develop its partner channel to do more as Nadella’s critical moves have resulted in No. 2 Azure narrow- it simplifies the implementation of its cloud-based offerings. ing the market-share lead held by Amazon Web Services. They’ve “Microsoft is moving our workloads around,” Stypula said. also been life-changing for Microsoft partners such as Dynamic “The partner that was really good at setting up SQL Server five Consulting, a Chicago-based Microsoft Gold partner specializing or 10 years ago probably doesn’t have a job anymore. Microsoft in implementations and management of Microsoft’s Dynamics 365, says that’s low-hanging fruit. They want the partner to go up and Power Platform and Modern Workplace solutions. become a higher-level consultant—when should a customer be “What he’s done for Microsoft, not just with his vision, but also using SQL, what kind of SQL versions should they be using—not his ability to execute … he’s been absolutely amazing,” President just the plumber or not just the mechanic.”

Jonathan Stypula said. “I first became a Microsoft partner under Ballmer, but it’s the direction Satya has taken Microsoft that has A ‘Partner-First’ Company had a lasting impact. He and his team have changed our company Nadella brought an engineering and computer science pedigree trajectory—changed my life, really. Those early and bold decisions to the CEO’s office after leading the company’s cloud and enterprise group as executive vice president. “I remember the first made the company what it is today.”

Nadella has transformed the Microsoft channel with his cloud- TechEd or the first Worldwide Partner Conference, and I marked all my life with the passing of those events,” he said. first model, driving massive growth and profitability for partners.

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C O V E R S T O RY His turnaround of Microsoft has shifted its focus from onpremises software and dependence on its Windows operating system and Office franchise to being an end-to-end platform and tools provider with a hybrid operating model trained on the intelligent cloud and edge, infused with artificial intelligence (AI). The previously insular Microsoft started looking outward, collaborating with former adversaries including Apple, Oracle, Red Hat, Salesforce, SAP and Sony.

“This is really a completely different thinking—almost a borderless thinking,” said C Vijayakumar, CEO of HCL Technologies, a Noida, India-based Microsoft global systems integrator that eclipsed $10 billion in revenue in 2020. “It’s a very competitive world, but how do you collaborate to drive more value for a client—I think that approach has been very strong. I think everybody is looking at how to do it, but Microsoft took a lead on how to make different technologies work on their platform.”

Nadella has been instrumental in unlocking the power of Microsoft across cloud, software and consumer technology by betting tech is not a “zero-sum game,” said Hyoun Park, CEO and principal analyst at Amalgam Insights, a Berkeley, Calif., technology consulting firm.

“Although Microsoft definitely wants to win business, they don’t have a ‘win-at-all-costs’ mentality that is more associated with the likes of Oracle or Amazon,” Park said. “Microsoft is more likely to invest in areas where a rising tide floats all boats, and Microsoft can focus on executing on its own vision.”

Microsoft has embraced open source under Nadella, including the Linux operating system once described in 2001 as a “cancer”

by Ballmer. Microsoft joined the Linux Foundation in 2016 as a Platinum member and in 2018 acquired GitHub, the open-source code repository service, for $7.5 billion in Microsoft stock to win over developers.

Today, in addition to Azure, Microsoft 365 and Dynamics 365’s enterprise resource planning and customer relationship management applications, Microsoft’s catalog spans Power Platform and its low-code Power Apps development suite, the LinkedIn professional networking site, Surface computers and tablets, and Xbox gaming consoles and games among other products.

Microsoft gives partners a broad set of capabilities that’s very different from its competitors, said Emma McGuigan, who leads Intelligent Platform Services and the Microsoft Business Group at Accenture—a global systems integrator and Microsoft’s largest partner—and is board chair of Avanade, a joint venture with Microsoft.

“Where we’ve seen real strength in our relationship with Microsoft is we’ve implemented that breadth of technology platform solutions that they have,” McGuigan said. “What that’s allowed us to do in these target industries is to really build on some of the core solutions and then start to drive some of the more innovative thinking. It’s about really unlocking that breadth of opportunity that comes between our organizations.”

Other key moves to Microsoft becoming a major cloud player

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came in 2017 with a global sales reorganization—then called the most significant change to its sales force in company history— and a defining sales motion decision that shifted compensation away from one-time license bookings to consumption-based pay dictated by customers’ actual use of Azure.

“If we thought we had a fantastic business model and a fantastic opportunity with our ecosystem of partners in the old era of … software licenses, we have now proven that this move to consumption and subscription is a tremendously more valuable thing to our customers and tremendously bigger opportunity for us collectively,” Nadella said. “I feel like this business model is here to stay. After all, a customer is not going to subscribe if they’re not getting value. A customer is not going to consume if they’re not getting value. It puts us, our partners, fully aligned with customer success. I celebrate this sort of alignment, and we will continue to keep tuning it.”

Microsoft also launched a co-selling program in 2017 under which partners, to date, have made $18.5 billion directly from co-selling their IP with Microsoft. In the current fiscal year, Microsoft’s sales organization has shared and closed more than 166,000 co-sell opportunities with partners. It’s increasing its co-selling focus on small and midsize businesses this year.

Nadella and Microsoft live by the principle that “great partners make more possible for one another and for clients,” according to Brian Humphries, CEO of Teaneck, N.J.-based Cognizant, a Microsoft global systems integrator and Azure Expert MSP that generated $16.7 billion in revenue last year.

“Microsoft is a tremendous partner,” said Humphries, whose company purchased Microsoft partners New Signature and 10th Magnitude last year. “By staying in lockstep at the executive level on down, investing in digital platforms based on Microsoft industry clouds and developing joint go-to-market solutions, we’re able to accelerate our clients’ transformation into fully digital businesses and deliver compelling outcomes for them.”

The changes under Nadella have paid off for Microsoft, partners and investors. Microsoft’s annual revenue has increased almost 84 percent under Nadella, from $77.8 billion in fiscal year 2013 to just over $143 billion in the last fiscal year that ended June 30, 2020.

Microsoft partners earned an estimated $9.58 in revenue through services and software for every $1 that Microsoft generated in 2020—a total of $984 billion, according to IDC. The market research firm expects that to grow to $10.04 by 2024, representing a total of $1.2 trillion. By comparison, IDC estimated that Google Cloud partners earned $5.32 for each $1 of Google Cloud technology sold last year. Similar stats were unavailable from IDC for AWS. Microsoft’s stock, meanwhile, has climbed approximately 540 percent during Nadella’s tenure as CEO. Microsoft hit a $1 trillion market capitalization for the first time in April 2019, and its market cap now stands at more than $1.75 trillion, making it the world’s third most valuable company behind Apple and oil company Saudi Aramco.

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On-Premises Ubiquity A Key Strength

applications that allow customers to basically lead with every The tech industry saw the “dawn of a second wave of digital process that they deal with in their business on a day-to-day transformation sweeping every company and every industry” in basis. And then Azure is really a cloud where practitioners, dethe past year, according to Nadella, accelerated by the global velopers, data scientists, IT professionals … come to basically coronavirus pandemic that’s fueled Azure cloud migrations and get their tasks done and help their customers, help their own consumption, the growth of Microsoft 365 and the Teams col- employers with the digital transformation journey.” laboration app, new devices running Windows 10 on increased Microsoft’s three-cloud offering—Azure, Microsoft 365 and PC use, and Xbox gaming hardware, content and services.

Dynamics 365—is unique, according to HCL’s Vijayakumar.

Microsoft’s revenue hit $43.1 billion for the fiscal second “It really gives you an ability to play end to end in the digital quarter ended Dec. 31, 2020, the most recent results available. transformation of an enterprise,” he said. “It’s a very compreThe 17 percent increase from the prior year was driven by com- hensive offering.” mercial cloud revenue—including Azure, Office 365 Commercial, Microsoft’s seven-year-old Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) proDynamics 365 and the commercial portion of LinkedIn—which gram is one of its fastest growing, moving from 45,000 partners grew 34 percent to $16.7 billion. Revenue from Azure alone in early 2018 to more than 90,000 partners generating 60 percent was up 50 percent. of Microsoft partner transactions, according to the company.

With enterprise-class relationships dating back several decades, Average revenue per CSP is growing 53 percent year over year.

Wedbush Securities said Microsoft’s deal flow looks strong “When we talk about the partners that have transformed, that heading into the rest of the 90,000 really represents that year. It estimates Microsoft two-thirds of the population has penetrated only about that we feel have turned that 35 percent of its massive, corner, and their primary fo‘Azure is really a cloud where “unparalleled” on-premises cus is cloud business,” Schuspractitioners, developers, data scientists, installed customer base on ter said. the cloud transition.

IT professionals ... come to basically get Microsoft Azure: That Microsoft on-premistheir tasks done and help their customers, ‘Scope Matters’ es ubiquity is a key strength Microsoft Azure has continwhen it comes to selling its help their own employers with the digital ued to gain market clout: Its cloud services, according worldwide market share into Bob Bailkoski, CEO of transformation journey.’ creased to 20 percent at the Logicalis Group, a Slough, —JG Chirapurath, Microsoft VP, end of 2020, from 10 percent England-based Microsoft Azure data, AI and edge at the beginning of 2017, acAzure Expert MSP with an cording to the latest quarapproximately $100 milterly cloud infrastructure lion Microsoft practice. With data from Synergy Research triple-digit growth rates in annual recurring revenue generated through its customers—con- Group. AWS’ market share has remained in the 32 percent to sumed revenue on the Azure platform—the company expects to 34 percent range.

Nadella cited multiple reasons why he believes Azure—which double the size of its Microsoft business in a few years.

“And that’s really going to be driven by growth in cloud man- is used by about 95 percent of Fortune 500 companies—is the aged services,” Bailkoski said. “The fact it’s across all of our better choice for customers and partners over AWS and No. 3 customer environments—Microsoft as a vendor—that gives you Google Cloud Platform (GCP).

“When we think about Azure or for that matter, any layer of the lead-in to Azure. From a selling perspective, the conversation our commercial cloud, it’s that scope,” Nadella said. “We have is much, much easier.”

Microsoft’s cloud approach is providing customers the broadest differentiation in Azure. Hybrid is something that we have always choice possible, said JG Chirapurath, Microsoft’s vice president led. We have the most differentiated data layer. We have the most differentiated AI layer as it meets tools. We have the most differof Azure data, AI and edge.

“The Microsoft cloud is really the foundation and instantiation entiated tool chain, especially with Azure DevOps and GitHub. of our promises of the intelligent cloud and intelligent edge,” But the most important thing for us is that line between Azure Chirapurath said. “If you look at things like [Microsoft] 365, we to GitHub to Power Platform to Microsoft 365 or Dynamics 365 effectively provide the most cohesive and unified platform for is one integrated commercial cloud opportunity for partners.

“When you are going to a partner or when you’re going to a people to collaborate and interact with each other. We provide business users, in Dynamics 365, with a broad set of intelligent customer, you don’t want to talk about infrastructure indepen-

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C O V E R S T O RY dent of data, you don’t want to talk about data independent of Thomsen also singled out Azure’s interoperability. the SaaS applications, because customers care about all of these “The solutions and services provided by Microsoft can be things together in the context of their business process, business connected with multiple clouds and on-premises, reducing the value,” Nadella said. “That’s the unique opportunity: That we feeling of ‘vendor lock-in,’” he said. “In addition, GitHub and are more comprehensive in scope, scale, depth, which then, in Azure DevOps both support deployments of code to Amazon, turn, translates into partner opportunity and customer value.”

GCP, Azure and on-premises.”

Trust is another factor that Nadella said shouldn’t be “taken The company does not believe cloud is “one size fits all,” lightly in today’s age.” It’s more than trust in technology and Microsoft’s Chirapurath said. security, he said, in an apparent reference to cloud competitors “Now, more than ever, customers need more choice, more whose broader businesses sometimes compete with customers— flexibility in how they approach the cloud,” he said. “We’ve such as AWS parent company Amazon.com’s e-commerce site. always wanted to meet our customers and partners where they “The idea that the partner and the platform provider in Mi- are. We want to reflect the choice that customers have in their crosoft fundamentally are aligned with the customers’ business own IT infrastructure and IT choices. We want to be able to tell success matters a lot,” Nadella said. “You talk to a retailer, you a customer if they choose Oracle to run their database applicatalk to a packaged goods, direct-to-consumer company, you talk tions, that’s perfectly fine. We will absolutely work with Oracle to an automaker—talk to anyone—they’ll always care about, to make sure that their database choices in Azure related to ‘Look, can I trust my vendor chain to be mostly motivated Oracle are the best in the world—same with SAP.” by my success?’ And that, I Microsoft’s hybrid cloud think, is another element of offerings center on the Azure differentiation.”

Stack family of services, ‘Azure has more [cloud] regions—60, Microsoft Azure has a Azure Arc and IoT capabilities. compared to Amazon’s 25—with more strong off-the-shelf, Plat“Microsoft built Azure to be form-as-a-Service (PaaS) hybrid from day one, so we preparing to come online. This allows offering, said Chris Garvey, didn’t sort of back into it,” he for better services and more options executive vice president of said. “Hybrid is ultimately an for our customers. There is also Azure cloud services at Seattle’s operating model. We believe 2nd Watch, a cloud migration that we have the most comGovernment, which is specifically and managed cloud service prehensive approach to this hardened and dedicated for provider and Microsoft Gold whole hybrid proposition.” government entity use.’ partner.

Industry Clouds “They do quite well with —Jon Thomsen, Atmosera CEO Microsoft launched Azure application modernization Government, a cloud for PaaS services … such as IoT U.S. government customers, and data analytics,” Garvey said. “Their data lake and ancillary services that support the in 2014. Now it’s expanded into industry-specific clouds, anaggregation of information for advanced analysis are well- nouncing five since October. They combine common data models, cross-cloud connectors, workflows, APIs and industry-specific integrated with their other business software offerings.”

Atmosera, a Beaverton, Ore., Microsoft Gold partner and components and standards with security solutions and cloud Azure Expert MSP, is 100 percent focused on Azure, with 70 capabilities from Azure, Microsoft 365, Power Platform and Dynamics 365. percent annualized growth in the last five years.

The first, Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare, will be updated “Azure has more [cloud] regions—60, compared to Amazon’s 25, with more preparing to come online,” CEO Jon Thomsen this month with new features for virtual health, remote patient said. “This allows for better service and more options for our monitoring, care coordination and patient self-service, and customers. There is also Azure Government, which is specifically support for eight new languages. Microsoft Cloud for Retail, unveiled at the National Retail Federation’s flagship conference hardened and dedicated for government entity use.”

Thomsen ticked off a list of other Azure strengths, including in January, moved to public preview in March. It’s designed to costs, innovation and integration capabilities: Running Windows deliver more personalized shopper experiences and consolidate and SQL Server workloads can be five times more expensive customer data insight to help employees improve operations, on AWS; Azure has delivered more than 1,000 new capabilities sales and customer service.

Microsoft Cloud for Financial Services is in public preview, in the last year, including support for quantum computing; and Azure Active Directory-based identity security integrates seam- and Microsoft Cloud for Manufacturing and Microsoft Cloud lessly with Office 365 and third-party identity systems, he said. for Nonprofit are set for public preview in June.

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“We believe that digital transformation has extraordinary Low-code, no-code development promises tremendous partner gains to offer in any industry,” Chirapurath said. “We want opportunities, Nadella said, including by continuing to extend to essentially create these offerings that help participants in a Teams with business process applications. He also cited innovaparticular industry hit the [ground] running. You can expect us tion in the data and AI space around the Azure Synapse analytics to continue to invest in these industry-specific clouds across service and Azure Cosmos DB, Microsoft’s fully managed NoSQL these verticals as a next evolution of how we see our cloud database for modern app development. journey come around.”

“This is every layer of the stack,” Nadella said. “Whether it’s Microsoft’s industry cloud strategy plays to its existing the infrastructure with hybrid, with data with its next generastrengths, Accenture’s McGuigan said. tion of large-scale data warehouses with Synapse or operational “Microsoft has chosen to really double down on the industries stores with things like Cosmos DB and Hyperscale SQL—or where they’ve already been commanding a lot of opportunity,” what’s happening with Power Apps, what’s happening with Azure she said. “Pulling an industry cloud solution together is a very DevOps and GitHub or Teams—[it] shows a very fresh modern natural next step for them.” stack with plenty of partner opportunity.

Accenture was part of the beta run for Microsoft Cloud for “One of the things that we also see is that connective tisHealthcare and is leveraging its infrastructure to power Ac- sue—it’s not one layer at a time,” Nadella continued. “You centure’s Healthcare on Azure data platform. Accenture built could start in Teams, deploy Teams, write a Power Apps, and the applications and capabilities related to virtual health and patient Power Apps is using Azure DB. You’re a partner of all of those insight on top of Microsoft technologies. But, more imCloud for Healthcare to exportantly, you are a partner tend its capabilities. who is driving faster time to ‘There’s no better way for partners to “We provide expertise value for customers.” make money right now than to help that feeds into those health organizations retool their real estate, Microsoft Teams: solutions, so it’s like an exPartners Need To tra layer on top that allows their employees and their applications ‘Ride The Wave’ us to accelerate the pace at for the hybrid workplace. ... I don’t think Microsoft’s approach to which we can implement sothere’s a product in tech that creates as Teams is to offer in one place lutions,” McGuigan said. all of the communication and many opportunities as we’re going to create Nadella On Emerging collaboration tools that peowith Teams over the next five years.’

Partner Growth Areas ple need to get work done —Jeff Teper, Corporate VP, The coronavirus outbreak inside and outside their orgaresulted in great momentum nizations. These tools include Microsoft 365 Collaboration around digital transformacalls, meetings, chat, docution for the smallest of busiment collaboration, project nesses to the largest of institutions, Nadella noted. management and a number of other features.

“Whether it was remote work, remote education, remote Launched in 2017, Teams already had been one of the fasthealth—take anything—it suddenly became important that, in est-growing Microsoft products ever created even before the order for any business or any institution to stay operating, you COVID-19 pandemic. But the outbreak-induced move to remote needed digital technology,” he said. “And I think that there’s no work and learning catalyzed organizations to transition more going back. A lot of things have accelerated.” quickly to the cloud and modern collaboration tools, and Teams A newer form of hybrid computing is among the emerging benefited, said Jeff Teper, corporate vice president of Microsoft technologies that Nadella sees as future growth areas for Micro- 365 collaboration. There are now more than 115 million daily soft partners. It’s a complete, new space, he said. active Teams users—up from 32 million on March 12, 2020, the “Just the other day, I was looking at all of the deployments day after the World Health Organization officially declared the of 5G, Azure edge and the cloud,” Nadella said. “Every place, global pandemic—including nearly 60 million on mobile devices. whether it’s the Starbucks coffee machines or whether it is the More than a half-million organizations use Teams.

Purell hand sanitizer … you put MCUs [microcontroller units] At the start of the pandemic last year, Accenture and Avanade in them, you connect them, you connect it to 5G, and you sud- used Teams to quickly provide enhanced communication and denly have a very different type of hybrid computing. It’s not collaboration capabilities to the National Health Service (NHS), the hybrid as a transition phase from old to the cloud. There is a the United Kingdom’s publicly funded health-care system. The complete birth of cloud- and edge-class applications that partners companies worked with NHS Digital to build and test a Teams are deploying in many, many interesting places.” integration within a week. They rolled it out to 1.2 million at

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C O V E R S T O RY 16,000 NHS organizations in England who use NHSmail, the NHS’ email service, enabling them to securely send instant messages, complete audio and video calls, and host virtual meetings. Avanade worked with the NHS to stand up virtual clinics using Teams.

“Teams is built both as this user experience scaffolding and a platform from day one to bring multiple things together—both asynchronous and synchronous communications, that is video meetings … and chat together as one communications infrastructure,” Nadella said. “We bring together collaboration with Office collaboration as part of the same application. It’s not as if work only happens in meetings or work only happens in chat.

Work happens before meetings—because we are collaborating on a document—during meetings and after meetings. We really thought of that in the context of Teams.”

Microsoft also thought about business processes, Nadella said.

A customer or partner can build an inventory tracker using Power Apps or integrate with Workday, for example, take that workflow and put it right into Teams so that people on the frontlines or knowledge work side of businesses can collaborate, he said.

Nadella isn’t worried about Teams becoming less relevant once organizations return to some semblance of in-office work and in-person learning.

“When we ‘come back’ from the pandemic, hybrid work is here to stay—whether it’s somebody in the field working with somebody in the headquarters, or somebody at work working with a bunch of people who are remote or working from home,” he said.

“The flexibility that is built into Teams and all the modalities of communications, collaboration as well as business process that are built into Teams … are going to be of paramount importance.

It’s a real platform opportunity for partners.”

Microsoft has a “fantastic” road map for Teams with enhancements on the end-user feature, security and IT, and developer sides, according to Nadella.

“That’s why it’s exciting whenever we think about Teams,” he said. “It’s like talking about Windows or really talking about Azure. Teams is as much of a platform opportunity as it is an end-user tool.”

Recently unveiled Teams features include PowerPoint Live, a presenter mode to customize how presenters’ video feeds and content appear, invite-only meeting controls, end-to-end encryption for one-to-one Teams calls, and Microsoft Teams Connect to help organizations collaborate with outside parties through shared channels.

Microsoft Viva, a new employee experience platform, will be integrated into Teams. And Microsoft plans to integrate Microsoft Mesh, its new Azure-powered, mixed-reality platform that will allow people to interact holographically.

“There’s no better way for partners to make money right now than to help organizations retool their real estate, their employees and their applications for the hybrid workplace,” Microsoft’s Teper said. “If I was talking to the CEO of any one

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of our partners, I would say, ‘Ride the wave.’ I don’t think there’s a product in tech that creates as many opportunities as we’re going to create with Teams over the next five years.”

The partner opportunities start with deploying Teams as organizations prepare their post-pandemic workspaces.

“Conference rooms and shared workspaces were already in a state of transformation, but they’re going to be evolved for hybrid work,” Teper said. “Employees may not go to the office all the time, but they’ll collaborate in touchdown spaces. Conference rooms will not just be the place where one or two people call in remotely, but you’ll have large-screen videos of people and tracking of status on Teams meeting room devices that will make those meetings more inclusive for remote participants,” he added.

Partners will continue to see work transforming and integrating business applications into Teams and custom-building new ones.

ISVs already have built more than 800 Teams apps, and systems integrators and other Microsoft partners have contributed tens of thousands more—if not hundreds of thousands—building and integrating them via Power Apps, SharePoint or Visual Studio, Teper said.

In January, German enterprise application software provider SAP unveiled plans to integrate its solutions into Teams, including SAP S/4HANA, SAP SuccessFactors and SAP Customer Experience.

“And then we see lots of partners working with companies to help them engage their employees,” Teper said. “It’s top of mind for every CEO about how to transform, evolve their workplace, their skill set.”

Microsoft Viva presents a “huge set of partner opportunities, thinking through what content and training and applications should be targeted to what employees,” Teper said.

‘Trillions Of Dollars’ In Partner Opportunities At Stake Those Microsoft partners, more than half of which are MSPs, are in countries across the globe.

“One of the things that I feel the most proud of as a company is when you go drop yourself anywhere on the planet, there will be a Microsoft partner ecosystem,” Nadella said. “And for the most part, if you say what is the software industry of that country or that region, it’s essentially these partners. In 2021, that is more needed—that is, that ecosystem building, that ability to take digital technologies and democratize their access across industries, across first-line and knowledge work.”

