Category Archives for "Managed Services News"

Sep 27

Fivetran Partners Getting New Reseller, Certification Programs, Updated Referral Program

By | Managed Services News

Updating the partner referral program was a ‘maturation’ exercise for Fivetran.

Fivetran partners are gaining access to a new partner reseller program and certification programs, and significant updates to its partner referral program.

Fivetran originally introduced its partner referral program in 2018. It has since grown to hundreds of partners, including GSIs, driving customer engagements and Fivetran implementations.

The expanded program enables existing partners to grow their business even more. They’ll also support Fivetran’s growth across EMEA, Latin America and the Asia-Pacific regions.

Fivetran is a data integration provider.

Fivetran's Logan Welley

Fivetran’s Logan Welley

Logan Welley is Fivetran’s vice president of alliances.

“This was a maturation exercise for Fivetran, and an opportunity to broaden the incentives and levers in which partners can utilize the program to drive more impact and better customer experiences,” he said. “As for the technical certifications, this was timed to empower our SI partners to get up to speed on our product updates on the heels of our HVR acquisition. Our product drives so much of our partner strategy. So we can’t realize positive business outcomes for customers without our partners understanding the most current product offering. One of the biggest initial objectives of our expanded partner program is to educate our partners on the database replication use case and help our joint customers leverage our high-volume agent connectors.” 

Partner Benefits

Fivetran’s upgraded partner experience includes four new partnership tiers, from registered to elite. Benefits include: 

  • New financial rewards.
  • A partner advisory council.
  • Partner communities.
  • Marketing support and exclusive sponsorship opportunities.
  • Sales engineering hours.
  • Technical and sales training and certification packages. 

Partners in the new reseller program can also receive rewards for reselling via marketplaces. That offers customers a seamless purchasing experience through their approved vendors.

Gathering feedback from partners was “instrumental in creating a program that was best for them,” Welley said.

“Our program now allows partners to be incentivized to drive Fivetran business throughout the customer lifecycle and engage with Fivetran at all touch points,” he said. “In addition, our technical and sales certifications will be available online to allow partners to engage at their own speed. Also, as a partner climbs the tiers in our program, they will have more opportunities to engage our technical partner sales engineering organization to dive deeper into more tailored enablement and training.”

Simplifying the Buying Process

Many customers want to buy their technology and services from one partner instead of going to each provider separately.

“Our reseller program allows partners to offer that opportunity to their customers and simplify the buying process even more,” Welley said. “Our partners will also have exclusive sponsorship opportunities for key industry events, helping them to source new business, and have access to new certifications which will support their employee development and customer journeys.”

Ryan Bosshart is CEO at phData, a Fivetran premier partner.

“phData partners with some of the largest companies on earth, including dozens of the Fortune 100, plus startups, nonprofits and other innovative organizations – all of which need access to uninterrupted, accurate data to succeed,” he said. “Our collaboration with Fivetran is instrumental in this regard. Fivetran truly values the strategic importance of its global partners.”

Sep 26

Avant’s Chris Werpy: TSDs, Agents Facing ‘The Next Frontier’

By | Managed Services News

We’ve seen the security vendors start to take advantage of this distribution market.

Partners are calling for more data from Avant and its rival TSDs.

So says Avant Chief Innovation Officer Chris Werpy, who spoke to Channel Futures at last week’s Avant Special Forces Summit. He said the technology advisor channel, also known as the agent channel, has proven its worth to customers and vendors. Moreover, he said the TSDs (technology services distributors) that support the agents with supplier contracts, tools and support, are working hard to lead agents deeper into next-gen technologies.

Werpy, Chris_Avant

Avant’s Chris Werpy

Werpy was speaking two months after Avant announced the acquisition of PlanetOne. Werpy had previously served as PlanetOne’s president and chief operating officer. According to him, the Chicago-based and Arizona-based companies have been integrating in smooth fashion.

Werpy spoke about Avant’s ambitions around industry research. He also spoke about other acquisitions that have occurred in the channel this year and cybersecurity trends.

Sep 26

7 Channel People Making Waves This Week at Avaya, New Relic, Arctic Wolf, More

By | Managed Services News

This week, one channel company cut 35% of its workforce.

