Category Archives for "Managed Services News"

Organizations are increasingly moving to and relying on the cloud to enable business operations in todays “new normal.” MSPs have been on the frontlines since day one, helping organizations secure these cloud environments to support hybrid workforces with remote employees–and they continue to do so today.

Sophos’ next-generation cybersecurity solutions and managed threat detection and response services are best in class when it comes to protecting against ransomware and other cyberthreats. Sophos is passionate about fighting cybercrime, and unwavering in its commitment to protecting organizations of all sizes.

More than 16,000 MSPs are now part of MSP Connect, Sophos’ award-winning program to help MSPs increase customer management efficiencies, unlock new business opportunities and boost revenue. MSP Connect makes it easier than ever for MSPs to secure diverse customer environments with one comprehensive cybersecurity portfolio that’s simple to deploy and manage.

New to the MSP Connect portfolio is Sophos XDR, the industry’s only extended detection and response (XDR) solution that synchronizes native endpoint, server, firewall and email security. Sophos Intercept X with XDR and other pillar products–including Sophos Firewall and Sophos Cloud Security–share threat intelligence in real time for coordinated and automated response to threats as part of the Sophos adaptive cybersecurity ecosystem, a new open security architecture for protection. Built on a cloud-based data lake with the industry’s richest data set, the ecosystem continuously improves based on the collective input of Sophos solutions and services, partners, customers, developers and other security industry vendors.

MSPs further benefit with Sophos Managed Threat Response (MTR), a fully managed threat hunting, detection and response service that provides a dedicated 24/7 security team to rapidly identify and neutralize sophisticated and complex threats. The customizable offering provides tremendous growth opportunities for partners and is one of the industry’s most widely used managed detection and response services, now with more than 5,000 customers.

Sophos is among the first to be named an AWS Level 1 MSSP Competency program partner.

Its managed security services are validated by AWS across six security domains: threat detection and response; vulnerability management; cloud security best practices and compliance; network security; host and endpoint security; and application security.

MSPs manage Sophos solutions and services in the cloud-based Sophos Central platform, where they can oversee all customer installations–both on-premises and in the public cloud–respond to alerts,  and track licenses and upcoming renewal dates via a single, intuitive interface.

To learn more about MSP Connect, click here.

This guest blog is part of a Channel Futures sponsorship.

Upstack has engaged in conversations about acquisitions with approximately 100 agents.

Upstack’s Nick Caruso

So says Nicholas Caruso, Upstack’s head of global channels and alliances, who said Upstack has taken a careful approach to picking the advisers that will join its team. Specifically, he said Upstack is targeting partners that want to remain in the business.

“We’re not simply buying a business and saying, ‘Hey, go somewhere else,’” Caruso told Channel Futures. “We’re looking for partners for a much longer investment.”

Caruso joined Upstack earlier this year, moving on from the same job title at Zayo Group. Prior to Zayo, he worked in Frontier’s channel.

Upstack’s Danielle DeCosta

Caruso also told Channel Futures that Upstack has hired Danielle DeCosta as its vice president of supplier development. DeCosta was director of partner enablement for network and communications at Pax8. She also managed supplier development for Intelisys. Caruso spoke about some of the unique strategies DeCosta is bringing to the table, particularly as it pertains to MDF.

Scroll through the 12 images above to see highlights of our conversation with Caruso and how Upstack’s model is changing the channel.

Channel partner firms need a playbook for making M&A decisions.

Everyone knows that private equity and consolidation have hit the indirect technology sales channel in unprecedent ways this year. Moreover, the technology broker brokerage/agency space has enjoyed more attention than ever.

However, many agents are entering uncharted waters as they field offers from suitors. How do they wade past those shiny multiples to determine the true value of an acquisition?

These three industry experts will chat about agent M&A at the Channel Partners Conference & Expo, Nov. 2: PlanetOne chief operating officer Chris Werpy, Simplicity VoIP founder and CEO Ben Humphreys; and Upstack founder and CEO Chris Trapp. Werpy witnessed multiple private equity transactions in his tenure at Masergy, Humphreys recently sold Comtel to Telarus, and Trapp’s firm has acquired more than a dozen agents in the last year.