There are “trillions of dollars” more in opportunities at stake, Nadella said.

“Today, 5 percent of the world’s [gross domestic product] is spent on tech,” he said. “In 10 years’ time—in fact, this COVID crisis may have accelerated it—that’s going to be 10 percent. We are lucky enough to be in an industry that’s going to double, and the partner opportunity therefore is clear.”

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New Channel Chief Clark’s Marching Orders: Partners ‘Remain Critical To Our Business’ When Rodney Clark was appointed as Microsoft channel chief last month, it was the culmination of 10 years of career development planning that put the role front and center as a goal.

Clark, a 23-year Microsoft employee who most recently served as corporate vice president of IoT and mixed reality sales, considers the new position his “destination role” and “dream job.”

“I would want the ecosystem to know that not only are they getting a familiar face, they’re getting someone who’s been in the ecosystem for a while, and then they’re getting somebody who’s genuinely excited about this destination role,” Clark said.

Clark has been working with partners and customers throughout his Microsoft career, which has included general manager roles for its Samsung alliance, Microsoft’s global small and midmarket solutions and partners group, and its public sector business of small and midsize government, education and health-care institutions.

CRN spoke with Clark the week before he was named corporate vice president of global channel sales.

Did you get any kind of marching orders from Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella?

During these processes here at Microsoft, especially for roles as important as the channel chief partner ecosystem role, we have clear marching orders that partners always have been and remain critical to our business. We have to continue to focus on how we enable the partners to leverage our platform, building their capability, in essence, on top of ours. And we have to find ways to make it easier and simpler to engage and to transact.

How can Microsoft help partners transition to selling the whole technology stack, wrapping their services and IP around it, and pushing cloud consumption?

It’s core to what we do with our ecosystem. You’ve heard us talk about this notion and concept of tech intensity. It’s really each company enabling their own capability and supporting that with our platforms and services. We have roles that we invest in in the field—from our enterprise sales team, to cloud solution architects, to our partner development management managers—that are there to usher our partners through this process. And so everything from enabling business model transformation through direct engagement, be it architecture or otherwise, through our programs, through things like Partner Central, where they can come in and … see the opportunities, to things like simplifying how we go to market and sell together. All those are a big part and a key component of our engagement with partners, and we’ll continue to invest in those things to simplify and make it easier for our community.

What’s your message to partners, and what do you want them to know about you?

The biggest thing—especially in a change like this, with a leader like [former channel chief Gavriella Schuster] who’s been in place for [five] years—Gavriella and I have been working in partnership for the last three and a half [years] directly. I would want the ecosystem to know that. And I’ve worked with previous channel chiefs as well.

I would want the ecosystem to know that I’ve been engaged and involved in the partner business, specifically at Microsoft, for more than 15 years of my existence here. I would want the ecosystem to know that I ran sales and marketing teams in our small/midmarket solutions and partner organization in the field, that I’ve worked with some of our largest ISVs and GSIs and OEMs. So they’re getting someone that has been passionate about the ecosystem, that has invested, personally, my career in the ecosystem.

Why is the channel chief role a ‘destination role’ for you?

I’ve always thought about the ecosystem and the role that partners play in Microsoft’s success and in our customers’ success. Partners are involved and engaged in 95 percent of our [commercial] business. We’re helping economies transform through our partners, we’re helping companies transform through our partners—while we’re also helping them.

And so for me, by virtue of being involved and engaged in this ecosystem, I’ve always felt that there was a broader role that I can play to help enable that. I’ve always seen myself and envisioned myself in this role, where I can be that face of Microsoft to the channel and help continue to drive transformation. I get excited about this. I’m a little geeky about it, quite frankly, and giddy at the same time. I want the ecosystem to know that I’m super excited about stepping in and taking on this opportunity. ■

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Forging A Path To Partner Success In 2020, the pandemic’s impact was felt all across the channel as vendors quickly adapted to their partners’ immediate needs. But now it’s 2021 and vendors are looking through a different lens, stepping up their partner program incentives, training and more.

By Rick Whiting

H

elping partners meet customer demand for work-from-home IT products and services, providing financial flexibility amid the sudden economic uncertainty, and creating ways for partners to market and sell their products and services in a no-contact world—these were the goals of just about every channel chief in 2020 amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Leading IT vendors, including Dell Technologies, Intel, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Cisco Systems, quickly adapted their partner programs in 2020 in response to the pandemic. But now it’s 2021 and IT vendors and their channel chiefs are looking beyond those emergency measures and stepping up their channel game.

And that means a renewed focus on their partner programs.

Dell Technologies, which relaunched its channel program as the Dell Technologies Partner Program in 2019, has continued to expand its offerings. In February the company made it possible for partners to transact VMware licensing deals through the program.

It also launched an Incentives Center that gives partners a single place to view all their incentives, developed an Online Solutions Configurator that improves pricing transparency, and debuted a Power Up initiative to give partners more access to Dell accounts.

“From my perspective, the partner experience is everything that we’re actually aiming toward improving—from tools and automation to improving the way we do business and how partners do business with us,” said Rola Dagher, Dell’s global channel chief. “We’re doing continuous simplifications around the partner experience because we’re living in a world where it’s all about the experience and the personalization. The partner experience is what we’re focused on [in 2021]—anything that’s going to make it easier, simplified and more profitable for our partners.”

And partners appreciate the help. Josh Lee, sales director at VirtuIT, a Nanuet, N.Y.-based Dell Titanium partner, praised the partner program upgrades. “It’s going to make the ease of doing business with Dell Technologies a lot better and a lot easier,” he said. “The faster we can turn around proposals to customers, the easier it is for an end user to do business with Dell partners.”

Intel, meanwhile, in February 2021 launched its longawaited Intel Partner Alliance, a completely new program that

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consolidates elements of three older channel programs. Because it represents a far broader group of partners, from OEMs and resellers to FPGA designers and manufacturers, the program’s Member, Gold and Platinum tiers include role-specific criteria for different partner types.

“It’s truly an entirely new construct that widens the aperture of the partner ecosystem that we’re seeing,” said Eric Thompson, Intel’s general manager of global partner enablement. Other elements of the new program include an online marketplace to increase collaboration among partners and direct customers to partner solutions, a new Intel Partner University and a revamped Intel Partner Marketing Studio.

Solution providers face strategic decisions about which IT vendors to partner with, and the quality of the services, support and incentives provided through vendors’ partner programs are a big part of that decision.

The CRN Partner Program Guide is based on detailed applications IT companies submit outlining all aspects of their channel programs. To assemble the annual Partner Program Guide, The Channel Company’s research team analyzes the vendor applications and designates some of the programs as 5-Star based on a range of criteria including partner incentives, margins and discounts, partner profitability, sales and marketing assistance, and subscription- and consumption-based pricing availability. The criteria also includes sales leads, deal registration, pre- and post-sales support, programs to help partners grow their services attach, training and education offerings, specializations and technical certifications. The 5-Star designation recognizes an elite subset of partner programs that offer key partnering elements in their programs. The 5-Star rating is given to programs whose overall rating is exemplary. They are denoted on our listing next to their company name.

IT vendors are listed alphabetically on the following pages along with what their partner program goals are for this year. More details about each company’s partner program are available at www.crn.com. Scan the QR code to view the full database. ■

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Company

Channel Program

Channel Chief

2021 Partner Program Goals

8x8

Open Channel Partner Program

John DeLozier, SVP, Global Channel Sales

8x8 is enabling partners to grow and retain their revenue with the company by offering training and demand generation programs specific to identifying upsell, cross-sell and retention opportunities.

Absolute Software

Absolute Partner Program

Mark Grace, EVP, Channel, Revenue Operations

Engagement with partners has already seen a 200-plus percent increase since Absolute Software launched its program. In 2021, the company will be improving tools to help automate the selling process with partners.

Accedian

Skylight 4X Partner Program

Sergio Bea, VP, Global Enterprise, Channel Sales

Accedian plans to significantly improve online enablement, sales tools and resources for partners. It also aims to improve online collaboration and scale the MSP-MSSP business.

Acer America

Acer Alliance VAR Program

Philip Burger, VP, U.S. Commercial Channel

Flexibility will be key to all Acer is working on this year. The company said it is approaching 2021 with modern thinking in forecasting programs, marketing and sales.

Acronis

Acronis #CyberFit Partner Program

Alex Ruslyakov, Channel Chief

Education will be a priority in 2021. The company is developing new training capabilities based on AI to help partners prepare for the technological challenges in the security space.

ActivTrak

ActivTrak Partner Program

Andrea Tharp, Director, Worldwide Channels

ActivTrak will be equipping partners with tools and resources to help solve customer challenges. Other investments include a new service practice with easier deal registration, training and more aggressive MDF programs.

Acumatica

Acumatica Partner Program

Geoff Ashley, VP, Partner Strategy, Programs

In 2021, Acumatica aims to continue to expand its network of qualified international partners. It also wants to migrate partners to cloud solutions and increase the amount of netnew accounts coming through partners.

Adlumin

Adlumin Advantage Program

Jim Adams, VP, Worldwide Channels

Key goals in 2021 will be to help partners focus on their differentiated value propositions. With Adlumin’s next-gen SIEM features and compliance reporting, partners can leverage their expertise to become trusted cybersecurity advisers.

Jon Kabrud, Director, MSP Channel Leader

ADT Cybersecurity will continue to build sales enablement and technical documentation in the partner portal and provide field resources in the form of channel account managers and sales engineers.

ADT Cybersecurity ADT Cybersecurity Partner Program

Agari

Agari Partner Power Program

Tracy Pallas, VP, Worldwide Channels

Agari aims to increase consistency with its partner communications, build dashboards for partners to quickly see their progress, and create channel readiness programs for upcoming releases and other announcements.

AireSpring

AireSpring North American Channel Program

Daniel Lonstein, President, CRO

AireSpring is seeking larger global deals and increased overall sales revenue by working with partners to sell more complex deals that involve multiple products and locations, including international offerings.

Amazon Web Services

AWS Partner Network Program

Doug Yeum, Head of Global Partner Organization

AWS is focusing on technical differentiation to better communicate to customers the unique value of each partner’s solution.

AppDynamics

AppDynamics Partner Program

Mark Maslach, Global VP, Worldwide Channel

AppDynamics will be creating more digital content to help partners, as it did during the COVID-19 pandemic. These campaigns are built around email, webinars, paid social and more.

Appgate

Appgate Partner Network

Tina Gravel, SVP, Global Channels, Alliances

Appgate aims to increase the overall percentage of company revenue that comes through the channel. It also plans to launch a new rewards channel program called the Sentinel Program and launch new certifications.

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2 0 21 PA R T N E R P R O G R A M G U I D E Company

Channel Program

Channel Chief

2021 Partner Program Goals

AppOmni

AppOmni Alliances Program

Todd Wilson, Director, Global Alliances

In 2021, AppOmni aims to create an enhanced partner experience via its web platform.

Arctic Wolf

Arctic Wolf Partner Program

Bob Skelley, SVP, Global Channels

Arctic Wolf is doubling down on investments for its most committed partners. It plans to uplevel the partner experience through enhanced rewards and incentives, expanded technical training and personalized engagement opportunities.

Area 1 Security

Area 1 Security Accelerate Partner Program

Steve Pataky, Chief Revenue Officer

Area 1 is recruiting new channel partners with security practices who seek to participate in the explosive growth of the cloud email security market. The company strives to help these partners on-board efficiently so they can quickly build value.

Arrow Electronics

Arrow Apex Channel Program

Ben Klay, VP, Supplier Alliances

Arrow supports consumption-based selling through ArrowSphere, its cloud delivery and management platform.

Helping partners understand how to sell HPE GreenLake through ArrowSphere will make consumption a reality by 2023.

Partner Ready For Networking

Donna Grothjan, VP, Worldwide Channels

Aruba said the key to success for channel partners in 2021 is not only addressing their customers’ IT solution needs but also meeting those needs under a financial model that takes into account the pressures of their customers’ business.

Assima

Assima Partner Program

Michael Connolly, VP, Global Partners, Alliances

This year Assima will continue to look for quality long-term partnerships.

Atlassian

Atlassian Partner Program

Martin Musierowicz, Head of Global Channels

Atlassian is focused on helping partners succeed with IT service management and DevOps solutions. Its most successful partners lead with solutions and leverage their domain expertise around enterprise needs.

Attivo Networks

Attivo Networks Partner Program

Tushar Kothari, CEO

In 2021 Attivo will work on expanding its channel incentives program and implement a SaaS delivery model as part of its dedication to partner profitability and strategic growth for partners.

Avanan

Avanan Partner Program

Mike Lyons, VP, Channel, MSP

Avanan is revamping and enhancing its channel/reseller and MSP programs by adding head count, allocating budget for marketing and partner activities, and increasing channel revenue by 15 percent to 20 percent in 2021.

Avast

Avast Channel Program

Marc Botham, VP, Worldwide Channel, Alliances

In 2021 Avast aims to recruit new partners and move to a full two-tier channel model.

Avaya

Avaya Edge

Dennis Kozak, Global Channel Leader

The Avaya Edge 2021 Program is based on three key tenets: simplicity, modernization and recurring revenue. These elements are focused on driving the collective collaboration of Avaya and its channel resellers to attain market success.

Aveva

Aveva Partner Network

Kerry Grimes, Head of Global Partners

Aveva’s goal is to add partners and expand the global network, and it is encouraging partners to embrace crossportfolio adoption. This goes hand-in-hand with the desire to enable subscription-based selling across the program.

AwareGo

AwareGo Partner Program

Neil Butchart, GM, North America

AwareGo’s ultimate goal is to have a 100 percent channelcentric model.

Axcient

Axcient Partner Program

Charlie Tomeo, Chief Revenue Officer

To spur partner growth, Axcient invested in partner profitability, training and marketing resources. Partners can move up tiers by investing in technical training, joint business plans, go-to-market campaigns and product adoption.

Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company

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PARTNER PROGRAM GUIDE

SPECTRUM PARTNER PROGRAM:

Invested In Automation And Elevating The Partner Experience Automation Highlights Spectrum’s 2021 Focus

Q. What has the Spectrum Partner Program accomplished in the past year, and how did you remain partner-focused during the COVID-19 pandemic?

A. Czekaj: We quickly responded to address the changing work environment that resulted from the pandemic. We launched new products and new processes to address the changes in how partners supported clients. We added new functionality and automation in our tools to help partners adapt to their client’s new communication requirements. We also launched a special offer for SMBs as they re-opened their doors.

Working closely with our partners, we found new ways to address how they serve their clients and paved a new path forward.

Q. What is your focus this year and how will it benefit your partners?

Chris Czekaj

Vice President, Strategic Channels, Spectrum Business

A. Kadlacek: Our focus this year is to continue to add more automation to make the ordering process more efficient. We want to simplify how we work together with our partners— investing in our tools, streamlining processes and improving the systems that partners use.

We also continue to launch innovative products that are in high demand.

Q. You have mentioned some new product launches, what can you tell us about them?

A. Kadlacek: We have recently launched Managed Network Edge (MNE), our all-in-one network management solution that simplifies the deployment and management of a client’s network. MNE includes nationwide connectivity options, several modular service add-ons, a user portal, network management and 24/7/365 technical support. Delivered on the Cisco Meraki platform, MNE allows clients to quickly buy services, such as network security and routing, and then easily add more services as their needs grow. A win-win for clients and partners alike.

Michelle Kadlacek

Vice President, Enterprise Partner Program, Spectrum Enterprise

Czekaj: We also added a wireless Internet backup service. Wireless Internet Backup provides redundancy in the unlikely event connectivity is disrupted. Should an outage occur, traffic is automatically routed to this secondary LTE network, keeping the client’s business communications flowing without interruption. We made streaming video easier than ever with our recently introduced TV Essentials package and Apple TV capabilities for our video customers. For partners selling Spectrum Mobile, we’ve added the Apple Watch to the devices partners can offer clients along with the latest in mobile devices.

It’s a really exciting time for Spectrum and our program. We’re providing new solutions, improving the partner experience and driving revenue and growth – TOGETHER.

To learn more about the Spectrum Partner Program, visit partners.spectrum.com

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Channel Program

Channel Chief

2021 Partner Program Goals

Axis Security

Axis Security Partner Program

Kimber Garrett, Sr. Director, North American Channels

Axis Security is focused on partner revenue growth and developing a partner services program. The company aims to develop a top-notch partner program through a 100 percent committed partner approach.

Axonius

Axonius Correlated Partner Program

Mark Daggett, Head of Worldwide Channel Sales

Axonius plans to launch a technical certification program and work with more partners to utilize the SaaS version of the Axonius Cybersecurity Asset Management Platform and deploy its technology in their own environments.

Barracuda MSP

Barracuda MSP Partner Program

Neal Bradbury, VP, MSP Strategic Partnerships

The new benefits of the Partner Growth Acceleration Program are designed to grow partners’ business and maximize collaboration and engagement.

Barracuda Networks

Barracuda Partner Program

Chad Lindsey, Sales VP, Americas Channels, Field Operations

Barracuda Networks’ new Partner Growth Acceleration Program provides partners with comprehensive sales, technical and marketing enablement programs designed to grow their business.

Bitdefender

Bitdefender Partner Advantage Network

Steve Kelley, President, GM, Business Solutions Group

Bitdefender’s strategy is to revamp its reselling program. It will offer improved benefits for incumbent partners, directly rewarding them for their time and effort. It also will maintain its focus on partner enablement programs.

Bitglass

Bitglass Altitude Partner Program

Jon Peppler, VP, Worldwide Channels

Bitglass is striving to increase the number of qualified partners and improve their technical and sales skills. A key element will be to ensure partners fully understand and represent the benefits of its integrated SASE offering.

BlackBerry

BlackBerry Partner Program

Colleen McMillan, VP, Global Channel Sales

BlackBerry is focused on its ongoing commitment to a mutual partnership and enhancing partner profitability. Active collaboration between partners and the field sales force will help drive new business.

BlueVoyant

BlueVoyant Channel Partner Program

Steve DeSantis, Head of Partnerships, Alliances

BlueVoyant is dedicated to channel partner growth, which requires boosting existing partnerships in North America and building out the cyber-risk sales channel.

BMC

Partner Advantage Program

Simon Blanks, Area VP, North America Channel

BMC is zeroed in on supporting existing partners as they join in its journey to be a SaaS leader and recruiting new bornin-the-cloud partners to help customers evolve to become autonomous digital enterprises.

Broadcom

ISG Advantage Partner Program

Roy Borden, VP, Global Partner Sales

For CA and Symantec partners, Broadcom is pivoting from a renewals focus toward driving growth and adoption of its offerings. It plans to build out the partner program around partner-delivered services and support.

Brother International

Brother Authorized Partner Program

Joe Ashcraft, VP, Sales

Brother Authorized Partners will receive benefits that can help them expand their business reach, achieve growth and boost profitability. Partners receive comprehensive sales and technical resources.

Buffalo Americas

Buffalo Partner Program

Bill Rhodes, Channel Sales Director

Buffalo Americas is working to help partners move to the company’s Gold and Silver tiers.

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PARTNER PROGRAM GUIDE

VMware Rewards Partners for Driving Customer Success Q. VMware recently launched new incentives to support partners throughout the customer life cycle. Why is this important?

A. Customer Lifecycle Incentives are the result of extensive collaboration with partners

to build incentives that matter to them. VMware is providing partners more support and tools to help them differentiate and transform their business and VMware practices. The new Customer Lifecycle Incentives focus on rewarding partners for driving customer success at every stage of their digital transformation journey. They include: • The Technical Assessment Program rewards partners who evaluate a customer’s IT infrastructure and creates new engagement opportunities.

• Proof of Concepts are compensated.

Q. Will VMware continue to add partner incentives that support a SaaS subscription model?

A. A year ago, VMware launched the Partner Connect program to reflect the com-

pany’s move to SaaS. As incentives are added, VMware increases flexibility for partners to do business in a way that aligns with their business model and meet their customer’s needs, making VMware technologies and services opportunities more accessible.

Q. VMware uses Master Services Competencies (MSCs) to validate a partner’s expertise. Will these continue to be important?

A. VMware recognizes obtaining an MSC is a considerable investment for partners

and will continue to reinforce the value of that achievement with customers and reward those partners. Many partners see MSCs as a way to differentiate their business and show customers they are committed to the VMware platform being the best solution. In fact, ITQ, Comdivision and Presidio have obtained every one of the seven MSCs being offered today, which is no small feat!

Tracy-Ann Palmer

Vice President, Partner Programs and Experience

“

At VMware, we are committed to continuously evolving our Partner Connect program to adapt to industry demands and customer expectations.

We will continue to provide our partners with more support and tools to differentiate and transform their business and VMware practices.

“

• Partner-to-Partner Accelerator (initial availability in EMEA), focuses on partners working together by rewarding “sell through” partners who identify opportunities and book eligible orders. They then hand off the deal to an “orchestrate with” partner to complete the implementation.

Q. How will the Partner Connect program continue to evolve?

A. VMware is committed to continuously evolving the Partner Connect program to

adapt to industry demands, customer expectations and helping partners become more profitable. The company is looking at partner capabilities across all tiers of the program and will be putting more focus on services partners and ensuring alignment with them to deliver and build practices around customer success.

Learn more about VMware Partner Connect https://www.vmware.com/partners/work-with-vmware/partner-connect.html

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Channel Program

Channel Chief

2021 Partner Program Goals

Bvoip

Bvoip Partner Program

George Bardissi, President, CEO

Bvoip pivoted to online lead generation campaigns to help partners through the pandemic versus live events. The company is focused on achieving 25-plus percent growth in 2021.

C2G

C2G Thrive Partner Program

Kent Cawthorne, VP, Sales, Solutions, Consultants

The C2G Thrive Partner Program equips partners to grow their connectivity sales, increase their attach rate and bring in more margin. The program features sales support, training, online tools and marketing resources.

Check Point Software Technologies

Check Point Partner Growth Program

Frank Rauch, Worldwide Head of Channel Sales

Check Point is acting on partner feedback. Key areas of focus are margin and value through professional services programs, growth through customer analytics and attaining larger deal sizes working with Microsoft, AWS and others.

Cisco Systems

The New Cisco Partner Program

Oliver Tuszik, SVP, Global Partner Organization

Cisco is driving simplification in the partner program, finalizing the developer and adviser roles, supporting partner differentiation and transformation to a customer life-cycle approach, and maximizing the value exchange with partners.

Citrix Systems

Citrix Partner Success

Bronwyn Hastings, SVP, Worldwide Channel Sales, Ecosystems

Citrix’s goals are to enable its partners to move customers to the cloud, attract new customers and extend partner value across the customer life cycle. Citrix Partner Success is designed to be more agile, flexible and responsive to partners’ needs.

Cloudera

Cloudera Connect

Gary Green, VP, Strategic Partnerships

Cloudera aims to help partners take advantage of new program offerings so they can succeed in a hybrid cloud environment.

2021 will be focused on activating partners to take advantage of new elements that help drive pipeline growth.

Cloudflare

Cloudflare Partner Services Program

Matthew Harrell, Global Head of Channels, Alliances

Cloudflare will give its partners the tools to deliver the solutions, applications and services that make possible a more secure and better-performing internet experience for customers across the globe.