Channel people at  Avaya, Forrester, New Relic, Arctic Wolf and more are among the individuals making waves this week. Channel Futures’ Channel People Making Waves showcases those who have made an impact over the last seven days. (See our slideshow above.)

One of the biggest headlines this week involved Uber’s latest data breach. The person claiming responsibility for the hack sent a text message to an Uber worker claiming he was a corporate IT person. The hack showed the public how important employee training and testing are. Artic Wolf’s vice president of strategy unpacks this breach for our readers.

On a completely different topic, have you ever experienced imposter syndrome? If you’re a woman, the likely answer is yes. More than half of women experience this feeling, including the vice president of global alliances and channels at New Relic. In her guest column for Channel Futures, she explains how she overcame those sentiments and how people can also. It was our No. 4 most-read article this week.

Finally, the article that took the top spot includes the response given by the CEO and channel leader of a top UCaaS firm facing financial difficulties. It’s one of the most-read stories of the year thus far on Channel Futures.

And, if you didn’t catch our previous edition, you can find it here

Sep 26

How MSPs and ISVs Can Advance Client Digital Transformation Goals While Increasing Margins

By | Managed Services News

Discover how MSPs and ISVs can expand their offerings and boost revenue by providing modern, innovative solutions.

Managed service providers (MSP)s and independent software vendors (ISV) often face challenges when helping customers implement digital transformation plans. These challenges vary, but often include working with tight IT budgets, providing access to legacy applications and providing data security while avoiding unnecessary complexity.

One recent study found that 93% of MSPs want to expand their IT security offerings. However, due to the rapid pace of technological change, it can be difficult for MSPs and ISVs to keep up with and attend to the changing needs of both their clients and their own organizations.

To overcome these challenges, MSPs and ISVs should seek technology solutions that meet certain key criteria out of the box, such as being secure, cost-effective, and easy to implement and manage.

That’s where Parallels RAS and WinZip Enterprise can help. Both products, which are offered as part of Alludo’s Partner Program, empower MSPs and ISVs to help clients hit digital transformation goals and achieve business growth while providing partners with the knowledge, skills and tools necessary to provide ongoing customer support.

In this post, we’ll take a closer look at both solutions and explore how the recent acquisition of Awingu by Alludo (formerly Corel Corporation) adds even more benefits and advantages for MSP and ISV partners.

Note: You can read more about the recent rebrand of Corel Corporation to Alludo here.

How Parallels RAS benefits MSPs and ISVs

Parallels RAS is an all-in-one application delivery and virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) solution that supports on-premises, hybrid and public cloud deployments. Clients can access business-critical files, folders and applications—from any device, anywhere.

With Parallels RAS, service providers and resellers can reduce IT overhead while increasing the quality of service and improving customer productivity​.

Key features include:

  • Superior end user experience on any device, including mobile, with intuitive native controls
  • Out-of-the-box automation tools, plus multi-tenancy, auto-scaling, and provisioning capabilities
  • Multi-cloud and hyperconverged-ready, and hypervisor agnostic
  • A broad service portfolio that includes Software as a Service (SaaS), Desktop as a Service (DaaS), virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), and integration with Azure Virtual Desktop and Amazon Web Services integration
  • A simple license model with pay-as-you-go licensing that helps boost margins while lowering the total cost of ownership (TCO)

Learn how one Parallels partner saw increased security, cost savings and ease of use after implementing Parallels RAS.

How WinZip Enterprise Benefits MSPs and ISVs

WinZip Enterprise is an industry-leading data encryption, management, sharing and compression solution trusted by government agencies, Fortune 500 companies and thousands of businesses worldwide.

End users can easily zip, encrypt and send virtually any size file in seconds, while IT administrators can customize the solution to control encryption methods, password policies and more to ensure compliance with data security standards and protocols.

WinZip Enterprise enables MSPs to provide a powerful, all-in-one solution for customers that require data encryption and features such as data logs to adhere to strict compliance regulations, such as those in the finance, healthcare, insurance, defense, government and military industries.

Many MSPs offer network security solutions and unified threat management as part of their services. Adding WinZip Enterprise enables MSPs to provide customers with a powerful encryption solution that integrates with Microsoft SharePoint to back up sensitive files, creating multiple layers of security for organizations that need it.