The live, in-person Channel Partners Conference & Expo, co-located with the MSP Summit, Nov. 1-4, is almost here. Register now!

Channel partner firms need a playbook for making M&A decisions.

Everyone knows that private equity and consolidation have hit the indirect technology sales channel in unprecedent ways this year. Moreover, the technology broker brokerage/agency space has enjoyed more attention than ever.

However, many agents are entering uncharted waters as they field offers from suitors. How do they wade past those shiny multiples to determine the true value of an acquisition?

These three industry experts will chat about agent M&A at the Channel Partners Conference & Expo, Nov. 2: PlanetOne chief operating officer Chris Werpy, Simplicity VoIP founder and CEO Ben Humphreys; and Upstack founder and CEO Chris Trapp. Werpy witnessed multiple private equity transactions in his tenure at Masergy, Humphreys recently sold Comtel to Telarus, and Trapp’s firm has acquired more than a dozen agents in the last year.

The live, in-person Channel Partners Conference & Expo, co-located with the MSP Summit, Nov. 1-4, is almost here. Register now!

Channel partner firms need a playbook for making M&A decisions.

Everyone knows that private equity and consolidation have hit the indirect technology sales channel in unprecedent ways this year. Moreover, the technology broker brokerage/agency space has enjoyed more attention than ever.

However, many agents are entering uncharted waters as they field offers from suitors. How do they wade past those shiny multiples to determine the true value of an acquisition?

These three industry experts will chat about agent M&A at the Channel Partners Conference & Expo, Nov. 2: PlanetOne chief operating officer Chris Werpy, Simplicity VoIP founder and CEO Ben Humphreys; and Upstack founder and CEO Chris Trapp. Werpy witnessed multiple private equity transactions in his tenure at Masergy, Humphreys recently sold Comtel to Telarus, and Trapp’s firm has acquired more than a dozen agents in the last year.

The live, in-person Channel Partners Conference & Expo, co-located with the MSP Summit, Nov. 1-4, is almost here. Register now!

Channel partner firms need a playbook for making M&A decisions.

Everyone knows that private equity and consolidation have hit the indirect technology sales channel in unprecedent ways this year. Moreover, the technology broker brokerage/agency space has enjoyed more attention than ever.

However, many agents are entering uncharted waters as they field offers from suitors. How do they wade past those shiny multiples to determine the true value of an acquisition?

These three industry experts will chat about agent M&A at the Channel Partners Conference & Expo, Nov. 2: PlanetOne chief operating officer Chris Werpy, Simplicity VoIP founder and CEO Ben Humphreys; and Upstack founder and CEO Chris Trapp. Werpy witnessed multiple private equity transactions in his tenure at Masergy, Humphreys recently sold Comtel to Telarus, and Trapp’s firm has acquired more than a dozen agents in the last year.

The live, in-person Channel Partners Conference & Expo, co-located with the MSP Summit, Nov. 1-4, is almost here. Register now!

You know Ingram Micro, the tech distribution giant, but do you know CloudBlue? This arm of Ingram Micro offers managed services, professional services, subscription and billing management, partner and channel management, and more.

Partners will get a chance to meet with CloudBlue execs at the Channel Partners Conference & Expo in booth 959. We have a preview in this chat with Randy Irvine, director of sales and market development for the security unit at Ingram Micro. He also covers how the distributor is helping MSPs keep customers protected as cybersecurity attacks grow dramatically.

The SIP trunking solution market continues to grow rapidly. Providers proved invaluable to organizations as they moved to remote work due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Companies continue to migrate from legacy PBX and telco services. Moreover, SIP trunking is typically less expensive than legacy circuits.

Our latest CF List focuses on SIP trunking. This is the second annual list focusing on this technology and industry. Analysts with S&P Global Market Intelligence and Frost & Sullivan, and a Telarus solution architect, weighed in on SIP trunking market trends and what it takes to be a successful provider.

The global SIP trunking solution market exceeded $14.4 billion in 2020 and should surpass $31.2 billion by 2028, according to Strategic Market Insights. Look for an 11.8% compound annual growth rate through 2028.

Accelerating Trends

451 Research’s Raul Castanon

Raul Castanon is senior research analyst with 451 Research, part of S&P Global Market Intelligence.