Cloudian

Cloudian Partner Program

Lori Wronsky, Director, Channel Marketing

Cloudian is assisting partners as they seek to acquire new business, strengthen relationships with customers, be creative in their engagements and invest in sales force training.

Code42

Code42 Accelerate Partner Program

Faraz Siraj, VP, Channel Sales

Code42’s priority is to move to a 100 percent channel sales model. It is also executing free training and enablement and professional services and utilizing MDF spend with partners for customer and market capture.

Cogent Communications

Cogent Channel Partner Program

Rob Keres, Director, Channel Sales

Cogent’s mission is to build a foundation for its partners with competitive compensation and a simple contract. Its product portfolio is not complicated and makes it easy for partners to do business with the company.

Cohesity

Cohesity Partner Program

Mike Houghton, VP, Worldwide Channel Sales

Cohesity is improving tools that enable partners to be more efficient in managing and growing their business. It is focused on enhancing the program structure, especially for service providers.

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PARTNER PROGRAM GUIDE

mySchneider Partner Program Puts You First Q. What can you tell us about the new mySchneider IT Solutions Partner Program?

A. Despite the name change, most of what partners are accustomed to receiving from our partner program offering will remain the same. Our goals of protecting our partners, increasing their profitability and enabling them through support and education remain our guiding principles.

Partners benefit from the transformational, new Edge Software and Digital Services Program launched under the mySchneider umbrella. It’s the first program of its kind and enables partners to expand their managed service practice beyond the traditional IT stack as they navigate evolving needs in distributed IT environments. IT solution providers who create a managed power practice can add 1.5 times additional revenue over the lifecycle of the asset. We now have a program to leverage that allows us to collaborate and support partners as they capitalize on this enormous opportunity and say “yes” to managed power-as-a-service.

A. We’re here to help partners offset costs. This isn’t just a certification and a discount.

Partners are used to upfront discounts at the sale, and that’s still available, along with a new lifecycle rebate on the software and digital services they sell to customers. This rebate is four to five times what you’d traditionally see with a hardware rebate and is spread throughout the assets lifecycle to reward partners on that continuous touch with their customer base. We recognize that building a new practice is an investment and that budgets are tight. We want to help partners offset start-up costs and reinvest into their business.

Q. How is Schneider Electric helping partners every step of the way?

A. Our new program allows us to expand beyond our core hardware that our partners depend on and enables us to help them leverage our latest Edge Software and Digital Services portfolio. We strive to build a program that’s agile and can adjust to any partner, regardless of business model or maturity level. Within our new program, we created a Practice Builder to provide the playbook MSPs need to navigate successfully implementing a managed power services practice. Our Voice of Partner study indicates it may take 2,000 to 3,000 hours to build a managed service practice, or one-quarter of the fiscal year. The Practice Builder will save partners time and point them in the right direction. Our partner success managers and MSP architects will be there to complete this holistic support structure, making the partner experience seamless.

Director of NAM Channel Marketing and Strategic Execution

“

We want to help our partners grow, save time on their managed service practice creation, take advantage of new opportunities and invest in their future success.

“

Q. How does the Edge Software and Digital Services Program differ financially for partners compared to your previous offering?

Gail Fredrickson

Join the mySchneider IT Solutions Partner Program. https://www.apc.com/partners

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Channel Chief

2021 Partner Program Goals

Comcast Business

Comcast Business Solutions Provider Program

Craig Schlagbaum, SVP, Channel Chief

Comcast will be delivering the products, support and tools partners need to succeed in today’s digital era. Its dedicated solutions provider team has one goal: help partners sell.

CommScope

CommScope PartnerPro Network

Dieter Verdegem, VP, Global Customer Experience

CommScope will work on deepening recurring revenue opportunities for partners in cloud and managed services models, while continuing to seek market-share gains with traditional resell business models.

Commvault

Commvault Partner Advantage Program

John Tavares, VP, Global Channel, Alliances

Commvault will continue providing the tools, training and incentives that encourage and enable partners to sell more of its portfolio, including SaaS. The company will also increase the net-new accounts coming through partners.

Corelight

Corelight Channel Program

Scott Hoard, Head of Global Channels

In 2021, Corelight will have tighter alignment with alliance and channel (co-selling).

CoreView

CorePartner

Ed Peek, Chief Revenue Officer

CoreView is making adjustments to the margins for resellers and discussing a new MSP partner management and deal registration process.

Cox Business

Cox Business Channel Program

John Muscarella, Sr. Director, Sales, Channel Programs

Cox Business’ goals for 2021 include increased alignment, support and co-selling with its cloud solutions offered by RapidScale.

Cradlepoint

Cradlepoint Global Partner Program

Eric Purcell, SVP, Partner, Alliance Sales

Cradlepoint’s Global Partner Program will provide enablement, support and marketing resources to best position the right partners for the customer solution. It will also continue to aim to lead the way in 5G for business solutions.

CTERA

CTERA Cloud Accelerator Program

Jessica Barlow, Director, Channels, Alliances

The CTERA program is open to all resellers and includes expanded channel sales support resources, technical training and certification, an online partner portal, lead sharing, deal registration and marketing funds.

Chris Moore, VP, Global Channels

In 2021, CyberArk will help partners champion its identity security vision with advanced enablement and increased marketing support. It also will align partners’ sales and services across the full portfolio.

CyberArk Partner CyberArk Software Network

Cyberbit

Cyberbit Partner Program

Sharon Rosenman, Chief Marketing Officer

Cyberbit formalized its partner program with a focus on the enablement of the channel and the processes to support and enhance field sales. Specified field channel sales leads were hired to recruit, enable and support channel sales.

CyberGRX

CyberGRX Global Partner Program

Walter Specht, Worldwide Director, Channel, Alliances

CyberGRX is looking to recruit more qualified partners, particularly those with specializations in third-party risk management and governance, risk and compliance. It is also seeking new partnerships in EMEA and Asia-Pacific.

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PARTNER PROGRAM GUIDE

Kodak Alaris Helps Channel Partners Discover New Revenue Sources Q. Kodak Alaris has an outstanding partner portfolio. How have recent trends toward digital transformation made the company even more attractive to channel partners?

A. Kodak Alaris is a leading provider of information capture solutions that simplify

business processes. We exist to help the world make sense of information with smart, connected solutions powered by decades of image science innovation.

As winner of BLI’s Scanner Line of the Year Award five out of the last six years, we believe Kodak Alaris transforms documents and data into information better than anyone else. Kodak Alaris has won more awards than any scanner manufacturer in BLI’s 60-year history. Our top-rated Service and Support organization has a 95 percent customer satisfaction rating and a 92 percent first-call completion rate. And our partner program has earned CRN’s 5-Star rating every time we’ve applied for the award.

Q. What types of partners do you work with? How do you envision your partner ecosystem changing in the future?

A. Our partner network includes thousands of channel partners who configure Kodak

Alaris solutions to customer requirements, integrate with enterprise applications and maintain our information capture solutions. They are VADs, VARs, ISVs, SIs, Global Alliances, BPOs, MFP vendors and DMRs. Partners are critical to our success: more than 90 percent of our business flows through the channel.

With the widespread adoption of IoT and cloud-based solutions, we are increasingly focused on partner expansion. Our goal is to continue to be a premier technology vendor for existing partners, while establishing new relationships with the ISVs, SIs and developers who can help us deliver INfuse—our next generation, smart, connected scanning solution.

Since launching INfuse in 2019, integrators have worked with Kodak Alaris to develop solutions for broad applications across many use cases, including construction, remote work, fax replacement, health benefits, citizen services and driver’s license applications.

Don Lofstrom

President and GM

“

AI, machine learning and RPA require intelligent capture. Kodak Alaris is well positioned to help partners capitalize on this opportunity with innovative offerings including our partnercentric, cloud-connected scanning solution, INfuse.

“

Market research reveals that organizations are accelerating their process and workflow automation efforts and shifting from “scan to file” to “scan to process.” Digitization is the first step toward automating business processes and requires a quality image to maximize the value of information trapped on paper.

Q. Why partner with Kodak Alaris? What’s your value proposition for the channel?

A. Our customers face numerous challenges associated with inefficient, disconnected,

manual document workflows. Partnering with Kodak Alaris helps channel vendors find new ways to deliver solutions that accelerate digital transformation, while expanding their offerings and tapping into new sources of profitable revenue.

Learn more: www.alarisworld.com/landing-page/partner-with-kodak-alaris

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Channel Chief

2021 Partner Program Goals

CyberPower

CyberPower Channel Partner Alliance

Scott Koller, VP, Channel Sales

CyberPower is focused on efficiently getting MDF in the hands of top-performing partners to help grow their power business and is launching out-of-the-box marketing campaigns and initiatives.

DataCore Software

DataCore Certified Partner Program

Michael Chadwell, Director, Americas Channel Sales

DataCore products offer a vendor-agnostic software-defined storage approach across any type of storage. This allows partners to enter any customer and any environment with a storage solution without having to rip and replace.

Datto

Datto Global Partner Program

Rob Rae, SVP, Business Development

Datto is evolving the partner program by enhancing current benefits as well as adding new incentives and benefits in 2021. Datto is committed to the investment and enablement of current and future partners.

DDN

PartnerLink

Amy Medeiros, SVP, Corporate Marketing, Inside Sales

DDN expects to drive a significantly higher volume of business through the channel in 2021, specifically targeting new customer logos. It has invested in partner support resources to achieve this goal.

Dell Technologies

Dell Technologies Partner Program

Rola Dagher, Global Channel Chief

Dell is focused on increased partner opportunity for new customer and line-of-business acquisition, accelerated growth and profit potential with further access to the portfolio, and a streamlined end-to-end experience.

Digital Defense

Digital Defense Partner Program

Bob Layton, Chief Revenue Officer

Digital Defense is working on expansion in EMEA with managed service providers and further capitalizing on marketplace ease of consumption.

Digital Guardian

Digital Guardian Partner Program

Troy Gabel, VP, Sales, Channel, North America

Enhanced training programs will be key as Digital Guardian rolls out new products, features and functionality.

Druva

Druva Compass Partner Program

Timm Hoyt, VP, Global Channels

There will be strong growth in 2021 around cloud computing, collaboration, managed services, automation and mobility.

Dynabook Americas

Dynabook Partner Program

Wendy Linsky, Sr. Director, U.S. Channel Sales

Dynabook will grow its product line and services to expand into new markets and enhance the Preferred Partner Program.

Eaton

PowerAdvantage Partner Program

Hervé Tardy, VP, GM, Distributed Power Quality Division

Eaton wants to strengthen relationships with current partners and develop new relationships in 2021. It is focusing on rebuilding for the future and believes aligning with the team on business plans will be paramount to partners’ success.

Emsisoft

Emsisoft Partner Program

Davlat Aminov, Director, Sales, Business Development

Emisoft’s biggest 2021 goal is to launch an endpoint detection and response offering, something that has long been requested by partners.

Envision Technology Advisors

Envision Dell Managed Deployment

Frank Viggiano, Eastern Regional Partner Account Manager

Envision will focus on digital transformation, business continuity, infrastructure solutions, and data analytics and business intelligence.

Ericom Software

Ericom PowerPartner Program

Michael Santacross, Director of Ericom said it knows what partners need to be successful Channels, Americas, Canada, because team members have walked in their shoes, Latin America successfully selling for distributors and resellers in the past.

erwin Partner Program

Dave Casillo, Chief Revenue Officer

erwin

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The company will be integrated into Quest during 2021. While erwin is working to ensure a seamless transition for partners, it is also building the bridge for partners to reap the rewards of the combined organization.

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PARTNER PROGRAM GUIDE

Break Through The Crowd With SentinelOne Q. Why invest time, money and resources in building out a SentinelOne practice?

A. We have an Integrated portfolio that solves real customer problems. This platform

Q. What differentiates your program from your competitors?

A. Our channel partners are our most important customer advocates. When you suc-

ceed, we succeed. The SentinelOne Partner Program is a truly collaborative partnership.

We’re fully committed to your success by working together to maximize resources, drive customer satisfaction and sustain business growth and profitability. You’ll receive many benefits, including 100 percent channel go-to-market strategy, technical leadership, no-cost training and support, competitive profit margins, market development funds, lead pass programs and a robust deal registration program.

Q. How do you earn money with SentinelOne? A. SentinelOne offers a simple and easy path for partners’ engagement by aligning to

your own business transformations, preferred business models and competencies. We support a robust land and expand strategy to build out lifetime value with a customer.

We support the following four partner business models and profit streams:

Ken Marks

VP Worldwide Channels

“

SentinelOne has been a channel company from the start. Understanding the dynamics of a collaborative co-selling model with customers is ingrained in our heritage.

“

allows the opportunity to build best-of-breed full solutions for your customers, providing a significant return on your investment: • 100 percent partner go-to-market strategy • 100 percent-plus annualized growth last three years • Global operations across all major markets • Recognized as industry leader by Gartner, SE Labs, KuppingerCole, Forrester and MITRE • More than 5,500 satisfied customers • $697 million in funding and a $3 billion valuation • $30 billion addressable market—our cybersecurity platform operates across all markets and industries

• Resale – Industry leading margins, robust deal registration and renewal incumbency policy programs to protect your investment offering a significant pricing advantage.

• Create – An open platform gives you the opportunity to develop the best solution for your customer.

• Manage – Take advantage of recurring revenue streams by offering your own services wrapped around our platform.

• Deliver – Opportunity to support or deploy services, including installation and configuration, support and professional services around SentinelOne products and solutions. These can be standalone offerings or provided in combination with your own value-added services.

Defeating Every Attack. Every Second. Everyday. sentinelone.com/partners or email channel@sentinelone.com

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Channel Program

Channel Chief

2021 Partner Program Goals

eSentire

eSentire Channel Partner Program

Chris Braden, VP, Global Channels, Alliances

The company is upgrading its partner portal, developing quarterly marketing plans with Platinum- and Gold-tiered partners, and tracking e-campaign usage.

ESET North America

ESET Partner Connect Program

Gerald Choung, VP, Sales

ESET’s new Partner Empower Series provides news segments on topics from solution-selling to product knowledge. Based on partner feedback, it is investing in renewal protections, streamlining deal registration and enhancing the partner portal.

Exabeam

Exabeam Partner Program

Ted Plumis, VP, Channels

Exabeam’s goals are to grow the SaaS business with partners by over 50 percent and expand partners’ technical capabilities via online training and accreditation.

ExtraHop

ExtraHop Panorama Partner Program

Mark Fitzmaurice, VP, Worldwide Channel Sales

ExtraHop in 2021 is focused on new logo growth and accelerated adoption of its Reveal(x) 360 SaaS platform, which will lead to more recurring, cloud revenue for partners selling hybrid solutions.

Extreme Networks

Extreme Partner Program

Joe Vitalone, Chief Revenue Officer

Extreme will help migrate partners to cloud solutions and encourage them to sell a broader part of the portfolio. It also plans to continue with its effort to grow the Networking-as-aService model and help more partners become MSPs.

F5

F5 Unity+ Partner Program

Lisa Citron, VP, Worldwide Channel Sales

As F5 expands its offerings with the acquisitions of Nginix and Shape, partners have an opportunity to reach a broader range of customers. Partners can open doors with new buying centers and strategic partnerships at a higher level.

FinancialForce

FinancialForce Partner Program

Aaron Koenderman VP, Global Partner Strategy

FinancialForce is aiming to have partners implement 70 percent or more of all new sales and looks to double revenue obtained through and with partners.

FireEye

FireEye Affinity Partner Program

Chris Carter, VP, Americas Channels

FireEye in 2021 is aiming to simplify discount structures and allow more self-serve motions for partners.

FireMon

Ignite Partner Program

Andrew Warren, VP, Global Channel Sales

FireMon is bringing more structure to the partner program in order to scale its channel. It will offer new tools and business opportunities to support joint business development and provide an improved partner and customer experience.

Flexential

Flexential Partner Network

Melissa McCoy, VP, Channel Sales

Flexential provides multiple agreement and payment options to meet partners’ business needs. Partners can build a predictable recurring revenue stream contracted through the company’s suite of data center offerings.

Fortinet

Engage Partner Program

Jon Bove, VP, North America Channel Sales

Fortinet this year is looking for partners to leverage its Network Security Expert program to build consulting, professional and managed services to support their customers’ needs.

Fuze

Fuze Global Partner Program

Timothy Puccio, Channel Chief

Fuze is focused on offering unmetered calling to over 110 countries with 50-plus carriers and enterprise-grade security to deliver reliable service and protect customer data.

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PARTNER PROGRAM GUIDE

Terranova Security Partner Program Reaches New Heights Microsoft Partnership Fuels Partner Earning Power

Q. What does it mean for Terranova Security to be named a 5-Star PPG winner?

A. Terranova Security is honored and excited to be named a 5-Star PPG winner.

Q. How does Terranova Security’s partnership with Microsoft benefit your channel partners?

A. The Terranova Security Partner Program includes several benefits specifically

for Microsoft distributors, resellers and other partners. The ongoing Terranova Security and Microsoft partnership, which was made official in early 2020, enables those channel partners to leverage attack simulation training in Microsoft Defender for Office 365 as a value-added product, enticing Microsoft 365 E3 customers to upgrade to Microsoft 365 E5. Terranova Security can also help partners increase their earning power and drive additional sales with special offers for clients wishing to remain at the Microsoft 365 E3 level.

Q. What exciting things are coming up for the Terranova Security Partner Program in the next year?

A. The Terranova Security Partner Program has several exciting future additions

planned. New certifications, including those for supporting services like CISO Advisory and Managed Services, will be made available to channel members, allowing them to bolster their revenue streams further and increase stickiness with customers.

Mathieu Ouellette

“

VP of Sales

The recent Terranova Security Partner Program enhancements represent an exciting new chapter for our organization. We’re happy to welcome new partners into a thriving community of cybersecurity experts and offer extraordinary new growth opportunities for their businesses. In addition, Microsoft partners can use the Terranova Security solution to maximize usage rates and create an unparalleled level of product stickiness for customers.

“

The Terranova Security Partner Program is all about driving business growth, maximizing portfolio value and making it easy for partners to captivate their customers. Through current and future partnerships, we’re looking forward to building lasting relationships and playing an integral part in training the world’s cyber heroes.

Also, Terranova Security will continually roll out new content and other enhancements for its partner portal, including customizable assets that align with specific campaigns and updates on future events for channel members.

Learn more about the Terranova Security Partner Program https://terranovasecurity.com/partner/

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Channel Program

Channel Chief

2021 Partner Program Goals

Geoverse

Geoverse Partner Program

Bob Gault, Chief Commercial Officer

Geoverse will continue to identify, select, train and equip elitelevel partners in the industrial, transportation, oil and gas, mining, and SLED market verticals.

Gigamon

Gigamon Catalyst Partner Program

Larissa Crandall, VP, Worldwide Channel, Alliances

Gigamon is helping partners take advantage of MDF, allowing them to utilize Gigamon demand generation bundles and then supporting them with digital marketing activities to grow their pipeline.

Google Cloud

Google Cloud Partner Advantage

Google Cloud’s goal is to help partners better address the Carolee Gearhart, VP, significant challenges customers are facing across their Worldwide Channel, SMB Sales business with the expertise needed to provide real solutions.

Guardicore

Guardicore Channel Program

John Ryan, Head of Channels, Alliances, SIs

Guardicore says it is going to continue to deliver value for its focus partners. This includes moving away from delivery services so partners can receive the revenue bump from taking that work as well as doubling down on technical enablement.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise

HPE Partner Ready Program

George Hope, Worldwide Head of Partner Sales

In 2021, HPE will have more partners embarking on as-aservice journeys. The company wants to drive continued partner profitability and reward partners who are aligning investments to HPE’s strategy.

Hitachi Vantara

Hitachi Vantara Partner Program

Kimberly King, VP, Global Strategic Partners, Alliances

Hitachi Vantara is designing its partner program to support key channel goals: improving partner profitability and increasing the overall percentage of company revenue and the number of net-new accounts coming through partners.

HP Inc.

HP Amplify

Luciana Broggi, Global Head of Routes To Market

HP Amplify makes it easier for partners to build new capabilities and engage customers on a deeper level. With 99 percent of commercial revenue partners registered, HP is on track to enable partners with the right capabilities and insight.

HYCU

Bogdan Viher, VP, Global Partner Program International Sales, Channels

HYCU’ s goals are to increase the number of MSPs offering HYCU as an as-a-service offering to their own customers and boost the number of opportunities for partners to maximize their revenue through multi-cloud data protection offerings.

IBM

IBM PartnerWorld Program

David La Rose, GM, IBM Partner Ecosystem

The reimagined PartnerWorld Program aligns to Build, Service and Sell. New Build and Service tracks will provide tailored benefits and offers.

iboss

iboss Partner Program

Matt Hartley, Chief Revenue Officer

iboss is in a hypergrowth stage as the need for customers to migrate from on-premises appliances to cloud-based security service is a priority. Partner recruitment, enablement and joint demand generation are primary focus areas for 2021.

IFS

IFS Partner Network

Merlin Knott, Global Head of Partner, Channels

IFS is dedicated to helping partners better serve customers. By automating processes in its partner relationship management system, partners have more insight into their own pipeline.

IGEL

IGEL Velocity

Balaji Subramanian, SVP, Global Channel Chief

In 2021, IGEL is planning to increase run rates and see growth in sales, acquisition of new customers and higher renewal rates.

iland Partner Program

Koorosh Khashayar, VP, Channels

In 2021, one of iland’s main goals is to expand its in-depth training to include its IaaS offering. It also aims to institute a more programmatic approach to partner incentives, including ties to the gamification it is expanding in its partner portal.

iland

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PARTNER PROGRAM GUIDE

Eaton Adapts To Help Partners Excel Q. Eaton continues to receive the 5-Star honor year after year. What does this mean to you and the success of the PowerAdvantage Partner Program?

A. Receiving the 5-Star Partner Program designation for so many years is truly an

honor. It serves as validation that we continue to stay in tune with the evolving needs of our partner community. We consistently review and validate the elements of our program and make modifications, as needed. Our organization is nimble, and we are flexible in implementing annual program enhancements. The market is constantly evolving and, as a result, the needs of our partners do, too.

Sommer Goodknecht

Q. The use of marketing development funds shifted in the past 12 months. How has Eaton adapted to partner marketing needs as remote work rose?

Q. Eaton’s large portfolio is an asset to its partner base. What are your plans to further assist and educate Eaton’s partners to facilitate partnership growth in the next 12 months?

“

Our organization is very nimble, and we are flexible in implementing program enhancements each year.

“

A. Last year, we saw a decline in the use of partner marketing development funds.

This was primarily due to the cancellation of in-person activities and partners need to prioritize sustaining their core business and customers. This gave Eaton the time to adapt our approved marketing activities and focus on digital efforts.

While the traditional tactics are still eligible, we want to help support the effort to accelerate partners’ digital adoption. This includes SEO audits, PPC campaigns, virtual trainings and other digital campaigns. Take advantage of working remotely by brushing up on your power expertise with our online training and work with your Eaton contact to ensure you are at the right level to leverage our offerings.

Manager, Channel Marketing

A. We are going to continue to educate Eaton’s partners on the depth of our product

and software portfolio and how they can leverage our program to make money.