Key features include:

  • Centralized IT control that enables administrators to customize user experiences and deploy and enforce security measures, sharing, and backup policies
  • Single pane of glass for cloud file management that offers a streamlined interface for managing multicloud SaaS environments with deduplication and compression
  • PDF management that goes beyond a simple reader by enabling users to secure intellectual property from multiple file formats into one or many PDF files
  • Encrypted cloud endpoint backup that’s powerful yet lightweight with deduplication and differential-incremental backups
  • Compliance and encryption that includes unsurpassed FIPS 140-2-compliant, FIPS 192-certified encryption, as well as Windows Information Protection (WIP).

How Alludo’s Acquisition of Awingu Benefits MSPs and ISVs

Alludo is committed to deepening and expanding our relationship with MSPs and ISVs. On June 13, Alludo’s executive leadership team formally announced the acquisition of Awingu.

Awingu’s secure remote access technology provides an alternative to virtual private networks (VPNs) by leveraging a comprehensive, browser-based “clientless” approach. This enables users to securely access applications, desktops and files from any device, anywhere. With no agents to be installed on servers, Awingu is easy to deploy and configure.

By adding Awingu to the Parallels tech stack, we’re taking a major step toward empowering MSPs and ISVs to help solve the challenges customers face today, where organizations rely on a mix of legacy applications, on-premises assets, cloud-based solutions and more, while enabling them to advance on key digital transformation initiatives for 2023 and beyond.

Learn more about the benefits of the Partner Program today!

This guest blog is part of a Channel Futures sponsorship.

Sep 26

Kevin Jones Out as Rackspace CEO

By | Managed Services News

Find out who’s replaced him and what Jones is doing now as the cloud computing MSP realigns its focus.

Kevin Jones is out as Rackspace CEO.

Rackspace's Amar Maletira

Rackspace’s Almar Maletira

On Monday, the Texas-based cloud computing managed service provider said Amar Maletira, president and chief financial officer since November 2020, now serves as head of the company.

Rackspace's Kevin Jones

Apollo Global Management’s Kevin Jones

Jones held the Rackspace CEO role for almost four years. As of Sept. 26, he is working as an operating advisor with Apollo Global Management, which bought Rackspace in 2016 for $4.3 billion and took the company public once again in 2020. Given Rackspace’s ups and downs over the past year under Jones’ leadership, the powers that be apparently determined it was time for a change.

“Amar brings broad management and leadership experience, and over the course of his career, he has helped transform several multibillion-dollar technology businesses,” said David Sambur. Sambur acts as co-head of private equity at Apollo Global Management and as chairman of the Rackspace board.

“[Amar] has also been instrumental in crafting Rackspace Technology’s new strategic direction and operating model,” Sambur added. “We believe his appointment as CEO will allow us to improve and accelerate the execution of our new go-forward strategy.”

What that new strategy is, exactly, remains a bit of a mystery. Rackspace was supposed to meet with analysts this month and shed some light on the company’s plans. That hasn’t happened yet and such an event is not listed on Rackspace’s website.

A Realignment Starts with a New Rackspace CEO

Rackspace has waffled this year in terms of its market approach as its earnings lose investor faith. In May, Jones indicated the company would sell itself, but in pieces rather than as a whole. Public cloud was looking more lucrative for Rackspace than private cloud, so all signs pointed to the latter being jettisoned. Then, in August, Rackspace backpedaled. Executives called off sale intentions and Jones, on the company’s second-quarter earnings call, said, “[W]e’re excited about this organization into two business units. We see really strong demand on the … public cloud side of things and also strong demand on the private cloud side of things.”

Maletira — CFO at the time — agreed.

“[W]e look forward to sharing more details on the financial profile of both the public cloud and private cloud businesses,” he said on the same call. “And currently, we are deep into the detailed planning of this realignment that Kevin talked about and we’ll begin in the early stages of implementation of the new operating model in our fiscal Q3.”

Part of that realignment, of course, appears to have started at the top, with Jones’ exit as Rackspace CEO. Maletira, for his part, brings a record of steering company turnarounds. He did just that at Viavi Solutions, an Arizona-based technology firm. Regarding Rackspace, Maletira said he is “very excited about the journey ahead and look forward to leading the company as we transition to our new strategy and operating model.”