“The pandemic accelerated several IT and communications technology trends,” he said. “At a high level, features and capabilities focused on providing ease of use have proven their value, enabling IT organizations to quickly and easily provision services, regardless of their or their employees’ location. Specifically when it comes to SIP trunking, a key innovation is direct programmatic access via APIs. These capabilities are redefining the landscape, positioning CPaaS vendors as emerging competitors.”

Mike Baillargeon is Telarus’ UC/CC solution architect for the East.

Telarus’ Mike Baillargeon

“During the last 18 months, the focus has been on how to securely move a workforce to a home office while providing the same experience as in the office,” he said. “This leads to customers expecting a better experience from a billing, service delivery and uptime point of view. Based on this pressure, providers have placed a renewed emphasis on customer experience (CX). We believe providers are seeing a unique window in moving a large number of customers to a modern connectivity model, but in order to retain these clients, suppliers have added staff in the areas of customer success and account management.”

SIP Trunking Proved Its Value

Michael Brandenburg is senior industry analyst of connected work at Frost & Sullivan.

Frost and Sullivan’s Michael Brandenburg

“During the pandemic, SIP trunking kind of proved its value because it allowed the quick shifts that needed to happen for remote work,” he said. “One of the providers told me they had customers just double their capacity for their SIP trunking services. They needed one trunk going in and one going back out. These are not really new capabilities; it’s just that customers never really thought they’d have to use SIP trunking in that way. It was always treated very statically and the dynamic value of SIP came through.”

There’s a general trend of moving to cloud and UCaaS, Brandenburg said. Therefore, the role of SIP trunking is changing to one of pure connectivity.

“So it’s not just a cheaper way to transport your voice lines into your on-premises,” he said. “It’s not only the connectivity back to the corporate office solution or to the contact center. It’s a way to unify all of a company’s telephone numbers and direct them wherever they need to go, whether that’s to a legacy on-premises solution, a cloud contact center, or Microsoft Teams or Zoom Phone, or even in some cases RingCentral.”

We’ve compiled a list, in no particular order, of 20 top SIP trunking providers. It’s based on feedback and recent news reports. The list includes a mix of well-known providers as well as lesser-known ones making strides in SIP trunking This is by no means a complete list.

Scroll through our slideshow above to see who made our latest list of SIP trunking providers.

Channel partner firms need a playbook for making M&A decisions.

Everyone knows that private equity and consolidation have hit the indirect technology sales channel in unprecedent ways this year. Moreover, the technology broker brokerage/agency space has enjoyed more attention than ever.

However, many agents are entering uncharted waters as they field offers from suitors. How do they wade past those shiny multiples to determine the true value of an acquisition?

These three industry experts will chat about agent M&A at the Channel Partners Conference & Expo, Nov. 2: PlanetOne chief operating officer Chris Werpy, Simplicity VoIP founder and CEO Ben Humphreys; and Upstack founder and CEO Chris Trapp. Werpy witnessed multiple private equity transactions in his tenure at Masergy, Humphreys recently sold Comtel to Telarus, and Trapp’s firm has acquired more than a dozen agents in the last year.

The live, in-person Channel Partners Conference & Expo, co-located with the MSP Summit, Nov. 1-4, is almost here. Register now!

Channel partner firms need a playbook for making M&A decisions.

Everyone knows that private equity and consolidation have hit the indirect technology sales channel in unprecedent ways this year. Moreover, the technology broker brokerage/agency space has enjoyed more attention than ever.

However, many agents are entering uncharted waters as they field offers from suitors. How do they wade past those shiny multiples to determine the true value of an acquisition?

These three industry experts will chat about agent M&A at the Channel Partners Conference & Expo, Nov. 2: PlanetOne chief operating officer Chris Werpy, Simplicity VoIP founder and CEO Ben Humphreys; and Upstack founder and CEO Chris Trapp. Werpy witnessed multiple private equity transactions in his tenure at Masergy, Humphreys recently sold Comtel to Telarus, and Trapp’s firm has acquired more than a dozen agents in the last year.

The live, in-person Channel Partners Conference & Expo, co-located with the MSP Summit, Nov. 1-4, is almost here. Register now!