With our Brightlayer software suite and digital platforms, partners can consume or resell managed service offerings to get stickier with their customer base. Also, with the proliferation of remote work, the need for replicating the physical and cyber secure elements of a data center in a distributed IT environment are paramount.

It becomes more than just battery back-up: it is how can you effectively distribute power, remotely monitor and access units, remotely access locks on a rack/cages and trigger automated events when power anomalies are detected.

Join our PowerAdvantage Partner Program. www.poweradvantage.eaton.com

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2 0 21 PA R T N E R P R O G R A M G U I D E Company

Channel Program

Channel Chief

2021 Partner Program Goals

Imperva

Imperva Partner Program

Jim Ritchings, VP, Global Channels

Imperva this year will expand its program offerings to engage, incent and enable partners to accelerate their growth and deliver on the company’s mission to protect customers’ data and all paths to it.

Infiot

Infiot Partner Program

Parag Thakore, CEO

Infiot wants partners to increase the amount of deployment and services that go through them and sell its broad portfolio to build their business. Education, tools, pre- and post-sales support and marketing strategies are key.

Infoblox

BuildingBlox Partner Program

Sandy Janes, Sr. Director, Global Partner Programs, Operations

Partners can expect Infoblox to continue its commitment to engage the channel as its primary route to market. This will include deeper engagement in the SaaS offering and deeper cross-functional teaming relationships and rewards.

Infocyte

Infocyte Partner Program

Chris Auger, VP, Sales

Infocyte is continuing to develop and execute on SLAs for endpoint or managed detection and response. Guaranteed response, which it is helping partners deliver, is a major differentiator.

Ingram Micro

Ingram Micro SMB Alliance

Susan O’Sullivan, VP, U.S. Sales

Top of the list for 2021 is to continue to connect vendors with partners to create net-new revenue streams. For members, Ingram Micro will continue to share industry knowledge, solve business needs and stay at the forefront.

Ingram Micro

Ingram Micro Trust X Alliance

Kirk Robinson, SVP, Chief Country Executive, U.S.

Trust X Alliance is focused on transforming the performance of members’ businesses and delivering differentiated results for customers through the power of partnering. Ingram Micro will continue to increase its global reach.

Intel

Intel Partner Alliance

John Kalvin, VP, GM, Global Scale, Partners

Key for 2021 will be on-boarding all partners of the legacy programs and recruiting new partners. Other top goals include driving training and competencies and creating a valuable experience with Intel Solutions Marketplace.

IntelePeer

Cloud Advantage Partner Program

Jeremey Jones, Chief Commercial Officer

IntelePeer will be expanding its program to include application developer partners. It also will invest in new tools, a community site and training to better enable partners.

Inteliquent

Inteliquent Channel Partner Program

Brian Parsons, Executive Director, Midmarket Channel Sales

The Inteliquent Channel Partner Program offers full channel integration with the direct sales team to ensure partners get the support they require. This allows partners to achieve the best outcome for partner-driven opportunities.

Intermedia Cloud Communications

Intermedia Partner Accelerate

Jonathan McCormick, COO

This year Intermedia’s focus will be on creating greater awareness of its CORE (Customer Ownership Reseller) model and recruiting more partners to experience the benefits that come with it.

IntSights

IntSights Partner Program

Alon Arvatz, Chief Strategy Officer

IntSights this year will continue the growth of its program through partner recruitment, enablement and additional promotions and rewards to increase channel-driven business.

Ironscales

Ironscales Partner Program

Mike Poulter, Channel Director

Ironscales’ partner program includes competitive sales margins, prequalified leads and product sales trainings. The Ironscales platform gives end users and security professionals the training, tools and intelligence to remediate phishing attacks.

Ivanti

Ivanti Partner Program

Erik Randles, SVP, Global Channels, Alliances

Ivanti will provide larger market opportunities through increased investment in marketing and solution-selling programs to enable partners to achieve double-digit revenue growth in 2021.

iXsystems

TrueNAS Partner Program

Brett Davis, EVP

iXsystems experienced 100 percent year-over-year growth in its reseller channel in 2020 and expects another year of 100 percent growth in 2021.

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How To

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2 0 21 PA R T N E R P R O G R A M G U I D E Company

Channel Program

Channel Chief

2021 Partner Program Goals

Juniper Networks

Juniper Partner Advantage Program

Gordon Mackintosh, VP, Global Channel, Virtual Sales

Juniper Partner Advantage will enable partners to expand their business. The new Partner Plus programs will grant exclusivity, access to field readiness enablement and additional financial incentives to accelerate enterprise sales.

Kaspersky

Kaspersky United Program

Matthew Courchesne, Head of Channel Sales, North America

Kaspersky’s goals for this year include increasing the number of partners in North America and educating them on the company’s Cyber Threat Intelligence services. It also will be onboarding additional MSPs through its new MSP specialization.

Kenna Security

Kenna Kinetic Partner Program

Rick Kramer, VP, Worldwide Sales

Kenna Security’s program updates now offer the greatest benefits to partners that register partner-initiated opportunities in the program.

Kodak Alaris

Alaris Partner Program

Maia Mosillo, U.S., Canada Marketing Director

Kodak Alaris is focused on partner expansion, including adding more integrators, developers and partners that are well equipped to deliver cloud-based solutions.

Laura Blackmer, SVP, Dealer Sales

Konica Minolta is focused on helping partners sell deep into the customer base with other products such as managed IT, managed voice and Mobotix security systems.

Konica Minolta Konica Minolta Business Solutions Dealer Program

Lantronix

SmartEdge Partner Program

Doug Spinella, Director, Business Developement

Lantronix’s SmartEdge Partner Program empowers VARs to deliver the solutions their customers need to support business continuity across their data centers, regional offices and remote sites.

Laserfiche

Laserfiche Solution Provider Program

Taylor Grosso, Director, Channel Sales, Americas

In 2021, the Laserfiche Solution Provider Program will focus on enabling more solution providers to be successful selling cloud solutions and corresponding professional services.

Legrand-Raritan and Server

Raritan and Server Technology Partner Program

Mike Johnston, VP, Channel Sales

Legrand is overhauling its partner portal to allow for inclusion of new solutions from acquisitions. The company has increased content syndication and digital tools for partners and added channel support to ensure ease of doing business.

Lenovo

Lenovo Partner Engage Steve Biondi, Program, Data Center North America Channel Chief, Group Data Center Group

Lenovo is continuing to accelerate its ”Channel First” position, which is simple but foundational to what the company does every day. Partners know they have a constant supply of opportunities due to this mantra.

Lenovo

Lenovo Partner Engage Rob Cato, VP, North America Program, Intelligent Channel Sales, Intelligent Devices Group Devices Group

Lenovo is not easing up on its support of, engagement with and investment in partners. It is working with partners to acquire new customers in new ways and is rewarding them for finding that new business.

Lexmark

Lexmark Connect

Greg Chavers, VP, North America Channel Sales

Lexmark is working to make sure partners stay close to their customers and continue to understand their new pain points. It is also helping partners lead with a services-focused business model.

Liongard

Liongard

Joe Alapat, CEO

As more companies commit to hybrid and fully remote business models, the accelerated adoption of SaaS, IaaS and other technologies that support collaboration will continue.

Liongard is ready to help partners on this journey.

Liqid

Liqid Channel Partner Program

Nader Soudah, VP, Channel

In the past year, Liqid has doubled the size of its workforce, and forecasts suggest similar growth in 2021. Its biggest investment in 2021 will be in talent to drive aggressive channel growth.

LogicMonitor

LogicMonitor Partner Network

Sanjay Gupta, Global VP, Channel, Alliances

LogicMonitor is continuing to ensure partners prioritize pipeline generation activity, which is critical as businesses are assessing a post-COVID-19 enviroment.

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PARTNER PROGRAM GUIDE

eSentire Partner Program Investment Drives Partner Success Q. How does it feel to have the eSentire Partner Program earn the PPG 5-Star award and how does it reflect your successes in the past year?

A. eSentire is proud that its partner program was awarded a 5-Star rating from CRN,

and we want to assure our partners that our work isn’t stopping here. We will continue to invest heavily in our partner program because our partners’ success is our success.

In 2020, our channel delivered more than 40 percent of the company’s bookings, and we expect to deliver more than 50 percent in 2021. Our partners’ customers regard them as their trusted technology advisor. As such, eSentire is committed to providing our partners with the industry’s best MDR services and all the training, sales tools and marketing support they need.

A. By integrating our award-winning MDR services with the Microsoft 365 Defender

suite of security products, which are included in the Microsoft Office 365 e5 license stack, we’re providing Microsoft Partners a compelling service component to complement other managed services around 365, such as Defender for Identity and Defender for Office 365. This aligns us with Microsoft’s strategic priority to drive e5 license adoption. Microsoft partners will enjoy all the E5 license revenue, in addition to a new revenue stream by adding our MDR services into their portfolio. Partners also have access to a tiered partner-medallion program, tied to enablement and sales productivity. This differentiates us from many other security vendors, and it should make us relevant to a whole new channel of Microsoft partners.

Q. eSentire has a 102 percent customer retention with 90 percent year-over-year growth and protects over $6 trillion in assets under our management. How many MDR players can state those numbers?

Bob Layton

Chief Channel Officer

“

eSentire is proud that its partner program was awarded a 5-Star rating from CRN, and we want to assure our partners that our work isn’t stopping here.

“

Q. eSentire recently announced that it integrated its MDR services with Microsoft Defender for Endpoint and was also integrating with the other Microsoft 365 Defender products integration with as part of its partner offering. What does this relationship deliver to partners and how does it support your MDR goals?

A. Not many. In late 2020, we launched the Partner Advisory Board, which serves as just one aspect of the company’s significant channel investments and draws on valuable feedback and direction from some of our most strategic and successful partners. We have a 20-year track record of successfully protecting some of the most targeted industries and now our partners can complement their Microsoft 365 managed services with eSentire’s award-winning MDR services in their solutions portfolio. It’s about collaborating to win, earning the partner’s trust, growing new business and driving partner revenue.

For more information, visit us at www.esentire.com

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Channel Program

Channel Chief

2021 Partner Program Goals

Lumen

Lumen Channel Partner Program

Garrett Gee, SVP, Indirect Sales

Lumen is focused on the transformation to the Lumen Channel Partner Program, combining the successful elements of its legacy program while evolving to improve and provide the resources partners need.

McAfee

MPACT

Kathleen Curry, SVP, Global Enterprise Channels, OEM, Strategic Alliances

McAfee is zeroed in on partner services expansion and growth, new business growth and enhanced ecosystem development.

Medigate

Medigate Channel Program

Mark Cervantes, Global Director, Partner Channel

Medigate is working on creating deeper engagement with key partners at the field level. These efforts will increase both net-new joint opportunities with an end result of higher fiscal numbers achieved.

Micro Focus

Micro Focus Partner Program

Mike O’Neill, President, Worldwide Indirect Sales

Micro Focus offers partners a partner portal with a wealth of tools, access to the same collateral and training materials available to its sales force, and the ability to build testing enivronments and pilot deployments.

Microsoft

Microsoft Partner Network

Tyler Bryson, Corporate VP, U.S. One Commercial Partner

Customers are moving to the cloud for the resiliency in empowering remote work, business continuity and security.

Microsoft is helping partners with this shift, which has created increased opportunity for managed services revenue.

Mitel

Mitel Partner Program

John Lindsley, SVP, Americas Channels

Mitel is ensuring its program gives partners the tools to enable them to expand their business and support customers.

The company also is incorporating customer experience and customer life-cycle management into its framework.

monday.com

monday.com North American Channel Partnerships

Alexandra Detweiler, Director, North America Channel Partnerships

The company’s goal this year is to build upon its existing worldwide partner program. It wants to capture a tremendous market share of organizations and drive millions of dollars of revenue via its North American partner channel.

Morpheus Data

Morpheus Data MVP Program

Tina Valdez, Chief Operations Officer

Morpheus Data’s goals are to continue to achieve 95 percent bookings through the channel, triple its distribution business, and triple the number of certified partner reps and delivery engineers.

Morphisec

Morphisec Partner Program

Will Pope, Manager, Channel Sales

Now that it has created brand awareness, Morphisec is adding new offerings and tools partners can utilize. It expects based on last year’s strategy to see 200 percent growth in engagement from channel partners.

NEC

NEC Smart Partner Program for Solutions Integrators

Paul Kievit, SVP, Head of Enterprise Business

NEC enables partners to sell a suite of communications and IT solutions and cloud-based applications the way they want. It offers personalized sales and marketing support, high margins, low-density sales territories and deal registration protection.

NetApp

NetApp Unified Partner Program

Chris Lamborn, Head of Global Partner Go To Market, Programs

The key to success lies with the move to cloud and being able to support the diverse ways of consuming NetApp. NetApp continues to remove any boundaries for cloud partners and ensure that traditional partners have a clear path to success.

NetDocuments

NetDocuments Partner Program

Reza Parsia, VP, Strategic Partnerships

NetDocuments is working on the development of existing strategic partnerships and the requirements of new select partnerships.

Netskope

Netskope David Rogers, VP, Worldwide Evolve Partner Program Alliances, Channel Sales

38

Netskope’s priority is going to market with partners that want to turbocharge the cloud security and networking evolution.

The main focus areas include partner enablement, partner services and aggressive competitive displacement.

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PARTNER PROGRAM GUIDE

Sherweb Prioritizes Partner Relationships Q. How does it feel to win the 5-Star award, and what does it say about the Sherweb Partner Program’s successes?

A. It’s superb to see the dedication and decades of experience in the channel

recognized. At Sherweb, we live and breathe partner success. We’ve built our partner program over the years based on our partners’ evolving needs, always ready to listen and accompany them at every stage of the journey, much like an extension of their own team. The worst thing that could have happened to businesses in 2020 was the feeling they’ve been left all alone to figure things out. With us, though, they always have someone ready to step in.

A. What makes us truly stand out from the crowd is that we strive to be our partners’

business partner. We’re very proud of our pre-sales team, for example. They’re experts on solution engineering and routinely jump on calls with our partners to help them close complex deals.

Marketing and training are other areas of focus. We just launched our Partner University, a video training library with on-demand business, sales and product skill paths. Marketing initiatives include the Marketing Program—a step-by-step guide on launching campaigns, or Marketing Development Funds—financial assistance available to create local awareness about the partner’s brand, generate leads and sell managed services to new end customers.

Q. Looking ahead, what are your plans for the next 12 months to make the Sherweb Partner Program even better for partners?

A. We keep expanding our portfolio all the time. We believe that beyond product

and service diversification, continuous technical and business education is also a cornerstone of business prosperity. One topic that is top-of-mind for 2021 is cybersecurity, and we’re developing a centralized hub of resources and training for partners to expand their knowledge and elevate their offering in this area. Our annual Accelerate Cloud Summit is now an established event. Stay tuned to see what we have up our sleeves this year! And last, but certainly not least, we’re constantly investing in and developing our partner portal to transform our partners’ business operations and simplify their everyday lives.

Marc-André Fontaine VP Sales and Marketing

“

We’re our partners’ business partner. We’ve built our partner program over the years based on our partners’ evolving needs, always ready to listen and accompany them at every stage of the journey, much like an extension of their own team.

“

Q. What makes the Sherweb Partner Program so great and what are some strengths that separate it from the pack?

Get surprised by what you can achieve: sherweb.com/partners/

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Channel Program

Channel Chief

2021 Partner Program Goals

Netsurion

Netsurion Partner Program

Guy Cunningham, SVP, Channel Sales, Alliances

Netsurion’s program puts partners in the driver’s seat to earn higher tiers. The company is now offering MDF, a new referral program and licensing based on tiers for customer use, internal use, proof of concept and breach response.

Nexsan StorCentric Company Partner Program

Read Fenner, VP, Global Sales

Nexsan’s goal is to achieve the highest standard of partner support so that it can continue to grow business together with its partners.

Nextiva

Partner NeXus

Eric Martorano, Chief Revenue Officer

Now that Nextiva has built up a strong library of sales tools, demand generation/marketing programs and training resources aligned by partner tier, the company wants to spend 2021 customizing them for partners.

Nintex

Nintex Partner Program

Joe Peterson, VP, Channel Sales, Strategy

Nintex has three goals for channel success: set a new high in leads sourced by Nintex partners; issue 7,000 Nintex product certifications to Nintex partners; and achieve a revenue mix with new products making up 30 percent of channel revenue.

Nitel

Nitel Partner Program

Mark Dickey, EVP, Sales, Marketing

In 2021 Nitel will expand its alliances channel through a concerted effort to expand the partner base to include cloud MSPs, regional and global systems integrators.

NS1

NS1 Channel Program

Warren Mead, VP, Alliances, Strategic Accounts

NS1 is aiming to increase the overall percentage of company revenue through the channel. It also wants to increase the amount of recurring revenue going through partners and encourage them to sell a broader part of the portfolio.

Nutanix

Nutanix Elevate Partner Program

Christian Goffi, VP, Channel Sales, Americas

2021 brings new optimizations to the Elevate Program, focusing on partner autonomy to drive sales cycle acceleration.

Nutanix is helping partners transform their revenue horizons with Nutanix solution specialization enablement tracks.

Nvidia

Nvidia Partner Network

Alvin DaCosta, VP, Worldwide Partner Organization

Nvidia this year is developing a strategy for and launching an ISV Partner Program. It also aims to grow vertical industryspecific competencies and enhance the Professional Services Partner Program.

Obsidian Security

Obsidian Magma Partner Program

Claudia Slane, Director, Channel, Alliances, Global

The goal of Obsidian’s channel program in 2021 is to help partners accelerate their SaaS security business with key technology, training and enablement, joint strategic planning and incentives to drive profitability.

Okta

Okta Partner Connect

Patrick McCue, SVP, Worldwide Partners

Okta’s goal this year is for partners to uplevel their Okta knowledge, which will give them the opportunity to become trusted advisers for an end-to-end identity solution and build identity practices with a recurring revenue stream.

Olea Kiosks

Olea Partner Alliance

Rusty Gaynes, Director, Sales, Alliances, Strategic Partnerships

For 2021, Olea Kiosks is looking at how to take its partnerships to the next level. It is working on building out the partner portal with sales enablement materials to ensure the company hits its partner revenue goals for 2021.

Onapsis

Onapsis nCase Partner Program

Darren Gaeta, VP, Worldwide Alliances, Channels

With the Onapsis nCase Partner Program, benefits include exclusive access to a specialized knowledge base and expertise and insight into ERP security best practices.

One Identity

One Identity Partner Circle Program

Andrew Clarke, Global Head, Channels, Alliances

One Identity’s program will evolve to be more competencyled. Partners develop their skills around the technologies core to their experience, while customers are looking to align with partners that are best positioned to tackle the deployment.

Opswat

Opswat Partner Program

Alessandro Porro, VP, Global Channels

Opswat is focused on making continuous enhancements to the partner portal to support new business lead generation, aggressive MDF support, enhanced training and enablement and more.

Oracle NetSuite

NetSuite Solution Provider Program

Craig West, VP, Alliances, Channels

NetSuite continues to accelerate new customer acquisition.

It plans to increase investments in its SuiteLife partner engagement model and enable partners to develop expertise around specific business functions and product areas.

Nexsan, a

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PARTNER PROGRAM GUIDE

Hitachi Vantara Simplifies Private Cloud Storage Q. As the pandemic puts more pressure on company finances, how has the cloud factored into the shift to data center consolidation?

A. COVID-19 accelerated cloud adoption and we don’t see this model changing

anytime soon. The definition of cloud also moved to a hybrid model providing flexibility, security and performance. With consumption-based pricing, such as Hitachi EverFlex, data centers can use the hybrid cloud model to power consolidation.

Q. How does Hitachi Vantara provide a better storage-as-a-service experience than hyperscalers, such as AWS and Azure?

Q. How quickly can cloud service providers and other solution providers get up to speed with Hitachi Virtual Storage as a Service?

A. The Hitachi Virtual STaaS solution is designed to be partner driven and to make

private cloud storage consumption simple and cost effective. Our partners can have fast 14-day order-to-delivery for first deployments and four-hour service activation with a pre-validated architecture and a simple but effective management console. Partners can activate customers quickly and get to revenue with minimal effort. We share the risk and reward with them by co-developing, co-marketing and co-selling. When our partners win, we win.

Glen Lomond Global Cloud Solutions Architect

“

Hitachi Vantara is a cloud enabler by providing industry leading technologies and services from which cloud services can be built.

“

A. Hitachi Vantara is focused on simplicity of use, predictable performance, a transparent cost model and a long-term engagement. Customers need flexibility to use, move or dispose of data. Hitachi Virtual Storage as a Service lets partners build a long-term storage service that their customers can consume securely, quickly and cost effectively. The Hitachi Virtual STaaS solution enables a “store and leverage” model versus the hyperscale “consume and leave” strategy.

Q. Why choose Hitachi Vantara to build as-a-service solutions with?

A. We are all about partnership when building cloud service solutions. With our industry leading technologies and services, we enable our partners to build their own cloud services. We rely on service provider partners to own and deliver those services to the market.

We have defined a prescriptive solution development methodology called PDM— Plan, Develop and Monetize. It defines our co-development, co-marketing and co-sales strategy. We work with a targeted set of partners who have the same goals and success philosophy as us.

Grow your business with Hitachi Virtual Storage as a Service. www.hitachivantara.com/partners

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Channel Program

Channel Chief

2021 Partner Program Goals

Ordr

Ordr Global Partner Program

Eric Berkman, Sr. Director, Worldwide Channels

Ordr is expanding its partner program offerings, including field engagements and demand generation. The company is also adding dedicated channel marketing resources and providing more training and enablement.

OutSystems

OutSystems Partner Program

Peter Dunlap, VP, Channels, Alliances

OutSystems has a flexible partner program that allows any partner to deliver, build or run mission-critical applications that transform their customers. The company this year is increasing investments in these partnering motions.

Paessler

Paessler Partner Program

Jürgen Thiel, Head of Global Sales, Business Development

Paessler is looking to increase the number of implementation partners in North America to boost customer satisfaction.

The program will encourage partners to train and certify as implementation partners, which will increase their margins.

Palo Alto Networks

NextWave Partner Program

Karl Soderlund, SVP, Worldwide Channel Sales

In 2021 NextWave will help accelerate the development of the partner of tomorrow by enabling differentiation, expanding opportunities, enhancing profitability and empowering success.

Panasonic System Solutions Company of North America

Toughbook Authorized Brandon Williams, Director, Mobility Partner U.S. Mobility Channel Program

Panasonic’s goal is to expand the Beyond Hardware program, a virtual training series that enables partners to focus on delivering broader solutions. This will help partners continue to be agile solution providers.

Panduit

Panduit One Partner Program

Philip Taylor, SVP, Customer Experience

Panduit’s partner program framework is designed to support and reward partners based on their commitment to Panduit (tier level), capabilities (competencies) and related Panduit markets (focused solutions).

Panzura

Panzura Partner Program

Zach LaVoie, Worldwide Director, Channel Sales

Panzura partners can bring their customers technology that lets them use cloud storage like it’s a globally available data center. Partners have access to resources that help them build a stronger pipeline and close more deals.

Park Place Technologies

Park Place Technologies Partner Program

Jeff McCullough, Global VP, Channel Sales

Park Place will launch a global partner program, combining Park Place and Curvature partners into a single framework supported by defined benefits. It also will invest in field coverage in North America, Latin America and Asia.