Maletira also will stay on as CFO until Rackspace names a permanent replacement.

What Will Rackspace’s Next Move Look Like?

Shares of Rackspace had dropped almost 9% by about 3 p.m. Eastern on Monday on news of the executive shuffle.

Rackspace has struggled to define itself in a crowded market. A veteran of corporate reorganizations, the company once more faces decisions about how to best compete as organizations seek help with digital transformation. As cloud computing emerged to dominate the tech space, Rackspace repositioned itself as a rival to Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud. But it couldn’t quite keep pace with those firms, so it switched to a managed service provider model. Now, Rackspace ranks as a top partner for the hyperscalers, even as it tries to determine its footing.

Channel Futures has reached out to Rackspace’s public relations team with an inquiry about whether Maletira’s appointment will impact indirect channel partners.

 

 

 

Sep 26

Hornetsecurity Survey Proves Accelerating Pace of Ransomware Attacks in 2022

By | Managed Services News

Many organizations incorrectly believe Microsoft 365 is protected from ransomware attacks.

The latest Hornetsecurity survey confirms the cybersecurity industry’s expectations that the pace of ransomware will intensify in 2022.

Hornetsecurity polled over 2,000 IT leaders for its latest annual survey. Among the findings, nearly a quarter of businesses have suffered a ransomware attack. A fifth of those occurred in the past 12 months.

Cyberattacks are happening more frequently. Last year’s ransomware survey revealed one in five companies experienced an attack. This year it rose to 24%.

Hornetsecurity's Daniel Hofman

Hornetsecurity’s Daniel Hofman

Daniel Hofmann is Horetsecurity‘s CEO.

“We certainly see the pace of ransomware infection increasing, along with a decrease in the number of organizations enabling email spam/malware protection,” he said. “One reason we suspect to account for the decrease is the increasing rate of adoption of Microsoft 365 as a platform.”

Many organizations that have adopted cloud services believe the cloud vendor is protecting them from things like ransomware, Hofmann said.

“Sadly, in most cases, Microsoft 365 included, this isn’t the case,” he said. “And it’s up to the company to secure and protect their own data.”

Lack of Knowledge on Available Security

The Hornetsecurity survey highlighted a lack of knowledge on the security available to businesses. A quarter of IT professionals either don’t know or don’t think Microsoft 365 data can be impacted by ransomware.

Just as worryingly, 40% of IT professionals that use Microsoft 365 in their organization admitted they don’t have a recovery plan in case their Microsoft 365 data was compromised by a ransomware attack.

“With the help of third-party tools, IT admins can back up their Microsoft 365 data securely and protect themselves from such attacks,” Hofmann said.

Survey responses showed the widespread lack of preparedness from IT professionals and businesses. That includes an increase in businesses not having a disaster recovery plan in place.

In 2021, 16% of respondents reported having no disaster recovery plan in place. In 2022, this grew to 19%, despite the rise in attacks.

The survey also showed that more than one in five businesses that were attacked either paid up or lost data. Hackers have an incentive to run these ransomware attacks because there’s a decent chance they’ll get a payday. Seven percent of IT professionals whose organization was attacked paid the ransom, while 14% admitted that they lost data to an attack.

‘It Won’t Happen to Me’ Still Prevalent

The mentality of “it won’t happen to me” is certainly something Hornetsecurity continues to see, Hofmann said. That’s especially true as more organizations adopt cloud services.

“There are several misconceptions when it comes to ‘the cloud’,” Hoffman said. “New adopters often assume that security and data protection are handled as part of their monthly bill, which isn’t the case. We also see cases where some organizations believe that platforms such as Microsoft 365 are not susceptible to ransomware attacks. This simply isn’t true. In either case, the organization is putting itself at enormous risk for data loss, damaged reputation, and all the other issues associated with a security breach.

Nearly 60% of ransomware attacks originate via email/phishing attacks, Hofmann said.

“That tells us that focusing any limited budget on that key problem alone provides a lot of protection for the money spent,” he said. “Service providers that focus on this key area for their budget-strapped customers can provide a lot of protection and peace of mind. On top of that, service providers can further help with this by providing proven solutions from trusted security vendors that help fill in the unique organizational security gaps for each of their customers. For example, maybe you have a customer in a highly regulated industry like finance. Providing additional security services such as end-user security awareness training can bring additional trust and protection for your valued clients.”