Pax8

Wingman Partner Program

Ryan Walsh, Channel Chief, Chief Product Officer

Pax8 is focused on being strategically aligned with partners.

New tools, technology innovations and enhanced services will enable partners to increase sales to their current customer base while acquiring new customers.

PC Matic

PC Matic Pro Partner Program

Rob Cheng, CEO

2021 must bring about a new era and attitude toward virtual connectivity. No matter what’s going on in the world, the internet affords everyone the ability to stay connected and do their job.

Pega

Pega Premier Consulting and Advisory Partners

Carola Cazenave, VP, Global Partner Ecosystem

Pega embarked on a journey to become a more partner-centric organization that recognizes the value of partners throughout the sales cycle. To support this transition, Pega launched an initiative called Partner Origination Strategic Teaming.

Performive

Performive Partner Program

Mark Mercado, VP, Channels, Alliances

Performive will continue to build brand and program awareness and help partners grow their cloud business by focusing on solving business issues, not selling technology. The company also aims to expand and grow its international base of partners.

PlanetOne

PlanetOne Partner Program

Jonathan Hartman, SVP, Sales

PlanetOne is working to ensure partners embrace the entirety of a solution and are not singularly focused on one product or service set.

Poly

Poly Partner Program

Nick Tidd, VP, Global Partner Organization

Partners this year can benefit from the combination of two programs into one, a new unified rebate program and a new partner portal with significant enablement tools.

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Channel Program

Channel Chief

2021 Partner Program Goals

Progress Software

Progress Accelerate Partner Program

Gary Quinn, SVP, Core Field Organization

Progress Software’s goal is to keep the pedal to the metal for growth around its digital experience platform, secure file transfer offering and network monitoring tool.

Proofpoint

Proofpoint Partner Program

Joe Sykora, SVP, Global Channels

With its cloud-based offerings, Proofpoint will help its channel partners be successful in aiding organizations in protecting their people, the data they create and the digital channels they use.

Pure Storage

Pure Partner Program

Andy Martin, VP, Global Partner Sales

Enhancements to the Pure Partner Program provide partners with increased incentives, marketing, support, training and a subscription to innovation.

Qlik

Qlik Partner Program

Poornima Ramaswamy, EVP, Global Solutions, Partners

Qlik accelerated analytics modernization with customer migration to SaaS and the cloud. It is focused on new customer adoption and partner value throughout the customer success journey.

QOS Networks

QOS Networks Partner Program

Michael Brennan, VP, Strategic Channels

QOS Networks plans to deliver better enablement, more resources and better education to its partners.

Quantum

Quantum Alliance

James Mundle, Global Channel Chief

Quantum in 2021 is zeroed in on the recruitment of resellers in markets where it is underserved. It also is expanding sales with existing resellers based on the company’s recent acquisitions.

Quest Software

Quest Partner Circle Program

Todd Werner, VP, Global Channels

Quest’s partner enablement provides foundational knowledge and understanding and is designed to help partners become more directed when identifying and solving customer challenges.

Qumulo

Qumulo Partner Program

After talking with partners, analysts and sales teams, it was Gregg Machon, clear to Qumulo that partners wanted a program focused on VP, Worldwide Channels, OEMs simplicity, predictability and their profitability. The company’s goal is to make sure it provides all three to partners.

QuoLab Technologies

QuoLab Partner Program

Allan Meseroll, CFO

Rackspace Technology

Rackspace Global Partner Program

Rackspace has added global support, formal MDF processes in Lisa McLin, Group VP, Alliances, the partner portal and private cloud incentives and will build Channel Chief on that this year.

RapidScale, a Cox

RapidScale Channel Partners

Bob Buchanan, EVP, Sales, Marketing

RapidScale is focused on increasing channel growth by continuing to provide specialized support, hands-on education and training, and more resources to enhance partner sales and marketing efforts.

Red Hat

Red Hat Partner Connect

Mark Enzweiler, SVP, Global Partners, Alliances

2021 will bring further enhancement of open hybrid cloud within the partner program. The company will emphasize the growing importance of DevSecOps, AI, 5G and edge through this lens.

RedSeal

RedSeal Partner Program

Kimason Brown, Director, Global Partner Programs

RedSeal’s partner program will focus on partners who can play a key role in delivering critical cybersecurity solutions to the private and public sector. The program offers competitive margins.

Ribbon Communications

Ribbon Partner Program

Crystal Ferreira, VP, Channels

Ribbon Communications is focused on partner recruitment this year.

Business Company

44

QuoLab Technologies aims to expand its program to a more global stage and begin helping entities and MSSPs in other countries.

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PARTNER PROGRAM GUIDE

Mitel Excels With “Partner First” Philosophy Q. How does winning the 5-Star award highlight Mitel’s “partner first” philosophy?

A. We have a core belief that going to market with our partners drives better experiences

for customers. Over the past several years, Mitel focused heavily on strengthening feedback loops with partners and leveraging their input to drive how we prioritize and enhance our program and offerings. It’s an honor to be recognized again this year for the continued commitment and investments we’ve made in delivering a best-in-class, end-to-end program experience for our partners. I’m incredibly grateful and proud of how Mitel teams have dedicated themselves to a “partner first” approach, especially during a year like 2020, and this award reaffirms that we remain on the right path.

A. Mitel added multiple components over the past year, including a new deal registration program, technical training promotions and an enhanced partner portal. We also have a fantastic new cloud certification program for our agent partners, a hospitality specialization program and several new incentives built to help partners accelerate recurring revenue streams.

But one of the things I’m most excited about is our new Partner Managed model for MiCloud Connect, our flagship multi-tenant cloud solution. Partner Managed was developed through extensive partner feedback and testing and it allows partners to really own the relationship with cloud customers by enabling them to manage not only the sale but activations, onboarding and support, as well. Partners earn increased commissions and can offer value-added services, allowing them to differentiate while maximizing revenues. It’s being offered in addition to our rapidly growing MiCloud Connect retail model, giving partners greater flexibility to grow their cloud business in the way that best suits them.

Q. What’s in the pipeline for Mitel’s program in 2021 and how will you attract new partners and strengthen current relationships?

A. We’re rolling out our 2021 Global Partner Program later this month with several new initiatives designed to add value for both current and new partners. This year, we’ll be expanding Partner Managed to include a wholesale model in multiple countries, as well as introducing enhanced reward models and unique new marketing programs. We also have enhancements planned to elevate the partner experience, including streamlined quoting tools and expansion of our global Partner Interaction Center. I won’t give away all of the secrets now but it’s safe to say there are some exciting things coming!

“

Chief Revenue Officer

At Mitel, we believe deeply in a ‘partner first’ approach and see the strength and diversity of our channel community as critical to our success. The Mitel Global Partner Program is central to bringing that approach and the relationships it is built on to life so it’s an honor to be recognized for the third year in a row for our commitment to both our partners and program excellence.

“

Q. What new and exciting program aspects are now available for Mitel partners?

Scott Peterson

Learn more about Mitel’s Global Partner Program and new Partner Managed model. www.mitel.com/partnermanaged

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Channel Chief

2021 Partner Program Goals

RingCentral

RingCentral Partner Program

Zane Long, SVP, Global Partner Sales

RingCentral aims to grow its partner program internationally, add new partners to sell its UCaaS platform and help partners entrench into key verticals like health care, education and the public sector.

Riverbed

Riverbed Rise

Bridget Bisnette, SVP, Global Partner Sales

Riverbed this year is working to motivate partners and distributors to identify new opportunities and ensure top-tier partners have sales and technical capabilities.

RSA

RSA SecurWorld Program

Brian Breton, Director, RSA is committed to being fully engaged with partners and Americas Channel Sales Leader finding new ways to drive customer outreach and demand.

Rubrik

Rubrik Velocity Partner Program

Bertrand Yansouni, VP, Worldwide Channel

Rubrik is focused on increasing partner profitability and predictability and expanding opportunities for partners to grow their business.

Sage Intacct

Sage Intacct Partner Program

Taylor Macdonald, SVP, Channels

Sage Intacct is working to ensure partners focus on microvertical industry segments and follow the company’s streamlined sales process.

Sage Software

Sage North America Partner Program

Nancy Teixeira, VP, Partner Strategy, Sales

In 2021, the focus is on enabling partners to provide managed services related to the public cloud hosting of Sage 100 and Sage 300 customers on the Azure platform via the Sage Partner Cloud.

Salesforce

Salesforce Partner Program

Kori O’Brien, SVP, COO, Alliances, Channels

Salesforce is expanding its partner program pillars to include a focus on social impact. Partners are encouraged and incentivized to drive diversity within their organizations and make positive contributions to social causes.

Salt Security

Salt Security Partner Program

Michelle McLean, VP, Marketing, Channel Development

In 2021 Salt Security will continue to aggressively invest in on-boarding and training to expand partner relationships and help the partner community extend their offerings to address the growing API security market.

Samsung Electronics America

Samsung Ascend

Chris Mertens, VP, U.S. Sales, Displays

Samsung is working to ensure partners are leveraging its innovative display products and partnerships to bring forward solutions to customers that address the new normal.

Sangoma Technologies

Sangoma Partner Program

David Hardy, VP, North America Sales

For 2021, Sangoma would like to grow its channel and focus on building recurring revenue with partners.

SAP

SAP PartnerEdge

Karl Fahrbach, Chief Partner Officer

Through its partner and ecosystem strategy, SAP sees coordinated execution between the company and partners to orchestrate the customer journey end to end, jointly putting customer success at the heart of the partnership.

Scale Computing

Scale Computing Partner Community

Dave Hallmen, Chief Revenue Officer

Scale Computing wants to continue to better enable partners, giving them the tools and resources they need to be selfsufficient through the sales cycle and post-installation.

Schneider Electric

mySchneider IT Solutions Partner Program

Shannon Sbar, VP, Channels, North America

Schneider Electric took deliberate steps to simplify and improve its Opportunity Registration Program. It increased discounts, decreased revenue minimums and did away with complicated tiers to make it easier to protect partners.

Schneider Electric

EcoXpert Partner Program

Virginie Milhaud, EcoXpert Program Director

Schneider Electric will continue to enable partner business expansion by ensuring and supporting development in new applications and technologies.

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Channel Program

Channel Chief

2021 Partner Program Goals

Schneider Electric Industries SAS

myschneider Panel Builder Program

Lou Adlerfligel, Global Head of Panel Builder Channel

The company launched digital tools to simplify workload and expedite projects with a focus on driving transformation, generating more business and increasing engagement.

Seagate

Seagate Partner Program

Laurie Carrion, Director, Americas Channel Marketing

The Seagate Partner Program offers the training, demand generation and marketing support partners need to capitalize on trends and capture new business.

Sectigo

Sectigo Secure Partner Program

Michael Fowler, President, Channels, Partners

The company is focused on increased adoption of its new Sectigo Web Security Portfolio and driving a higher percentage of existing and net-new partners reselling its web security products.

Secureworks

Secureworks Global Partner Program

Maureen Perrelli, Chief Channel Officer

Secureworks is looking to generate new opportunities and acquire net-new customers by adding Secureworks offerings to partners’ solution portfolios.

SecurityScorecard

Score Partner Program

Nicole Stavroff, VP, Worldwide Channels

Security Scorecard’s 2021 focus is use case selling. It has developed new collateral and training for partners to enable them to have new conversations with their customers by persona and use case.

Securonix

Securonix Fuel Partner Program

Chris Ostertag, Chief Revenue Officer

Thirty percent of resellers and 40 percent of MSSPs will use cobranded marketing materials and digital campaigns, according to the company. One hundred percent of Secureonix partners will have an agreed-upon and funded marketing plan.

Seeburger

Seeburger Partner Program

Ulf Persson, SVP, Global Business Development

Seeburger will continue to build out an agile program for existing and new partners and alliances, considering offerings for on-premises, hybrid and cloud.

SentinelOne

SentinelOne Channel Program

Ken Marks, VP, Global Channels

SentinelOne has implemented a structured focus on business planning with key partners, outlining joint investments for growth and how to help them differentiate themselves from their own competition by building a SentinelOne practice.

Sharp Electronics

Sharp Alliance Plus

John Sheehan, SVP, Channel Sales

Sharp is investing time and effort into accelerating its Smart Workplace offerings and is working to ensure its resellers are informed, educated and ready to embrace the technology change that is occurring.

Sherweb

Sherweb Partner Program

Marc-André Fontaine, VP, Sales, Marketing

Sherweb is helping channel partners focus on diversifying to future-proof their business. They must invest in their own IP and bring strategic value to their customers’ business.

Siemens Digital Industries Software

Siemens Digital Industries Software Solution Partner Program

Jeff Zobrist, VP, Global Solution Partner Sales

As business buyers increase their digitalization requirements, shorten timelines and increase expected ROI, the company is focused on helping partners engage with these decisionmakers via digital strategies.

Silver Peak Systems

Silver Peak Global Partner Edge Channel Program

John Moran, VP, Channels

Silver Peak is working on successfully integrating the Silver Peak and Aruba partner programs for a consistent experience for partners.

Skout Cybersecurity

Skout Partner Program

Mike Hanauer, Chief Revenue Officer

Skout intends to launch new certifications and partner levels and improve its partners’ sales skills and profitability.

Smartsheet Aligned

Steve Stewart, Head of Global Channels

Smartsheet is investing in channel marketing to help drive partner-sourced opportunities. One of its goals is to recruit and on-board global systems integrators with a focus on depth, not breadth.

Smartsheet

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Channel Program

Channel Chief

2021 Partner Program Goals

Snow Software

Snow Software Partner Program

Brian Allison, VP, Global Channels, Alliances

Snow Software built and executed a new partner strategy, supported by a new program focused on delivering customer success and increasing partner profitability. The company is continuing that push in 2021.

SNP Transformations

SNP Partner Program

Roger Elwell, VP, Strategic Partners, Alliances

SNP Transformations aims to more than double its channel business from the previous year.

Snyk

Snyk Technology Alliance Partners

Brian McDonough, VP, Global Sales

Snyk’s partnerships and native integration with third-party products and applications ensure mutual customers can seamlessy integrate Snyk’s security tools into existing workflows.

Software AG

PartnerConnect

Software AG is focused on deal registration bookings, top-tier Jason Johns, partners, an increased partner mix of overall business, the SVP, Global Channels, Alliances number of recruited and enabled partners, and the number of partner badges/certifications.

SonicWall

SecureFirst Partner Program

HoJin Kim, VP, Worldwide Channels, North America Sales

One of SonicWall’s priorities is the satisfaction and success of its partners. It aims to exceed their level of expectation and provide them with an experience that is streamlined from start to finish.

Sophos

Sophos Partner Program

Kendra Krause, SVP, Global Channels , Sales Operations

Sophos wants to make it as easy as possible for partners to grow revenue and will increase visibility for Sophos Managed Threat Response and Rapid Response services, which allow partners to activate an elite team of cyberthreat hunters.

SpaceIQ

SpaceIQ Partner Program

Nick Stefanidakis, GM

SpaceIQ’s goal in 2021 is all about growth. It would like to grow its partner program in terms of the number of participants as well as provide tools and resources that will help new and existing partners grow their business.

Spectra Logic

SpectraEdge

DB Ellis, Channel Programs Manager

Spectra Logic is translating content into different languages for localized support. It is continuing to improve its Edge portal experience and is offering more remote activity hosting and support to meet current global conditions.

Spectrum

Spectrum Partner Program

Michelle Kadlacek, VP, Enterprise Partner Program

Spectrum is focused on the expansion of head count and resources for the partner program, continued automation efforts, improved portal functionality for greater partner control, and new product launches and feature improvements.

Splunk

Splunk Partner+ Program

Bill Hustad, VP, Global Go To Market Partners

In 2021 the Splunk Partner+ Program will prioritize continuing to migrate partners to cloud solutions and increase the amount of recurring revenue going through partners.

Initiatives will be aligned to support these partners.

Star2Star

Star2Star Partner Program

Michelle Accardi, President, Chief Revenue Officer

Star2Star is investing more time in helping partners reach higher sales goals with new incentives, training materials, and one-on-one sales and marketing support.

StorageCraft Technology

StorageCraft Partner Success Program

Andy Zollo, VP, Worldwide Sales

StorageCraft is focused on helping partners differentiate their brand by re-establishing the value they bring to customers, particularly when it comes to business continuity.

StorMagic

StorMagic Channel Program

Brian Grainger, Chief Revenue Officer, Member, Board of Directors

StorMagic is aiming to continue the growth of its channel program and provide partners with differentiated products. It wants to expand product lines, providing more opportunities for partners to target edge computing environments.

SUSE

SUSE One Partner Program

Rachel Cassidy, SVP, Global Channels, Cloud

SUSE will continue to expand and refine the key benefits and requirements for each partner specialization and localize the partner portal, adding local resources to support partners.

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4/2/21 10:35 AM

Women of the Channel Events 2021

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© 2021 The Channel Company, LLC. The Channel Company logo is a registered trademark of The Channel Company, LLC. All other trademarks and trade names are the properties of their respective owners. All rights reserved.

2 0 21 PA R T N E R P R O G R A M G U I D E Company

Channel Program

Channel Chief

2021 Partner Program Goals

Synnex

Synnex Comstor Customer Experience

Jay Denton, SVP, GM, Comstor North America

The distributor is setting ambitious goals for growing recurring revenue. Customers want subscription models, and resellers that can deliver them are going to be preferred providers.

Synnex

Synnex SMB Connect

Steve Jow, EVP, Sales

Synnex aims to help partners find out where they want to capitalize on the quick monetization of current trends and how to evolve and partner with others to do so.

Synnex

Synnex Stellr

Darren Harbaugh, SVP, Mobility, Cloud, IoT

One-on-one support is one of Synnex’s imperatives with partners. Top tiers provide partners with access to training and certifications, packaged digital marketing services, a community portal and sales enablement resources.

Synnex

Synnex Westcon Secure Networking

Reyna Thompson, SVP, Product Management

The distributor would like to see at least 50 percent growth in participating partner and vendor year-over-year revenue in 2021.

Synnex

Varnex

Bob Stegner, SVP, Marketing, North America

Varnex will strive to be the destination for innovative solutions and partner collaboration.

Syspro

PartnerUp

Chris Altmann, Channel, Alliance Manager

Syspro will expand the PartnerUp program into specialist areas of service and support and increase partner-focused skills training. The company sets a goal every year to enable partners to be better equipped to handle all challenges.

Tech Data

Digital Security Practice Builder

Francisco Criado, Global VP, Security Solutions

Since it launched last April, over 500 partner contacts have signed up for Digital Security Practice Builder. In addition to focusing on building new training, it aims to ensure partners are leveraging training to help drive new opportunities.

Tech Data

IoT and Data Solutions Digital Practice Builder

Colin Blair, VP, Specialized Solutions Sales

The goal is to enable more partners to benefit from 60-plus market-ready offerings in the Solutions Catalog, enabling partners to grow their revenue by leveraging expertise they already have in vertical markets and vendor relationships.

Tenable

Tenable Assure Partner Program

Jeff Brooks, VP, Global Channels

Tenable wants to help partners become Service-Deliverycertified. This allows them to take all of the services revenue and margin versus having to resell it or have it subcontracted to them.

Terranova Security

Terranova Security Partner Program

Mathieu Ouellette, VP, Sales

Terranova’s goal is to welcome new partners into a thriving community of cybersecurity experts and offer new growth opportunities for their business.

Thales

Thales Accelerate Partner Network

Dave Jordan, Sr. Director, Global Partner Programs, Strategy

Thales launched a new partner program in February 2020, which included a new partner type and fresh benefits and requirements. All legacy Thales and Gemalto Cipher partners are rejoining the new Thales Accelerate Partner Network.

The 20

The 20

Tim Conkle, CEO

The addition of two new partner tiers, Growth Mastermind and Certified Elite, focused on growing MSP MRR over $1 million and $5 million, respectively. This will be a continued focus in 2021.

ThreatQuotient

ThreatQuotient Partner Program

Haig Colter Director, Alliances

ThreatQuotient is zeroed in on improving and refining partner training and certification, with a goal to move to online user-driven training versus formal instructor-led training at set intervals.

Thycotic

Thycotic Partner Program

Bob Gagnon, VP, Channel Sales

Thycotic is doubling investment in partners with a proven five-year history of generating consistent upward trending revenue and that have the capacity to double output in the next 12 to 24 months.

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Channel Program

Channel Chief

2021 Partner Program Goals

Tibco

Tibco Partner Program

Tony Beller, SVP, Worldwide Partners, OEM Sales

This year Tibco is laser-focused on accelerating value through innovation for its partner ecosystem. It says partners play a pivotal role in customer success continuity, connecting them to Tibco’s expertise wherever they are needed.

TierPoint

TierPoint Channel Program

Kenny Ash, VP, Channel

TierPoint’s focus will be on collaboration. The company has a broad set of skills and offerings, and many of its best wins and largest deals with partners come from working together to design the right solutions.

Tintri by DDN

Tintri Partner Program

Tom Ellery, GM, SVP, Field Operations

Tintri is looking for partners to continue driving success for top of funnel and new logo initiatives.

Tipalti

Tipalti Alliances & Business Development Program

Zach Svendsen, Sr. Director, Alliances, Business Development

Partner relationship management setup is one of Tipalti’s main goals. The company is also building out certification and training programs to formalize partner relationships and better assess top partners’ needs.

T-Mobile

T-Mobile for Business Partner Program

Patricia Watkins, VP, Channel Sales, IoT

T-Mobile aims to simplify its business, deliver a broader portfolio of offerings and provide support for a better digital experience.

Trend Micro

Trend Micro Partner Program

Louise McEvoy, VP, Channel, U.S.

Trend Micro is looking to improve partners’ profitability. It has updated program models (margins, deal registration discounts, MDF, etc.) to ensure that partners build their business and lead with Trend Micro.

Trilio

Trilio Partner Program

Tom Lahive, VP, Alliances, Channels

Trilio will continue to focus on partner enablement and sales alignment to ensure effective solution-oriented customer engagements and opportunities.

Tripp Lite

Tripp Lite Partner Program & Premier Partner Program

Shane Kilfoil, SVP, Global Sales, Marketing

Tripp Lite is working to ensure partners have the flexibility to adapt to rapidly evolving market dynamics and the creativity to build engagement and retention strategies to differentiate themselves.

Trustifi

Trustifi Partner Program

Zack Schwartz, VP, Channels

Trustifi is looking to triple partner membership and begin to offer a tiered program to better reward high-performing partners.

Trustwave

Trustwave PartnerOne Program

Suzanne Swanson, VP, Global Partners

Trustwave’s goals include increased portal engagement; growth in the number of deal registrations per partner and improvements in win rates; and larger average deal sizes that include more multiservice opportunities and cross-selling.

Tufin

Tufin Partner Program

Addie Finch, Director, Channel Sales, North and South America

Since its founding in 2005, Tufin has run its business through the channel in focused partnership. The Tufin Partner Program offers an opportunity for partners to increase their business, with the full support and guidance of the company.

UJET

UJET Channel Partner Program

Karen Bowman, VP, Global Channel

The channel will become core to UJET’s go-to-market DNA in 2021, becoming the primary source for pipeline and bookings.

The company will focus on channel enablement and amplification, along with selective partner recruiting.

Unitrends Partner Program

Adam Larrabee, VP, New Sales, Channel Management

Unitrends will focus on bringing the Unitrends Xtra partner program to more partners and regions and include the full suite of Kaseya IT Complete products. It will expand the program to cover the spectrum of technology solutions from Kaseya.

Unitrends Xtra Program

Adam Larrabee, VP, New Sales, Channel Management

Unitrends Xtra launched in 2020 and provides Unitrends resellers with access, consistent discounts and enablement programs—along with sales, marketing and technical resources—for the Kaseya IT Complete portfolio.

Unitrends, a Kaseya Company

Unitrends, a Kaseya Company

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Channel Program

Channel Chief

2021 Partner Program Goals

Vault America

Vault America Partner Program

Zak Karsan, CEO

Vault America wants to help more partners bundle Vault America Data Protection services so their customers’ data and information are protected and recoverable when disaster strikes.

Vectra AI

Vectra Worldwide Partner Program

Jessica Couto, VP Channel, Americas

Vectra AI’s goal is to continue to expand the growth of the entire partner ecosystem, while also including its Alliances for a full co-sell solution. The program enables all partners to deliver services and products that address current attack vectors.

Veeam Software

Veeam ProPartner Program for Veeam Value-Added Resellers

Matt Kalmenson, VP, Commercial Sales, Cloud Service Providers

Partner enablement is a priority and one of the most powerful ways to drive partners’ business to new heights as well as help boost new sales and upsell opportunities. Certifications also are a big focus.

Veracode

Veracode Partner Program

Leslie Bois, VP, Global Channel, Alliances

Veracode plans to take a close look at partner business models and refresh the partner program to best align to varying and evolving partner types and ecosystems.

Veritas Technologies

Veritas Partner Force

Mike Walkey, VP, Global Channels, Alliances

As remote businesses accelerate data transition to the cloud and work with hybrid environments, partners will need to adapt their strategies because cloud-native services will be more attractive to businesses looking to make the shift.

Verizon

Verizon Partner Program

Wendy Taccetta, SVP, Global Commercial Operations

Together with its partner ecosystem, Verizon aims to deliver a unique value proposition for business customers by helping them adapt to new business models and drive business transformation.

Versa Networks

The Versa ACE Partner Program

Hemen Mehta, VP, North America Channels

The new Versa ACE Partner Program is focused on rewarding competency and specializations. New tiers include SASE Specialized and Titan Specialized.

Vertiv

Vertiv Partner Program

Peter Klanian, VP, Americas Channel

Vertiv is doubling down on its commitment to making it easy for partners to sell Vertiv offerings and drive higher margins.

This includes a more robust product configurator platform that provides reference designs and guarantees compatibility.

Verve Industrial Protection

Verve Protection Partners Program

Rick Kaun, VP, Solutions

Verve is continuing to grow its partner program and has created a clearer resale structure and improved demo support for partner sales.

Viavi Solutions

Viavi Velocity Partner Program

Barry Johnson, VP, Global Channels

Viavi is looking to add a systems integrator category to its partner program to align with changes it is seeing with its partners’ evolutions.

VMware

VMware Partner Connect

Sandy Hogan, SVP, Worldwide Commercial, Partner Sales

VMware will continue to enhance the VMware Partner Connect Program in ways that align to the functions partners play across the customer life cycle. This includes an evolution to develop, invest and support all partner types.

Vonage

Vonage Channel Partner Program

Jim Regan, Channel Chief

With Vongage, partners can take advantage of the company’s full spectrum of cloud communications capabilities and grab a bigger piece of the pie. There are a number of partner relationship options related to each product category.

WANdisco

WANdisco LiveData Partner Network

Peter Scott, SVP, Business Development

For WANdisco, 2021 is all about execution. It is focused on joint go-to-market and service offerings through key strategic partners, while simultaneously supporting regional and niche partners through simple, self-service portal tools.

Wasabi Technologies

Wasabi Partner Network

Marty Falaro, EVP, Chief Operating Officer

Wasabi will continue recruitment to grow and at least double the partner base in 2021. It aims to grow channel revenue to over 50 percent of overall revenue and will launch two new learning paths and associated sales certifications.

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Channel Program

Channel Chief

2021 Partner Program Goals

WatchGuard Technologies

WatchGuardONE

Mark Romano, Sr. Director, Worldwide Channel Programs, Field Marketing

WatchGuard’s top program goals for 2021 are to add more qualified partners, increase the amount of recurring revenue going through partners, and ramp up partner sales of newly launched products and services.

WekaIO

Weka Innovation Network

Charla Bunton-Johnson, Global Director, Partner Sales, Development, Marketing

WekaIO is working on the implementation and creation of Professional Services Certification training as an extension of current enablement programs. It is also focused on expanding its channel sales and marketing team.

Xerox

Xerox Global Partner Program

Joanne Collins Smee, EVP, Chief Commercial, SMB, Channels Officer

Xerox will increase its focus on managed services accreditations and rewards with partners earning rebates from $1 of sales. For solution providers, a new Diamond Tier includes more benefits such as extra rebates.

Zebra Technologies

Zebra PartnerConnect

Jeff Barteld, Sr. Director, Channel Strategy, PartnerConnect, Partner Enablement

Zebra will add a new Alliance Partner Program Track; reinstate a compliance requirement, which was postponed due to COVID-19; and execute a newly created channel development process for new routes to market.

Zerto

Zerto Alliance Partner Program

Eric Barnhart, Director, Channel Sales

Zerto’s goal for 2021 is to demonstrate the power of transformation—not only for the customer but also for the partner. Partners and customers are on a journey toward software, services and cloud-ready solutions.

Zix | AppRiver

Zix | AppRiver Global Partner Program

Jason Macias, VP, North America Channel Sales

Zix | AppRiver is doubling down on training and enablement for partners and the internal sales organization that supports them. It is also setting up a more robust lead sharing program.

Zoom Video Communications

Zoom Channel Partner Program

Laura Padilla, VP, Head of Global Business Development, Channel

Zoom is revamping its channel program this year, launching partner advocacy programs to enhance partner feedback mechanisms, and increasing the amount of services opportunities going through partners.

Zyxel Networks

Zyxel Authorized Partner Program

David Soares, EVP, Channel Sales, Marketing, North America

Zyxel introduced an 8 percent discount for Bronze tier partners in July 2020. No discount was previously offered to Bronze partners.

2021 CR N

PARTN E R

PROGRAM GUIDE

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4/2/21 10:39 AM

I NTE R N ET OF TH I NG S 50

The Bright Lights of IoT Solution providers are seizing the IoT opportunity like never before. Here are 50 key IoT players across connectivity, hardware, industrial IoT, security and software.

By Dylan Martin

I

t’s an understatement to say that the coronavirus pandemic has changed IoT plans for many organizations and businesses across the world.

Remote access control for industrial companies has moved from nice-to-have to must-have. Dozens, if not hundreds of solutions for mitigating the spread of COVID-19 have popped up. And protecting networks and systems from IoT-based cyberattacks has become an even greater imperative, underscoring the importance of connected devices in everyday operations.

“COVID-19 has highlighted the essential role the Internet of Things has come to play in our lives,” the World Economic Forum wrote in a recent report. “IoT applications such as connected thermal cameras, contact tracing devices and health-

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monitoring wearables are providing critical data needed to help fight the disease while temperature sensors and parcel tracking will help ensure that sensitive COVID-19 vaccines are distributed safely.”

While the coronavirus slowed down IoT demand to some extent in the early months of the pandemic, many companies now plan to increase their investments in IoT technologies, according to a recent survey by Gartner. This means significant opportunities for solution providers in the years ahead.

To keep solution providers up to date with the latest and greatest IoT technologies, CRN presents the 50 coolest IoT companies of the year across connectivity, hardware, industrial IoT, security and software. ■

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10 Coolest IoT

CONNECTIVITY COMPANIES Aeris Communications

NetFoundry

San Jose, Calif.-based Aeris Communications helps businesses create IoT services with the Aeris Connectivity Platform, which allows them to connect their devices to cellular networks and technologies like low-power wide-area networks and Wi-Fi. The company also makes it easier to build mobility services for things like fleet management with the Aeris Mobility Suite.

Charlotte, N.C.-based NetFoundry provides cloud-native Networking as a Service that is faster, more secure and more economical for IoT applications than multiprotocol label switching or VPNs. The company’s offering provides high-performance zero trust networking while also making it easy to provision and manage such devices on any cloud service or network.

BehrTech

Senet

Concord, Ontario-based BehrTech offers an alternative to proprietary low-power wide-area network technologies with MIOTY, a protocol that provides long-range, low-power communication for commercial and industrial IoT networks. With low interference and support for standard gateways and sensors, MIOTY serves as the backbone for BehrTech’s MyThings connectivity platform.

Portsmouth, N.H.-based Senet provides network software and services for IoT applications on its low-power wide-area network, which has coverage in more than 80 countries and more than 200 partner devices certified. The company provides a low-power wide-area virtual network that connects network operators, application providers and RAN provider networks under a cooperative model.

Celona

Sierra Wireless

Cupertino, Calif.-based Celona gives enterprises a softwarebased approach to building their own private LTE and 5G cellular networks for IoT and other applications. The startup has a strategic partnership with Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company, and it recently launched a partner program to provide customers with design and managed services for private LTE networks.

Richmond, British Columbia-based Sierra Wireless provides modems, modules and connectivity services that help organizations simplify their IoT deployments. The company’s offerings include modules for low-power wide-area networks, cellular networks, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, and it also sells devices for specific applications like fleet tracking and remote monitoring.

Eseye

HANS VESTBERG, CHAIRMAN, CEO

MARC JONES, CHAIRMAN, CEO

ALBERT BEHR, CEO

RAJEEV SHAH, FOUNDER, CEO

NICK EARLE, CHAIRMAN, CEO Guildford, U.K.-based Eseye offers software, hardware and services for providing enterprises with next-generation global connectivity for IoT devices. The company’s SIM technology allows devices to seamlessly switch between mobile networks across the world, and the devices can be managed with Eseye’s AnyNet Connectivity platform and integrated with cloud services through AnyNet Cloud.

Infiot

PARAG THAKORE, CEO Menlo Park, Calif.-based Infiot provides a cloud-delivered intelligent thin wireless edge access platform for connecting IoT devices using wired, wireless and cellular connectivity. The company’s Intelligent Edge platform serves as an alternative to VPN and SD-WAN offerings by combining connectivity with zero trust security and edge computing capabilities.

GALEAL ZINO, CEO

BRUCE CHATTERLY, PRESIDENT, CEO

KENT THEXTON, PRESIDENT, CEO

Verizon Communications

New York-based Verizon provides services and solutions for cellular IoT deployments that range from specific applications like Verizon Connect for fleet management to IoT Managed Services, a new offering meant to simplify applications for resourceconstrained organizations. The company also has a partnership with Microsoft Azure to help developers create IoT solutions faster.

Windstream

TONY THOMAS, PRESIDENT, CEO Little Rock, Ark.-based Windstream provides network and connectivity offerings that can address the needs of specific industries like health care, retail, entertainment and financial services. The company provides what it says is a “carrier-grade” private multiprotocol label switching network that is designed to provide reliability, security and uptime.

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I NTE R N ET OF TH I NG S 50 10 Coolest IoT

HARDWARE COMPANIES Advantech

Intel

Taipei, Taiwan-based Advantech provides vertical-specific hardware offerings for IoT applications, ranging from self-service kiosks for retail to machine vision systems for manufacturing. One of the company’s latest offerings is the MIC-75G30 dual GPU expansion module for its MIC-7 industrial PCs that enables 3-D image processing and vision applications in industrial settings.

Santa Clara, Calif.-based Intel is enabling a new level of performance and capabilities for IoT applications with customtailored processors and its OpenVINO software. The new 11thgeneration Intel Core processors for IoT come with features like Intel Time Coordinated Computing while the Atom x6000E series features a dedicated offload engine for IoT workloads.

AMD

Lenovo

Santa, Clara. Calif.-based AMD is taking its latest advances in chip architectures for PCs and servers to industrial IoT with embedded variants of its Ryzen and EPYC processors. Its latest offerings include the Ryzen Embedded V2000 series, which uses the company’s 7-nanometer architecture to combine high performance with increased power efficiency and longevity.

Beijing-based Lenovo is continuing to expand its portfolio of edge computers for IoT applications in different form factors. This includes the compact ThinkCentre M75n IoT, which is designed for collecting and analyzing data in real time in space-constrained environments. More recently, the company unveiled the ThinkEdge SE30 and SE50 embedded computers.

Cisco Systems

Nvidia

San Jose, Calif.-based Cisco is expanding its IoT connectivity capabilities through a new integration with Amazon Web Services’ IoT Core service, which is now capable of receiving industrial data from the company’s Edge Intelligence software.

The company has also improved its ability to reach critical, onthe-move IoT applications with its 2020 acquisition of Fluidmesh Networks.

Santa Clara, Calif.-based Nvidia is taking its GPU prowess to edge computing for IoT applications with products like the tiny Jetson Xavier NX system-on-chip. The company announced last year an expansion to its EGX edge AI software with new support for the Jetson chip and for the EGX A100, which combines Nvidia’s most powerful GPU with a Mellanox SmartNIC.

Dell Technologies

STEVE MOLLENKOPF, CEO

KC LIU, CHAIRMAN

LISA SU, PRESIDENT, CEO

CHUCK ROBBINS, CHAIRMAN, CEO

MICHAEL DELL, CHAIRMAN, CEO Round Rock, Texas-based Dell Technologies is pushing the envelope on edge computing for IoT applications with new servers that operate in space-constrained and harsh operating environments.

The company is also building a new edge computing platform with VMware and SK Telecom to provide private 5G in a multiedge compute box for health care, retail and other industries.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise ANTONIO NERI, PRESIDENT, CEO

Houston-based Hewlett Packard Enterprise is making big moves with its intelligent edge strategy, which includes the company’s portfolio of Edgeline systems and Aruba network infrastructure. The company’s Aruba business recently unveiled a joint offering with Microsoft Azure called Aruba IoT Transport for Azure, which is meant to simplify IoT device connectivity.

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PAT GELSINGER, CEO

YANG YUANQING, CHAIRMAN, CEO

JENSEN HUANG, PRESIDENT, CEO

Qualcomm

San Diego-based Qualcomm is expanding its mobile chip capabilities to IoT with new processors and offerings. This includes the Qualcomm 212 LTE IoT modem, which it calls the “world’s most power-efficient” single-mode chipset for NB-IoT network connectivity. The company’s new Qualcomm IoT Services Suite, on the other hand, provides services for developing IoT applications.

Supermicro

CHARLES LIANG, PRESIDENT, CEO San Jose, Calif.-based Supermicro is bringing to market new industry-specific hardware offerings for IoT applications with technology partners. This includes its new Intelligent Retail Edge offering, which combines the company’s edge servers and gateways with Nodeweaver’s universal edge fabric software and NetFoundry’s zero trust Networking-as-a-Service offering.

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10 Coolest IoT

INDUSTRIAL IoT COMPANIES FogHorn

Radix IoT

Sunnyvale, Calif.-based FogHorn is making AI lightning fast at the edge for a wide range of IoT applications, from predictive maintenance to energy usage optimization. After raising a $25 million Series C round led by South Korean industrial conglomerate LS Corp. last year, the company brought out new worker health and safety offerings and landed a new partnership with IBM.

Dallas-based Radix IoT is bringing a new level of monitoring and management capabilities for multisite critical facilities with its new IoT platform, which the company said provides “unprecedented efficiency of data-driven business decisions” for a range of facility types. The platform can scale to thousands of locations while offering a comprehensive toolkit for building IoT solutions.

DAVID KING, CEO

Hitachi Vantara

GAJEN KANDIAH, CEO Santa Clara, Calif.-based Hitachi Vantara is forging major alliances for its Lumada IoT platform. That includes a strategic alliance with Microsoft that involves Hitachi Vantara delivering manufacturing productivity, logistics optimization and predictive maintenance solutions on top of Microsoft Azure. The company is also expanding its collaboration with Amazon Web Services for Lumada.

FRED DIRLA, CEO

Samsara

SANJIT BISWAS, CEO San Francisco-based Samsara is scaling up a massive business with its sensor data platform for connected operations, which is helping more than 20,000 customers connect their assets and analyze data to improve safety, efficiency and sustainability.

Recently, the company launched its new cloud-connected Site Visibility video management offering for remote monitoring.

KMC Controls

Schneider Electric

New Paris, Ind.-based KMC Controls is expanding its IoT offerings for building automation through a new partnership with Tosibox, which provides secure remote access capabilities for operational technology environments. The company’s KMC Commander IoT platform makes it easy to collect, visualize and analyze sensor and device data and set up alarms and notifications.

France-based Schneider Electric is building major partnerships with companies like Cisco, Lenovo and Aveva to drive the convergence of information and operational technologies for industrial edge computing offerings. The company’s updated EcoStruxure Power IoT platform brings new levels of efficiency and resiliency for power distribution, plus improved transparency into data.

Litmus Automation

Siemens

San Jose, Calif.-based Litmus Automation is enhancing its Litmus Edge computing platform, which lets customers collect and analyze data from more than 250 different device types and build and run applications on top. With its recent Litmus Edge 3.0 release, the platform now comes with improved analytics and integration connectors, plus support for digital twins and machine learning algorithms.

Germany-based Siemens is ramping up its industrial IoT capabilities across software and hardware. The company’s expanded offerings include the new Sitrans CloudConnect 240 IoT gateway for process industries, the new KNX Touch Control TC5 room operator unit for smart buildings and new predictive service capabilities through its MindSphere IoT platform.

PTC

SANJAY BRAHMAWAR, CHAIRMAN, CEO

RICHARD NEWBERRY, CEO

VATSAL SHAH, CEO

JIM HEPPELMANN, PRESIDENT, CEO Boston-based PTC is doubling down on alliances with Rockwell Automation and Fujitsu to push its IoT and augmented reality technologies. The company’s ThingWorx IoT platform has been updated with improved scalability and availability, new solution building blocks, enhanced predictive analytics scoring and expanded self-service tools for enterprise IoT deployments.

JEAN-PASCAL TRICOIRE, CHAIRMAN, CEO

ROLAND BUSCH, PRESIDENT, CEO

Software AG

Germany-based Software AG is expanding its portfolio of industrial IoT software with the release of TrendMiner, an application available on the SAP Store that provides self-service industrial analytics for smart factories and other types of industrial operations. The application can integrate into various IoT software stacks, including the company’s Cumulocity IoT platform.

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I NTE R N ET OF TH I NG S 50 10 Coolest IoT

SECURITY COMPANIES Armis

Ockam

Palo Alto, Calif.-based Armis is ramping up investments for its agentless device security platform, thanks to a recent $125 million funding round that brought its valuation to $2 billion. The company rolled out Armis Asset Management as a stand-alone offering that gives organizations expanded visibility and control of devices remotely connecting to corporate devices.

San Francisco-based Ockam is promising hardened security and data privacy for IoT deployments through the use of cryptography and blockchain technology. The company’s software can create and manage cryptographic keys as well as issue unique device identifiers and verifiable credentials to ensure that IoT device communications are secure.

YEVGENY DIBROV, CEO

Claroty

YANIV VARDI, CEO New York-based Claroty is expanding beyond critical infrastructure into new verticals like transportation and food and beverage for its operational technology and industrial IoT security offerings. The company more recently added capabilities including Secure Remote Access, a feature that can shut down attacks that happen through remote sessions.

GlobalSign

ICHIRO CHUJO, CEO Brussels-based GlobalSign is hardening IoT device security through encryption, authentication and authorization with its IoT Identity Platform, which is based on public key infrastructure technology and provisions digital certificates backed by the GlobalSign Certificate Authority. The platform’s capabilities include IoT device identity life-cycle management, which enables auto-provisioning and end-of-life decommissioning.

Karamba Security AMI DOTAN, CEO

Hod Hasharon, Israel-based Karamba Security is protecting IoT devices throughout their entire life cycle without needing to change the hardware. Most recently, the company unveiled its XGuard Monitor platform, which seamlessly embeds the company’s XGuard agents into devices for automated security management and threat detection for large fleets of devices.

Medigate

JONATHAN LANGER, CEO Brooklyn, N.Y.-based Medigate is helping health-care organizations identify, manage and secure medical devices with a security and analytics platform that relies on a large database of medical devices and protocols. The company last year said it had raised a $30 million Series B funding round, and it has also landed major partnerships with Dell Technologies and VMware.

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MATTHEW GREGORY, CEO

Ordr

GREG MURPHY, CEO Santa Clara, Calif.-based Ordr is making it easier for organizations to secure and control connected devices on corporate IT networks with its AI-based Systems Control Engine. The company last year launched its IoT Discovery Program, which arms partners with a small plug-and-play device that can automatically create an inventory of IoT devices communicating with the network.

ReFirm Labs

DERICK NAEF, CEO Fulton, Md.-based ReFirm Labs is helping businesses stay on top of IoT device vulnerabilities with its Binwalk platform, which automatically checks the firmware of devices for vulnerabilities. The platform’s enterprise version provides “deep visibility” into third-party devices before they’re installed while also ensuring that such devices meet an organization’s security and compliance requirements.

Sepio Systems

YOSSI APPLEBOUM, CEO Rockville, Md.-based Sepio Systems is protecting organizations against troublesome IoT devices with its rogue device mitigation software. The company has been expanding its capabilities over the past year, and that includes a new Hardware Access Control offering that gives organizations complete visibility and control over devices on the network.

Vdoo

NETANEL DAVIDI, CEO Tel Aviv, Israel-based Vdoo is helping organizations uncover and resolve vulnerabilities found in IoT devices with its automated product security platform. The company recently raised a $25 million funding round for its platform, which can ensure that devices are compliant with security standards while also providing vulnerability monitoring capabilities.

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10 Coolest IoT

SOFTWARE COMPANIES Akamai

Kloudspot

Cambridge, Mass.-based Akamai is getting deeper into edge computing and security for IoT, thanks to a recent reorganization and its acquisition of IoT security vendor Inverse. The company’s IoT offerings include IoT Edge Connect, an IoT messaging service that uses the company’s large content delivery network to support massive deployments.

Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Kloudspot is reinforcing physical spaces with its situational awareness and intelligence platform, which monitors and analyzes data from a multitude of sources.

The startup recently launched a QuickStart bundle that makes it easy for organizations to monitor social distancing and maskwearing among other use cases.

TOM LEIGHTON, CEO

Amazon Web Services ANDY JASSY, CEO

Seattle-based AWS is making big investments in IoT with several new products, including AWS IoT SiteWise, a managed service for collecting and monitoring data from industrial equipment. The vendor’s new IoT products also include AWS Snowcone, an ultraportable edge computing device, as well as Amazon Monitron, a machine monitoring solution.

Edgeworx

FARAH PAPAIOANNOU, CO-FOUNDER, CEO San Jose, Calif.-based Edgeworx is taking on Kubernetes for the IoT edge with ioFog, an edge computing platform that lets developers deploy microservices to a variety of device types across different networks. From that platform, the company has developed Darcy, an AI-powered camera offering that can be used to check for fevers and mask compliance, among other use cases.

EDJX

JOHN COWAN, CEO Raleigh, N.C.-based EDJX is working to build the “largest edge computing network ever conceived” for IoT applications using other companies’ infrastructure. The company provides a platform that allows customers to build applications using serverless functions that run on EDJX’s network edge, which enables data to be processed as close to its source as possible.