Sep 23

HiddenLayer Appoints Security Channel Vet Abigail Maines as CRO

By | Managed Services News

HiddenLayer recently emerged from stealth to launch its ML detection and response solution.

HiddenLayer has hired security channel vet Abigail Maines, previously with Cybereason and Check Point Software Technologies, as its CRO.

HiddenLayer’s security platform safeguards the machine learning (ML) models enterprise organizations use behind their most important products.

HiddenLayer's Abigail Maines

HiddenLayer’s Abigail Maines

Maines previously was Cybereason’s vice president of channel and commercial sales in North America. She brings 20 years of experience in the SaaS market to HiddenLayer.

Before Cybereason, she ran North America channel sales at Check Point Software Technologies and was responsible for double-digit increases in bookings.

HiddenLayer recently emerged from stealth to launch its ML detection and response (MLDR) solution. It detects and prevents cyberattacks targeting ML-powered systems. Gartner reports that two out of every five organizations have suffered an artificial intelligence (AI) privacy breach or security incident.

While we are not a mature channel organization yet, we will be,” Maines said. “I intend to be channel centric early. And we will focus on ensuring our flagship product MLDR drives services business for all partner types. including VARs, GSIs and MSSPs. Early feedback from design partners has been overwhelming. And we are grateful for the channel’s support so quickly in our history.”

Time to Go to Market

Chris Sestito is HiddenLayer’s CEO.

“Now is the time to bring our product to market,” he said. “And we are excited to have Abigail lead that charge. Abigail fits HiddenLayer perfectly given her diverse background, which includes building companies from scratch and leading well-established, $1 billion-plus lines of business. She is passionate about driving meaningful security outcomes and excels at empathetic partner engagement, and will be my partner in building HiddenLayer on a strong foundation of these core values.”

Prior to Check Point, Maines led business development for Cylance. There, she led a cross-functional global team responsible for the company’s most strategic partnerships.

In 2020, she co-founded Females In Every Role Change Everything (FIERCE), a professional organization that accelerates the success of women in business, government and academia. She is also a volunteer coach for the nonprofit, Girls With Impact, a nationwide program that equips girls with the skills, knowledge and confidence to become the leaders, entrepreneurs and innovators of tomorrow.

Sep 23

MSPs Looking to Vonage Tech Stack for More Opportunities

By | Managed Services News

UC giant Vonage continues to evolve significantly in the channel.

You might think that in terms of partners, Vonage wouldn’t focus much on managed service providers. Not true!

Irfan Fazlulla, senior director of marketing partnerships and strategy, pulls up a chair for this edition of Channel Futures TV. He discusses what makes the company attractive to MSPs. He also touches on what it feels like to be part of the Ericsson family via acquisition.

Channel Futures TV’s James Anderson conducted the interview at the 2022 MSP Summit/Channel Partners Leadership Summit.

Sep 23

Trend Micro Working with MSPs to Augment Existing IT Stacks

By | Managed Services News

Trend Micro also is helping MSPs with their talent shortage problem.

Trend Micro is partnering closely with managed service providers to accelerate the modernization of their cybersecurity practices.

So says Lamon Gorman, director, service provider channel, with the company. One way Trend Micro is helping MSPs is to assist them with the talent shortage problem.

Gorman gets us up to date on the latest happenings and more in this Channel Futures TV interview. It took place at the 2022 MSP Summit/Channel Partners Leadership Summit.

Sep 23

Lumen ‘Proactive’ About Aligning Partners with Direct Sales, Shared Customers

By | Managed Services News

A new era for Lumen Technologies is about to begin with the retirement of longtime CEO Jeff Storey. Kate Johnson, formerly head of Microsoft U.S., will step into Storey’s old job soon.

That made for a good topic of conversation with Lumen regional vice president Sara Seegers on Channel Futures TV. She joined our James Anderson to talk about Johnson, sales of advanced communication products, and the relationship between Lumen partners and direct sales.

It all happened at the 2022 MSP Summit/Channel Partners Leadership Summit in Orlando.

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