IOTech

KEITH STEELE, CEO Newcastle upon Tyne, U.K.-based IOTech is embracing opensource technology to help companies scale IoT projects. The startup’s EdgeXpert platform, which is based on The Linux Foundation’s EdgeX Foundry, makes it easy to integrate disparate systems and control devices at the edge while its Edge XRT platform is designed to handle resource-constrained, timecritical systems.

GUILLERMO DIAZ, JR., CEO

Microsoft

SATYA NADELLA, CEO Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft is bringing new IoT capabilities to its Azure cloud business. Last year, the company acquired industrial IoT security startup CyberX to expand the device types that its Azure IoT security offerings can monitor.

More recently, the company launched Azure Digital Twins, a new solution for creating virtual models of the real world.

Nubix

RACHEL TAYLOR, CEO San Francisco-based Nubix is making it easy to develop and manage tiny IoT devices at the edge with its new containerbased development platform. The company said it has the only offering that supports application container services for Linuxbased microprocessor devices and microcontroller units that run on a real-time operating system.

Pelion

HIMA MUKKAMALA, CEO A wholly owned subsidiary of chip designer Arm, San Jose, Calif.-based Pelion is simplifying the act of connecting and managing IoT devices with its suite of connectivity and device management software. The company also offers an edge application system that allows developers to deploy and manage applications at the edge using Kubernetes containers.

Zededa

SAID OUISSAL, CEO San Jose, Calif.-based Zededa is breaking down boundaries in managing applications at the edge with its “open orchestration solution for the distributed edge,” which allows legacy applications in virtual machines to run alongside new applications in containers. Zededa said its use of the open-source EVE-OS operating system prevents customers from being locked in with one vendor.

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CR N STORAG E 100

The Data Conversation Starts Here How storage is deployed rests with solution providers assessing exactly what their customers are trying to accomplish. These 100 companies aim to be part of that discussion.

By Joseph F. Kovar

T

here are many choices to be made in how data will be stored, protected and managed to meet changing customer requirements. As the debate over storing data on-premises versus in the cloud continues, what becomes evident is that businesses clearly care about the value they can generate from their data.

That focus on value means that how storage is deployed, whether on-premises or in the cloud or some hybrid combination of the two, depends heavily on what business customers are trying to accomplish, said Chris Case, president of Sequel Data Systems, an Austin, Texas-based solution provider.

There is still a lot of on-premises storage, but the cloud is changing the conversation, Case told CRN. “The focus is on the workload,” he said. “It’s important to look at the data type and the required performance characteristics to determine where the data sits, and then determine if it is stored on the cloud or connected to the cloud or backed up to the cloud. The application and business is the start of the conversation.”

Vendor partners typically have multiple platforms that address varying use cases and the issues of working both on-premises and in the cloud, Case said. And that, he said, is key to being a

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good partner in storage. “Some customers want to keep storage on-prem, some want to go all-cloud,” he said. “Customers are at different IT maturity levels. They’re all at different stages.”

CRN’s Storage 100 recognizes the need solution providers have for finding the right storage infrastructure for each customer based on its own need for performance, flexibility and costs. The 100 vendors highlighted here are among the most innovative providers of storage technology that can be used for deployments spanning the scope of business user requirements from traditional on-premises to full-on cloud, from hardware to software, from capital expense to managed services and everything in between.

On the following pages CRN presents a look at how 100 storage vendors are helping solution providers manage data in all its variations.

There are 20 vendors focused on managing data, 20 vendors that are focused on backing up and restoring data, 20 vendors that develop the components used to build storage solutions, and 40 vendors that have developed the software that provides the kind of storage services needed to meet today’s changing workloads and applications whether on-premises, in the cloud or at the edge. ■

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COMPONENT MAKERS

While storage software defines the services a system provides to its users, hardware and software components define the systems on which the storage software runs. Processors, SSDs and hard drives, memory and controllers provide the right mix of performance and reliability needed to build storage infrastructures, and these companies make sure that happens.

AMD

ATTO

Cisco Systems

CRU

Intel

President, CEO

Co-Founder, President, CEO

Chairman, CEO

President, CEO

CEO

Lisa Su

Tim Klein

Chuck Robbins

Randal Barber

Pat Gelsinger

AMD is bestknown as one of the world’s largest processor companies. While it is most often thought of in terms of servers and PCs, the company also has a strong business in storage.

AMD EPYC Embedded 3000 series processors, for instance, are used to develop software-defined storage and networkattached storage offerings.

ATTO specializes in network and storage connectivity and infrastructure technologies for data-intensive computing environments.

It provides hardware and software components to the biggest vendors in storage with connectivity to all storage interfaces including Fibre Channel, SAS, SATA, iSCSI, Ethernet, NVMe and Thunderbolt.

Cisco is one of the top providers of storage networking technology based on its expertise in Ethernet, Fibre Channel and SDWAN. Among its storage products are software for analyzing SANs, NVMe and NVMe-over-Fibre Channel networking technologies, and technology for nondisruptive SAN migration.

CRU makes removable s t o r a g e devices for government and private businesses, as well as a line specifically targeting the digital cinema industry. CRU’s storage devices include flash and spinning drives and the enclosures needed to create rugged and durable Trade Agreements Act-compliant removable storage devices to secure sensitive data.

As the IT industry looks for faster performance from storage, many vendors and solution providers are looking to Intel Optane persistent memory technology, which sits between SSDs and DRAM performancewise, making it a more common part of memory-based storage tiers. Intel also develops SSDs as well as processors that go into storage devices.

Kingston

Kioxia

Longsys

Micron Technology

NGD Systems

Co-Founder, CEO

President, CEO, Kioxia America

Chairman

President, CEO

Founder, Chairman, CEO

John Tu

Toshiaki Fujikawa

Huabao Cai

Sanjay Mehrotra

Nader Salessi

Kingston, the world’s largest independent m e m o r y product manufacturer, develops SSDs, USB flash drives, memory modules, memory cards and card readers, and embedded storage. Kingston earlier this year became more business-focused with the sale of its HyperX gaming division to HP Inc.

Kioxia, which until October 2019 was known as Toshiba Memory, continues to be a world leader in memory and SSD technologies, including SLC NAND flash memory, NAND with integrated controllers, and 3-D BiCS Flash technology, along with enterprise, data center and client SSDs.

Longsys is a developer of NAND flash memory technologies, custom memory chips, and the storage software and hardware.

It has two primary product lines: Foresee, a line of embedded storage devices, and Lexar, a consumer-focused storage brand the company acquired from Micron in 2017.

M i c r o n Technology manufactures a broad portfolio of memory chips and modules including DRAM, NAN D and NOR flash and 3-D XPoint memory, along with memory cards for mission-import ant applications and SSDs for client, enterprise, cloud and industrial use.

N G D Systems develops high-performance, high-capacity NVMebased S S Ds using a 14nm ASIC-based controller with capacities of up to 64 TB. It also develops an intelligent storage platform that lets users create, manage and execute applications in its SSD storage offerings.

Nvidia

Other World Computing

Radian Memory Systems

Samsung

Seagate Technology

Co-Founder, CEO

Vice Chairman, CEO, Device Solutions Division

CEO

Founder, CEO

Mike Jadon

Flash storage t e ch n o l o g y developer Radian Memory Systems offers NVMe flash-based SSDs and NVRAM-based SSDs for data center workloads. The company also develops Symphonic CFM (cooperative flash management) to add intelligence to flash storage operations.

Samsung’s semiconductor business builds NAND flash memory used in developing highperformance, high-density data storage technologies for PCs, enterprise storage, mobile devices and S S D s . Th e c o m p a n y introduced the Samsung PM1733, its first enterprise-class dual-port SSD supporting PCIe Gen4.

Jensen Huang

Founder, President, CEO

Nvidia is known primarily as a developer of graphics processing units. However, in 2020 it vaulted into a major provider of technology for the storage industry when it closed its acquisition of Mellanox and unveiled acquisitions of microprocessor developer Arm and object storage software developer SwiftStack.

Larry O’Conner Other World Computing started developing memory upgrades to early Apple computers but now offers a wide range of memory and external storage products. Its line includes MacDrive for accessing Mac disks on Windows, MacSales memory and storage upgrades for Macs, SoftRAID RAID utility and more.

Kinam Kim

Dave Mosley

Seagate is best-known as a top hard drive and SSD developer but recently has invested in software and storage systems. Its Lyve is an edge-to-cloud mass storage platform that captures unstructured data in a storage infrastructure that ties the data center and cloud to the edge in a vendor-agnostic fashion.

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CR N STORAG E 100 Silicon Motion

Super Micro Computer

Wallace Kuo

President, CEO

Swissbit

Silvio Muschter

Charles Liang

CEO

Supermicro develops high-performance server and storage systems and components for data center, cloud computing, enterprise IT, big data, high-performance compute and embedded markets. Those are sold either direct to business users or to system builders who then add their own value and brand.

Swissbit manufactures storage and e m b e d ded IoT technology for demanding applications. It offers SSDs with PCIe and SATA interfaces, as well as CompactFlash, USB flash drives, SD and micro SD memory cards, and managed NAND BGAs, some of which include security for embedded IoT applications.

CEO

Silicon Motion develops NAND flash controllers for SSDs and other solid state storage devices. Its specialized processor ICs manage NAND components for high-performance storage offerings used in data centers, PCs, smartphones and commercial and industrial applications.

20

Toshiba Electronic Devices & Storage

Western Digital David Goeckeler

Akihiko Oma

CEO

Toshiba Electronic Devices & Storage has been focused on the semiconductor and hard disk drive business since it spun off its flash memory and SSD business in 2019 to a new company, Kioxia. It develops enterprise, mobile and consumer hard drives, including drives optimized for cloud-scale capacity.

Western Digital is a top hard drive and SSD manufacturer with a wide range of drives for PC, data center and embedded use. Through its Western Digital Capital organization, it has been investing in the storage industry with companies like Silk, Pivot3, Qumulo, Excelero and WekaIO in its portfolio.

President, CEO

DATA MANAGEMENT VENDORS

Businesses can mine data for analytics or use it for such applications as machine learning or AI. The value of data requires businesses to manage data copies and data life cycles, as well as adhere to governance and regulatory concerns, across on-premises, edge, and public, private and hybrid clouds. Here are some of the companies that tackle that data management.

Aparavi

Buurst

Cohesity

Collibra

Commvault

Founder, CEO

CEO

Founder, CEO

Founder, CEO

CEO

Adrian Knapp

Mohit Aron

Felix Van de Maele

Sanjay Mirchandani

Aparavi’s cloud-based data intelligence and automation platform finds, automates, governs and consolidates distributed data to tackle growing data demands.

The platform then provides secure access to that data, including modern applications such as analytics, machine learning and collaboration tools.

B u u r s t , which until last spring was known as SoftNAS, develops the SoftNAS cloud NAS technology for AWS, Microsoft Azure and VMware platforms. The company in January introduced SoftNAS 5 with up to a 60 percent performance improvement, time zone-aware snapshots and more.

Cohesity is a ch a n n e l focused provider that eliminates mass data fragmentation by consolidating silos onto a single, easy-tomanage software-defined platform. That platform hosts enterprise-class services including backup and recovery, file shares, object stores, disaster recovery, dev/test provisioning and analytics.

The Collibra Platform aims to help enterprises find meaning in their data and improve the quality of business decisions. The Collibra Platform is a cloud-native, scalable shared platform that lets IT and business users collaborate to create a data-driven organization and provide security and compliance using the suite of Collibra products.

Commvault’s t e ch n o l o g y provides the ability to move, manage and use data across diverse cloud and onpremises environments.

Commvault in 2020 added Kubernetes capabilities to its Metallic SaaS-based data protection and Hedvig software-defined storage offerings.

Datadobi

Data Dynamics

Delphix

Egnyte

Hammerspace

Co-Founder, CEO

CEO

Founder, CEO

CEO

CEO

Ian Leysen

Datadobi’s software helps busin e s s e s m i g r a t e their file or object data between any on-premises or cloud storage platform with its DobiMigrate software. Once migrated, the company’s DobiProtect software protects that data against cyberthreats, ransomware, accidental deletions and software vulnerabilities.

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Vic Mahadevan

Piyush Mehta

Data Dynamics is the developer of StorageX, an unstructured data management technology that provides policy-based data management with no vendor lock-in to help businesses analyze, move, manage and modernize infrastructures to drive cost reduction, risk mitigation and policy automation.

Jedidiah Yueh D e l p h i x develops the Delphix Data Platform that helps automate data for moderinization, migration, and CI/ CD (continuous integration/continuous delivery) deployment. The Delphix Dat a Platform brings together enterprisewide data from mainframes to coud-native applications with data compliance to enable modern workflows.

Vineet Jain Egnyte’s Content Intelligence Engine delivers secure content collaboration, compliant data protection and simple infrastructure modernization via a SaaS platform. The platform provides identity-aware controlled user access to files, life-cycle management, data security with behavioral analytics and ransomware detection.

David Flynn

Using its global file system that t a r g e t s hybrid clouds, Hammerspace delivers software-defined storage services for file data on any infrastructure or cloud. The multi-site, multicloud technology makes data accessible activeactive across all sites through a universal global namespace with replication at file-level granularity.

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CR N STORAG E 100 Komprise

LucidLink

CEO

Co-Founder, CEO

Kumar Goswami

Peter Thompson

MayaData Evan Powell CEO

Nasuni

Quest Software

President, CEO

CEO

Paul Flanagan

Patrick Nichols

Komprise develops analyticsdriven data management that helps customers know, move and control data to save costs and extract business value without disrupting access. Its intelligent data management technology uses analytics to provide instant insight into data across all NAS and object data silos from on-premises to the cloud.

LucidLink is the developer of the LucidLink Filespaces cloud-native NAS technology that allows users to stream data directly from the cloud, eliminating the need to download or synchronize. The LucidLink Filespaces is specifically built for modern cloud computing environments.

MayaData develops containerattached storage for Kubernetes. Its Kubera is a SaaS or on-premises portal for letting administrators connect to their Kubernetes clusters for centralized monitoring and data migration as a service. Kubera acts as a graphical user interface for OpenEBS, the open-source project for enabling stateful applications in Kubernetes.

Nasuni developed the first cloudnative global file system, Nasuni UniF S, which scales to fit all files globally, protects data without separate backup or disaster recovery technologies, offers access from any location, supports any performance level, and lets businesses use any cloud, all with single-pane-ofglass management.

On the storage front, Quest offers applications aimed at data management and data protection, including technology to proactively manage and operate onpremises, cloud, as well as to streamline backup and recovery, recover unused storage and proactively plan business continuity strategies.

Quobyte

Snowflake

Tuxera

Veeam Software

Veritas

Co-Founder, CEO

Chairman, CEO

CEO

Chairman, CEO

CEO

Bjorn Kolbeck

Frank Slootman

Quobyte develops a softwaredefined, P O S I X compatible distributed parallel file system that scales out just by adding more hardware to increase performance and cut latency. The file system deploys anywhere from on-premises bare-metal x86-based servers to the cloud to containers.

20

Snowflake builds a data management platform delivered as a service. The platform features physically separate storage, compute and global services layers that are logically integrated to scale multiple data workloads independently for data warehousing, data lakes and related applications.

Tuukka Ahoniemi Tuxera develops software for embedded file systems, flash management and networking.

Its software is part of flash memory and storage systems from such companies as Micron, Western Digital, Kioxia, SK hynix and others. Tuxera also works with Microsoft, AWS, BlackBerry, and Linux and Android developers.

William Largent

V e e a m develops an integrated data protection and management platform for on-premises and cloud environments. The company’s flagship Veeam Availability Suite automates data protection, monitoring, ransomware protection and compliance in cloud, virtual and physical workloads.

Greg Hughes Veritas lets businesses manage data in multi-cloud environments. Its 3 6 0 Dat a Management suite gives customers data visibility to reduce risk, digital compliance to automate data retention and classification, data protection to ensure workloads can be recovered and business continuity for automated resiliency and monitoring.

DATA PROTECTION VENDORS

Data protection is more than just backing data up to a cloud or another storage device. The number and size of files continually grows even as new ways to lose or corrupt data, including malware and ransomware, become increasingly sophisticated.

Protecting data in the face of those issues is complicated, but these 20 companies help simplify the process.

Acronis

Amazon Web Services

Arcserve

Asigra

Axcient

Co-Founder, Chairman, CEO

CEO

CEO

Founder, CEO

CEO

Serguei Beloussov

A c r o n i s provides integrated cyberprotection in physical, cloud and mobile environments with data protection, anti-ransomware, disaster recovery, cloud storage, and enterprise file sync and share offerings. Its product lines include the Acronis Cyber Cloud platform for MSPs and Acronis Cyber Protect to help with cybersecurity and data protection.

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Andy Jassy

AWS is one of the world’s largest storage providers, with Amazon S3 for object storage, Amazon Elastic Block Store for block storage and Amazon Elastic File System for storing and sharing file data. The company offers virtually unlimited storage capacity for a wide range of storage services including cloud data migration, backup and restore, and archiving.

Tom Signorello Arcserve, an early developer of enterprise data protection technologies, early this year significantly expanded into the SMB market with its planned acquisition of StorageCraft. The combined company, under the Arcserve name, will provide partners and MSPs with a full range of data protection capabilities for on-premises and cloud environments.

David Farajun A s i g r a provides enterprise data protection for data in physical or virtual machines, in cloud-based platforms, or in SaaSbased applications. Asigra Cloud Backup allows setting of rules to deal with different data sources and workflows. The company last year introduced Asigra Cloud Backup with Deep MFA, which adds deep multifactor authentication.

David Bennett Axcient offers MSP-focused cloud-tocloud backup, business continuity and disaster recovery, and secure sync and share via its Axcient x360 platform. Last year it introduced x360Recover Virtual Office aimed at keeping employees productive and IT systems running from anywhere, and early this year added private cloud options to its Directto-Cloud technology.

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Backblaze

Clumio

Datto

Google Cloud

HYCU

CEO

Co-Founder, CEO

CEO

CEO

CEO

Gleb Budman

Poojan Kumar

Tim Weller

Thomas Kurian

Simon Taylor

Backblaze focuses on cloud storage and data protection, with business-focused and personal data protection available in a yearly subscription. Its technology is also available for developers and IT professionals to build their own cloud storage offerings. Backblaze has served over 50 billion files and has over 1 exabyte of customer data stored using its technology.

C l u m i o develops enterprise backup and recovery that takes advantage of public clouds. Its technology is offered as a service to let partners simplify management and administration of customers’ data protection. It simplifies billing with predictable costs, scales on demand, and provides audit-ready global compliance, all while securely protecting data.

Datto is a leading provider of cloud-based software and technology purpose-built for the MSP community.

The company, which went public in 2020 with the stock ticker “MSP” to reflect its customer base, offers unified continuity, networking and business management offerings to MSPs serving over 1 million businesses worldwide.

G o o g l e Cloud provides cloud storage, object storage, filestore file-based storage and persistent disk block storage for virtual machines. Google Cloud is the back-end cloud for multiple data protection vendors. It also offers Nearline, Coldline and Archive low-cost, highly available archival storage.

HYCU is the developer of HYC U Protege, an application-aware, lightweight cross-cloud migration and disaster recovery technology for enterprise applications. HYCU Protege offers application consistency, protected migration, one-click disaster recovery and consolidated management across clouds.

Infrascale

JetStream Software

Microsoft

MSP360

Nakivo

CEO

Co-Founder, CEO

CEO

CEO

Co-Founder, CEO

Russell Reeder

Tom Critser

Satya Nadella

Brian Helwig

Bruce Talley

Infrascale provides comprehensive, cloud-based data protection, including Disaster Recovery as a Service, ransomware mitigation, backup for servers and applications, data archiving, data security and encryption, and laptop and mobile device data protection. The company in September overhauled its support methodologies for its MSP partners.

JetStream develops cross-cloud software for virtualized computing. Its JetStream DR provides cloud-native disaster recovery and business continuity for VMware workloads, and JetStream Migrate allows seamless live migration of virtual machines from any on-premises VMware environment to any VMware environment in the cloud.

Microsoft Azure brings a full range of public cloud services to channel partners. On the storage side, that includes Azure Disk Storage for block storage, Azure Files for file storage and Azure Blob storage for unstructured data. For data protection, it provides Azure Backup for protecting data against loss or ransomware.

MSP360 provides MSPs with a data protection service with monthly billing, no contract and the opportunity to add their own brand. MSP360 leverages public cloud services including AWS, Wasabi and Backblaze B2 and provides centralized monitoring and management of all backup and restore jobs, users, endpoints and storage.

N a k i v o B ackup & Replication is used by over 16,000 businesses via over 4,000 channel partners, including hosting, managed and cloud service providers, to protect data in virtualized and hybrid environments. The technology backs up data from physical, virtual, cloud and application-specific environments and replicates data in VMware, Hyper-V and AWS EC2 environments.

OwnBackup

Rubrik

Unitrends,

Wasabi

Zoolz

CEO

Co-Founder, CEO

Fred Voccola

CEO

CEO

Sam Gutmann

OwnBackup develops t e ch n o l o g y for secure, automated c l o u d - b a s e d b a ck u p , recovery, replication, archiving and management of data in the Salesforce environment. Its technology protects dat a managed by such applications as Salesforce, nCino, Veeva and Sage.

Bipul Sinha

Rubrik’s platform drives a consistent backup, archival and replication experience across on-premises, edge and cloud environments.

It automates management across hybrid and multi-cloud environments with one programmable interface, provides rapid search and recovery of dat a, and s afeguards against ransomware.

a Kaseya company CEO

Unitrends, part of Kaseya, develops software and appliances for quick backup and recovery of data. It also offers Disaster Recovery as a Service, direct-to-cloud backups and protection of Office 365 data. Unitrends last year launched Unitrends Helix, an AI-powered selfhealing SaaS remediation platform.

David Friend Wasabi Hot Storage gives enterprises and small businesses data backup and recovery, archiving and content delivery. The company promises to provide cloud storage with significantly higher performance and lower cost than AWS and is the back-end storage cloud for many top data protection vendors.

Muayyad “Mo” Shehadeh Z o o l z provides affordable data backups to the cloud via its BigMing partner program. Data backed up using Zoolz sits on AWS where Zoolz protects it with 256-AES encryption. The company also provides compliance with GDPR, HIPAA and other frameworks.

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SOFTWARE-DEFINED STORAGE VENDORS

Storage arrays are no longer built around hardware. Instead, it is the software that defines the services customers derive from their storage systems, software that may run on general-purpose hardware, in a virtual machine or container, or in the cloud.

Nearly all developers of storage systems are at heart software-defined storage developers. Here are 20 of these companies.

Cloudian

DataCore

DDN

Dell Technologies

Excelero

Co-Founder, CEO

CEO

Co-Founder, Chairman, CEO

Chairman, CEO

Co-Founder, CEO

Michael Tso

Dave Zabrowski

Alex Bouzari

Michael Dell

Yaniv Romem

Cloudian develops file and object storage technology with a focus on AWS S3-compatible cloud-based object storage. It offers a flash storage-optimized version of its HyperStore object storage software, its Cloudian Kubernetes S3 Operator to support container-based applications, and its HyperIQ monitoring and observability technology.

DataCore was a pioneer in the development of softwaredefined storage for block, file and object storage that can be deployed on servers and storage to pool and virtualize multivendor storage, storage servers or hyperconverged clusters. The company recently acquired object storage vendor Caringo.

DDN, which until last year was known as DataDirect Networks, was a pioneer in object storage and has made several acquisitions in the enterprise storage market, including softwaredefined storage developer Nexenta, NVMe all-flash and hybrid flash storage developer IntelliFlash, and Tintri, which develops allflash storage for virtualized environments.

Dell has been the world’s largest public storage vendor for years thanks to its 2016 acquisition of EMC, with a wide range of primary and secondary storage based on its software and on that of VMware, which came with EMC. Dell in 2020 launched its PowerStore line of scalable all-flash storage to unify its multiple lines of midrange storage.

Excelero is the developer of NVMesh, a low-latency distributed block storage for webscale applications that pools NVMe storage across networks at local speeds and latencies, providing the performance of local flash-based storage with centralized management. NVMesh supports any hardware and such protocols as NVMe over Ethernet and InfiniBand.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise

Hitachi Vantara

IBM

Infinidat

iXsystems

Antonio Neri

CEO

CEO

CEO

Co-Founder, CEO

HPE is a top vendor in storage hardware and software sales, and a leader in storage intelligence thanks to its acquisition of Nimble. HPE offers AI-driven self-healing and self-optimized storage capabilities for its Nimble and HPE Primera lines, including all-NVME support for Primera and storageclass memory for Nimble.

Hitachi Vantara was formed from the combination of Hitachi Data Systems, Lumada and Pentaho. It is focused on combining primary storage with big data and comprehensive data management, and has significantly expanded its Kubernetes, midsize storage, and cloud and IoT capabilities.

IBM continues to rely less on hardware and more on its IBM Spectrum line of software-defined storage technology. The company early this year expanded its entry-level flash storage with full container support, and is working with Pure Storage’s Portworx on Kubernetes data management.

Infinidat focuses on t e ch n o l o g y to build multipetabyte storage infrastructures with high availability and reliability. The company last year introduced NVMe over Fabric technology along with free data migrations for new customers and a 100 percent data guarantee.

iXsystems develops a line of servers and storage systems, the latter of which are built on OpenZFS storage technology. Its TrueNAS appliances offer file, block and object storage while its TrueRack systems converge server and storage technology as a way to offer cloud capabilities at a lower cost than AWS, it has said.

Lenovo

Lightbits Labs

Linbit

Liqid

MinIO

Chairman, CEO

Co-Founder, CEO

CEO

Co-Founder, CEO

Co-Founder, CEO

Gajen Kandiah

Arvind Krishna

Phil Bullinger

Mike Lauth

President, CEO

Yang Yuanqing

Lenovo’s ThinkSystem storage systems include all-flash and hybrid flash arrays, with its newest being the Lenovo ThinkSystem DM5100F, an all-NVMe flash storage array. Lenovo, via its ThinkAgile line, also partners with several software-defined storage technology developers including Nutanix, Microsoft and VMware.

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Eran Kirzner

Lightbits Labs, which c o u n t s among its investors Cisco, Dell Technologies, Intel and Micron, develops a software-defined scale-out NVMe-over-TCP software-defined disaggregated storage that separates storage and compute without touching the network infrastructure or data center customers.

Philipp Reisner Linbit is a developer of open-source block storage t e ch n o l o g y t argeting Kubernetes, OpenStack, OpenNebula and other technologies.

Its Linstor technology offers native integration to Kubernetes to simplify the building, running and controlling of block persistent storage for containerized environments.

Sumit Puri

Composable infrastructure developer Liqid’s Matrix C D I technology lets businesses quickly provision, scale and redeploy bare-metal infrastructure via software using industry-standard compute, networking, storage, GPU, FPGA and Intel Optane memory devices via the company’s intelligent fabric.

Anand Babu Periasamy M i n I O develops a high-performance Kubernetesnative object storage suite t argeting hybrid cloud environments. The softwaredefined distributed object storage system runs on industry-standard hardware and aims to deliver a consistent experience across every Kubernetes environment.

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NetApp

Nimbus Data

Nutanix

OpenDrives

Panasas

CEO

Founder, CEO

President, CEO

CEO

President, CEO

George Kurian

Thomas Isakovich

Rajiv Ramaswami

David Buss

Tom Shea

NetApp may be bestknown for its all-flash storage, but the company is the pioneer in developing a data fabric that seamlessly connects on-premises storage infrastructures to public and hybrid clouds, and was among the first to bring its software off proprietary appliances to run in the cloud to let businesses manage data wherever and however they need to.

Nimbus Data develops scalable, high-performance flash memory technology offerings targeting use cases in the cloud, AI, highperformance computing, virtualization and more.

The company is the developer of the Nimbus Data AFX storage operating system, ExaFlash all-flash arrays and ExaDrive SSDs.

Nutanix is the developer of the first hyperconverged infrastructure offering that combined compute, storage and networking into an integrated stack.

Its technology converges on-premises, edge and multi-cloud environments into a single cloud platform and helps eliminate storage silos with unified file and object storage that nondisruptively scales.

OpenDrives specializes in high-performance, enterprisegrade NAS technology targeting performance-hungry applications like video production and health care.

It offers the Ultimate Series optimized with NVMe for performance and throughput, the Optimum Series that combines NVMe flash with hard drive capacity, and the Momentum Series with hard-drive capacity.

Panasas develops storage technology with a focus on high-performance computing and AI. Its PanFS with Dynamic Data Acceleration file system brings predictable performance to environments with small files and mixed workloads.

Panasas offers ActiveStor Ultra for high-performance computing and ActiveStor Prime, a parallel scale-out NAS offering.

Panzura

Pavilion Data Systems

Pivot3

Pure Storage

Qnap Systems

Executive Chairwoman, CEO

CEO

CEO

Chairman, CEO

Founder, Chairman, CEO

Jill Stelfox

Gurpreet Singh

Bill Stover

Charles Giancarlo

Teddy Kuo

Panzura’s global cloud file system helps employees across hundreds of offices work as if they are in the same room. The Panzura CloudFS powers enterprise-scale deployments in the cloud with global scalability and military-grade security. Data is stored as a single data source in the cloud while frequently used files are cached on edge appliances.

Pavilion is the developer of the Pavilion HyperParallel Flash Array based on its HyperOS storage operating system. It runs on industrystandard hardware with up to 20 independent controllers per system, each with their own CPU, memory, network and OS instance, and capable of natively running block, file or object workloads.

Pivot3’s hyperconv e r g e d infrastructure is purposebuilt for mission-critical video surveillance and security operations to help consolidate video capture, storage, analytics and access control onto a single platform. Its Acuity hyperconverged infrastructure platform scales as needed.

Pure Storage develops allflash storage technology, including the FlashArray block storage line and the FlashBlade unstructured storage line. It is in a major push to unify storage and ransomware protection across onpremises and cloud environments with its Pure-as-a-Service offering.

QNAP develops NAS appliances and video surveillance for home, small-business and enterprise users, and more recently has branched into cloud-based NAS. In 2020 it launched the ZFS-based QuTS hero operating system, the QuWAN SDWAN offering and the QuTS cloud NAS that can be deployed on public and private clouds.

Quantum

Qumulo

Scale Computing

Scality

Silk

Chairman, CEO

President, CEO

CEO

Founder, CEO

Founder, CEO

Jamie Lerner

Quantum is now one of the leading providers of storage technology to such verticals as media and entertainment, surveillance and industrial IoT. The company’s StorNext file systems provide high-performance file and block storage, while its ActiveScale offering is at the base of Quantum’s object storage repositories.

Bill Richter

Q u m u l o simplifies unstructured file data management for high-performance workloads at exabyte scale. It is a leader in distributed file systems, object storage and hybrid cloud file storage. Its software runs on standard hardware from Qumulo or from partners HPE and Fujitsu, as well as in AWS and Google Cloud Platform public clouds.

Jeff Ready

Scale Computing’s HC3 IT infrastructure platform provides a fully integrated platform that helps eliminate the need for traditional IT silos of virtualization software, disaster recovery software, servers and shared storage. The HC3 selfhealing platform identifies, mitigates and corrects infrastructure problems in real time.

Jerome Lecat

S c a l i t y provides web-scale storage in three ways.

Scality Ring is software-defined native file and object storage for large-scale on-premises management of unstructured data. Zenko provides data management across multiple clouds. And NAS Archiver tiers inactive data from NAS to Scality Ring.

Dani Golan

Kaminario, the former all-flash storage array developer that exited the hardware busines to focus on software-defined storage, last year changed its name to Silk. The Silk Platform provides flexible, on-demand scalability and dynamic provisioning for on-premises and cloud workloads targeting mission-critical applications.

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CR N STORAG E 100 SoftIron

StarWind Software

StorCentric

StorOne

StorPool Storage

CEO

CEO, CTO, Chief Architect

CEO

Co-Founder, CEO

CEO

Phil Straw

Anton Kolomyeytsev

Mihir Shah

Gal Naor

Boyan Ivanov

SoftIron develops storage appliances for private and public cloud and enterprise-scale facilities using the Ceph open-source software-defined storage platform designed for highly scalable and unified object, block and file storage. The appliances cater to highbandwidth, medium-latency applications such as content delivery.

St arWind develops hyperconvergence and storage virtualization software and an all-flash hyper-converged infrastructure appliance combining network, storage, compute and software.

It offers StarWind Virtual SAN for building virtualized storage pools and StarWind Virtual Tape Library to convert inexpensive disk drives into virtual tapes.

StorCentric has acquired Vexata’s allflash storage; Nexsan’s Unity high-performance block and file storage, E-series and Beast high-density block storage, and Assureon compliant archiving technologies; Drobo prosumer and SMB storage; Retrospect on-premises and cloud storage; and Violin Systems’ NVMe all-flash storage.

StorOne develops software-defined storage technology for all-flash or hybrid arrays; virtual, secondary and cloud storage or hybrid on-premises and cloud storage. They all support block, file and object storage using NVMe, Optane and SSD. In 2020 it unveiled a new all-flash array that combines Intel Optane SSDs and Intel QLC 3-D NAND storage tiers.

StorPool develops block-level, distributed storage software aimed at replacing traditional SANs, all-flash storage arrays or other lessefficient storage software when building public or private clouds. It is available as a fully managed offering with pay-as-you-grow pricing and integrates with Kubernetes, OpenStack, CloudStack and more.

Synology

Vast Data

VMware

WekaIO

Zadara

Founder, CEO

Founder, CEO

Interim CEO, CFO

Co-Founder, CEO

CEO

Philip Wong

Synology develops NAS, networking and surveillance technology. Its rackmount and desktop NAS models target home users to SMBs to enterprises, all managed by its DiskStation Manager web-based operating system. The company also develops software targeting data protection, cloud and file sync and share.

Renen Hallak

Va s t D a t a is focused on helping customers develop allflash data center infrastructures with its own software sitting on top of new hardware and network technologies. Its Universal Storage technology combines exabyte scalability with multitenant quality-of-service tools to help consolidate all data and applications onto one scale-out flash tier.

Zane Rowe

V M w a r e cloud management and virtualization t e ch n o l o g y is at the heart of cloud infrastructures worldwide.

The same can be said for its vSAN software-defined storage, a key component of the VMware Cloud Foundation cloud infrastructure and management service for private and public clouds, and its VxRail hyperconverged infrastructure technology.

Liran Zvibel

We k a I O develops what it terms the Limitless data platform based on its WekaFS file system for applications that leverage cloud, GPUbased compute and flash storage. The softwaredefined WekaFS mixes flash and spinning disk to run block, file and object storage on-premises and natively in the cloud, with automatic orchestration between the two.

Nelson Nahum Z a d a r a develops softwared e f i n e d storage technology to provide storage as a service. The Zadara Cloud Services platform combines compute, storage and networking to any customer workload and data type whether onpremises, in hybrid cloud or multi-cloud infrastructures, or at the edge.

2021 CR N

STORAG E 100

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TECH E LITE 250

At The Top Of Their Game

By Rick Whiting

Scan here to see the full Tech Elite 250 database at crn.com

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s the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting recession forced businesses to rapidly shift the way they operate, many relied heavily on their solution providers to help them adapt to the new normal.

To do that, solution providers had to be at the top of their game, prepared to meet customers’ rapidly evolving needs with the right technology combined with the right business skills. The solution providers best positioned to do that are the ones that maintain the highest levels of training and certification from the IT vendors they partner with and occupy the top tiers within those vendors’ partner programs.

CRN’s annual Tech Elite 250 recognizes IT solution providers in North America that have achieved the top levels in some of the leading IT vendor partner programs.

Some of the solution providers on this year’s list have made the Tech Elite 250 every year since its 2011 inauguration. They include C Spire Business in Birmingham, Ala.; Computer Design & Integration (CDI) in Teterboro, N.J.; DynTek Services in Irvine, Calif.; Edge Solutions in Alpharetta, Ga.; Emtec in Jacksonville, Fla.; Sirius in San Antonio; and Structured in Clackamas, Ore. CDI, for example, boasts Advanced partner level status with Amazon Web Services, a Titanium partner level with Dell Technologies and a Premier partner level with VMware (along with Cisco Systems Gold, Oracle Gold and Silver Hewlett Packard Enterprise partner levels). Always looking for ways to expand its areas of expertise, New York-based CDI (No. 78 on the 2020 CRN Solution Provider 500) just last month acquired systems integrator Kintyre Solutions and its capabilities in systems engineering, cloud optimization and cloud-native application development.

2nd Watch, a Seattle-based strategic service provider that is making the Tech Elite 250 for a third year, is a superstar AWS Premier-level partner, an Enterprise-level VMware partner and a Microsoft Gold Azure partner.

The company, No. 134 on the 2020 CRN Solution Provider 500, is a case study in how a successful solution provider is always upping its game. In March 2020 2nd Watch launched a

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new DataOps managed service for customers, based on AWS S3 storage, the Lambda serverless environment and AWS Glue data management. The company launched a DevSecOps practice in May, a managed optimization service in November and an expanded managed security service in December.

2nd Watch CEO Doug Schneider, in a recent interview with CRN, called his company “a leader in the post-hardware era” with demand for the company’s services driven by “this ever-expanding ‘public cloud operating system.’” While some companies focus on professional consulting services and others are MSPs, Schneider attributes 2nd Watch’s success, in part, to “a very good balance of both.”

Also on this year’s Tech Elite 250 list is San Diego-based Evotek, a fast-growing solution provider (No. 132 on the 2020 CRN Solution Provider 500) whose vendor partner status includes being a Dell Technologies Titanium partner, an HPE Platinum partner, a VMware Enterprise partner and a Gold-level partner with both Cisco and Oracle.

Evotek operates cloud, data center, digital platform, cybersecurity, and networking and communications practices. While there’s no disputing its deep expertise in those technology areas, what makes Evotek stand out from other solution providers is its emphasis on deep-relationship advisory services and a service-focused business philosophy, rather than the “sell more product” approach taken by some solution providers, said founder and CEO Cesar Enciso.

“The culture is most definitely the biggest differentiator in what we’re doing,” Enciso said in a recent interview with CRN. The following are snapshots of 25 solution providers, a sampling of this year’s Tech Elite 250. They include highlights of their partner program levels with AWS, Cisco, Dell, HPE, Oracle and VMware. The complete list can be viewed online at crn.com/ techelite250. ■ For information on purchasing the complete list with all collected firmographic data, please contact sales@thechannelcompany.com or call 508-416-1175.

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2nd Watch Seattle Top Executive: Doug Schneider, CEO Specializations include: AWS Premier, VMware Enterprise

Advanced Computer Concepts McLean, Va. Top Executive: Reza Zarafshar, President Specializations include: AWS Registered, Cisco Gold, Dell Technologies Gold, HPE Gold, VMware Enterprise

Aspire Technology Partners Eatontown, N.J. Top Executive: John Harris, President, CEO Specializations include: AWS Registered, Cisco Gold, HPE Business, VMware Enterprise

Business IT Source Buffalo Grove, Ill. Top Executive: Robert Frauenheim, CEO Specializations include: AWS Registered, Cisco Select, Dell Technologies Titanium, HPE Gold, VMware Enterprise

C Spire Business Birmingham, Ala. Top Executive: Allen McIntosh, GM Specializations include: AWS Registered, Cisco Gold, Dell Technologies Platinum, VMware Premier

Computer Design & Integration Teterboro, N.J. Top Executive: Eric Bakker, CEO Specializations Include: AWS Advanced, Cisco Gold, Dell Technologies Titanium, HPE Silver, Oracle Gold, VMware Premier

ConRes Bedford, Mass.

Top Executive: Mary Nardella, CEO Specializations include: AWS Advanced, Cisco Gold, Dell Technologies Platinum, HPE Platinum, Oracle Gold, VMware Premier

DVBE Technology Group Sacramento, Calif.

Top Executive: Richard McKinnon, CEO Specializations include: AWS Registered, Cisco Registered, HPE Business, VMware Professional

DynTek Services Irvine, Calif.

Top Executive: Timothy Montgomery, CEO Specializations include: AWS Registered, Cisco Gold, Dell Technologies Platinum, HPE Business, VMware Enterprise

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TECH E LITE 250 Edge Solutions Alpharetta, Ga. Top Executive: Julie Haley, CEO Specializations include: Cisco Premier, Dell Technologies Gold, HPE Silver, VMware Enterprise

Emtec Jacksonville, Fla. Top Executive: Sunil Misra, President, CEO, COO Specializations include: AWS Registered, Cisco Registered, HPE Silver, Oracle Platinum, VMware Professional

Evotek San Diego Top Executive: Cesar Enciso, CEO Specializations include: AWS Registered, Cisco Gold, Dell Technologies Titanium, HPE Platinum, Oracle Gold, VMware Enterprise

InfoSystems Chattanooga, Tenn.

Top Executive: Scott Davis, CEO Specializations include: AWS Registered, Cisco Premier, Dell Technologies Gold, HPE Business, VMware Advanced

ITsavvy Addison, Ill. Top Executive: Mike Theriault, CEO Specializations include: Cisco Premier, Dell Technologies Titanium, HPE Gold, VMware Premier

LookingPoint Pleasant Hill, Calif.

Top Executive: Sean Barr, President Specializations include: AWS Advanced, Cisco Gold, Dell Technologies Authorized, VMware Enterprise

Mainline Information Systems Tallahassee, Fla. Top Executive: John McCarthy, President, CEO Specializations include: Cisco Gold, Dell Technologies Titanium, HPE Platinum, VMware Premier

MicroAge Tempe, Ariz.

Top Executive: Rob Zack, CEO Specializations include: Cisco Premier, Dell Technologies Platinum, HPE Platinum, VMware Principal

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Mobius Partners San Antonio Top Executive: Jay Uribe, Co-Founder, President Specializations include: AWS Registered, Cisco Select, Dell Technologies Gold, HPE Platinum, Oracle Silver, VMware Premier

ProActive Solutions Mission, Kan. Top Executive: Melissa Cather, President Specializations include: AWS Registered, Cisco Select, Dell Technologies Platinum, HPE Silver, Oracle Remarketer, VMware Enterprise

Sanity Solutions Denver Top Executive: Jason Cherveny, President, CEO Specializations include: AWS Registered, Cisco Registered, Dell Technologies Titanium, VMware Enterprise

Sirius San Antonio Top Executive: Joe Mertens, President, CEO Specializations include: AWS Advanced, Cisco Gold, Dell Technologies Titanium, HPE Platinum, Oracle Platinum, VMware Principal

Structured Clackamas, Ore. Top Executive: Ron Fowler, President, CEO Specializations include: AWS Registered, Cisco Premier, Dell Technologies Authorized, HPE Platinum, VMware Enterprise

ThunderCat Technology Reston, Va. Top Executive: Tom Deierlein, CEO Specializations include: AWS Advanced, Cisco Gold, Dell Technologies Platinum, HPE Silver, VMware Premier

vCORE Scottsdale, Ariz.

Top Executive: Steve Leavitt, Founder, CEO Specializations include: AWS Registered, Cisco Premier, Dell Technologies Titanium, HPE Silver, Oracle Gold, VMware Premier

Winslow Technology Group Waltham, Mass.

Top Executive: Scott Winslow, Founder, President Specializations include: AWS Registered, Cisco Registered, Dell Technologies Titanium, VMware Professional

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ON TH E R ECOR D

The Changing Distribution Landscape?

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By Robert Faletra ECH DATA’S BOLD MOVE to acquire

Synnex and create the biggest high-tech distributor in the world certainly changes the competitive landscape. But is it an indicator of massive market changes to come?

Are there fundamental changes in the distribution business that will lead to massive restructurings and accelerated consolidation? Can the past help us predict the future, or are things so different in today’s market that there is no playbook in place?

The first question that needs answering is what drove this move. My belief is this was not born out of necessity. This did not happen because it needed to happen. When HP gobbled up Compaq, that needed to happen. There were too many PC makers in the market and something had to give.

This combination is being born out of ambition and the desire to grow and push the entire market forward. It didn’t need to happen. It happened because Tech Data CEO Rich Hume and Synnex CEO Dennis Polk wanted it to happen.

It falls into the old adage that if you’re not the lead dog the view never changes—and this certainly makes Tech Data the lead dog and significantly so. But even before this, Tech Data was becoming the leadership mega-distributor largely in part because Hume has been vocal in the market.

Leadership requires communication. CEOs who avoid speaking publicly outside company walls rarely are seen in that light.

Hume in his unassuming way has been vocal and accessible.That garners attention, projects market leadership and gives his business mojo. At nearly 20 percent bigger than Ingram Micro postmerger, his voice becomes louder—and that’s marketing muscle.

But does this move force other competitors to make similar moves? I doubt it.

It does have the potential to make Tech Data a more profitable business when synergies take out costs, and the efficiencies of having a larger business worldwide potentially result in increased margins. Even if margin creeps up modestly, it

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means Tech Data has more dollars to invest in opportunities, and that may put pressure on others.

As Hume mentioned in his discussion with CRN, the world around how we consume IT is changing and this gives Tech Data more room to invest to drive more sales with more customers. That’s certainly an advantage, but IT products and services have been changing since the beginning of the industry. So while this dynamic is different because of where we’ve evolved, it’s in many ways similar to the pressure that distribution has always faced.

It means bargaining strength with vendors but that has limitations, is more pronounced with smaller vendors and slim with the largest ones. To some degree, vendors may be concerned that too much of their business is concentrated with too few distributors and move to correct that where they can.

Does this mean death to smaller, more focused or specialty distributors? Not likely. Tech Data and Ingram Micro may be after the same markets as smaller players, but niche distributors survive for other reasons and no distributor can do everything.

It may prompt others to potentially eye cloud-focused distributors like Pax8 in order to keep pace with Tech Data’s investment. But that is something that has probably already been happening and my guess is Pax8 isn’t interested—at least not right now or something would have happened. It’s certainly an attractive target.

In the end, this move is exciting for Tech Data and it presents enormous opportunity for it to capitalize on new initiatives around Infrastructure as a Service and cloud.

It gives it more opportunity to grow organically and while it presents new competitive pressures for others, I just don’t see it as something that sparks massive consolidation and a remaking of the distribution world as we know it. n

BACKTALK: Make something happen. Robert Faletra is Executive Chairman of The Channel Company. You can contact him via email at rfaletra@thechannelcompany.com.

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