Category Archives for "Managed Services News"

HPE CEO Antonio Neri credited partners with booking record orders of the company’s GreenLake hybrid edge-to-cloud infrastructure platform. According to Neri, annual recurring revenue (ARR) of $8.3 billion from HPE GreenLake has doubled during the past two years.

During HPE’s quarterly earnings call on Tuesday, Neri said as-a-service revenue of $936 million represented 17% year-over-year growth. Total revenues of $7.9 billion during the quarter that ended Oct. 29 grew 7% year-over-year. For the full fiscal year, revenues of $28.5 billion increased 3%.

HPE GreenLake as-service orders rose 33% for the quarter and 68% for the year, the company reported. Officials said the company achieved those orders despite supply-chain constraints. ARR contract value amounts to a 68% increase in bookings year-on-year.

Neri noted that the company saw a greater share of partners that booked multiple HPE GreenLake during the fourth quarter.

HPE’s Antonio Neri

“Partners booked more HP GreenLake orders during the fourth quarter than they ever did before, extending their strength of orders growth to 22 consecutive quarters,” Neri said.

For its current quarter ending Jan. 31, HPE maintained its revenue forecast in the $7.2 billion-$7.6 billion range. HPE CFO Tarej Robbuati noted that despite headwinds, the company would grow revenues by 2% in its next fiscal year.

“While the supply environment is improving, it is not quite back to pre-pandemic levels,” Robbiati said. “Our large order book contributes to our confidence in our fiscal year 23 revenue outlook of 2%-4% growth adjusted for currency.”

Among HPE’s various business units:

• Intelligent Edge revenue of $965 million rose 18% year-over-year. Aruba Services revenue increased in the “high single-digits” year-over-year, with as a service revenue up 70%.
• High-Performance Computing & Artificial Intelligence (HPC & AI) revenue of $862 million declined 14% year-over-year. Operating margin of 3.5% was also down from 14.2%.
• Compute revenue of $3.7 billion rose 16% year-over-year. Operating margins grew to 14.7% from 9.4% during the prior year. HPE attributed the margin expansion growth to a product mix shift and “strategic pricing actions,” which offset cost increases.
• Storage revenue of $1.3 billion was up 4% year-over-year, with an operating margin of 15.9% up from 13.8% year-over-year.

Rival NetApp Cuts Forecast

NetApp on Wednesday reported financial results for its second quarter that ended on Oct. 29. Revenues for the quarter met expectations, totaling $1.57 billion, an 11% year-over-year increase. But NetApp lowered its revenue forecast for the current quarter.

In the fiscal year, NetApp is forecasting revenues will grow between 2% and 4%, down from earlier projections of 6%-8%. For the quarter that ends on Jan. 31, 2023, NetApp projects revenues will fall between approximately $1.53 billion and $1.68 billion.

NetApp CEO George Kurian said the company lowered its forecast based on a more challenging sales environment.

NetApp’s George Kurian

“As we moved through the quarter, we saw increased budget scrutiny, requiring higher level approvals, which resulted in smaller deal sizes, longer selling cycles, and some deals moving out of the quarter,” Kurian said during the company’s earnings call.

Kurian added: “We see no change to our underlying opportunity and are confident in our position. However, current economic realities and unprecedented [foreign exchange] headwinds will continue to impact IT spending, causing us to temper our revenue expectations for the second half.”

NetApp shares fell nearly 6% on Wednesday, while HPE rose 8.5%.

Perception Point has a new partner program. It aims to provide partners with more advanced tools and resources to grow their customer base and boost resell opportunities. 

In line with Perception Point’s channel-first strategy, the company has doubled its number of partners in the past six months. Further, its enhanced partner program has been launched to power projected global expansion in 2023.

The new program is open to all channel partners, including resellers, distributors and MSPs. It features a tiered structure based on annual sales targets. Registered partners can benefit from a suite of benefits in a number of areas. These include sales, marketing and support, including a deal registration program, lead sharing, a dedicated marketing manager, marketing resources and a comprehensive enablement plan.

Perception Point’s cloud-native solution detects, prevents and remediates threats across an organization’s main attack vectors. Typically this means email, web browsers, cloud collaboration channels and proprietary apps. Seven layers of next-gen advanced threat detection capabilities power the solution. This helps shield against any type of attack based on text, files and URLs. The result? Spot-on detection rates, the company says.

Partner Perks

The new program allows partners access to Perception Point’s fully managed incident response service. This means they have access to the company’s team of cybersecurity experts’ rapid response capabilities, as well as remediation services. The team also compiles detailed reports and incident analysis, all of which reduces required SOC resources by up to 75%.

Perception Point’s Orit Shilvock

“Perception Point believes that partners are a core component of our business success, allowing us to reach more customers and meet the global demand for our advanced threat prevention solutions,” said Orit Shilvock, VP of channels and strategic alliances, Perception Point. “We recognize that customer expectations are at an all-time high, and we work best collaborating with our partners across the globe. We look forward to growing our partner ecosystem and helping our partners deliver stellar services and customer experiences.”

AWS RE:INVENT — Amazon Web Services partners have a pile of news to process from AWS re:Invent Day 3 in Las Vegas.

Some of the AWS announcements featured more applicability to consultants, managed service providers and system integrators than others. To that point, the AWS re:Invent Day 3 morning keynote focused on data and the various upgrades AWS is making to products including SageMaker. We have more information on the second slide.

More pertinently, we also dive here into some of the announcements delivered as part of Ruba Borno’s keynote speech this afternoon. Borno, vice president of worldwide channels and alliances at AWS, took to the stage on Wednesday to highlight the cloud provider’s partner efforts — updates that she expects the channel will embrace.

AWS’ Ruba Borno

“I think our partners are full of optimism,” Borno told Channel Futures’ Edward Gately. “They’re seeing the potential for us to continue to work together.”

Justin Copie, CEO of managed service provider Innovative Solutions, praised Borno for that very reason.

Innovative Solutions’ Justin Copie

“The work that Ruba Borno and her team have done has been transformative not only to AWS, but to the entire AWS Partner Network,” Copie told Channel Futures. “Leaders often talk about their ‘big ideas’ and ‘vision for the future,’ but at times can lack execution. There has truly been no bigger year of impactful change and meaningful execution to the partner network than in 2022.”

In that vein, the slideshow above presents new capabilities that should interest consultants, MSPs and integrators. (The final slide features more thoughts from Copie, as well.) Watch for AWS re:Invent coverage from Gately, as well, for even more partner-centric AWS news.

AWS re:Invent Day 3: ‘Pent-Up Energy’

In terms of the overall atmosphere at AWS re:Invent, partners seem upbeat.

Local Measure’s Jonathan Barouch

“The vibe at this year’s event feels like pent-up energy from so many people having missed re:Invent for a number of years,” Jonathan Barouch, CEO and founder of Australia’s Local Measure, a software provider, told Channel Futures. “I’m seeing way more AWS partners at the event as compared to last year.”

(Incidentally, Local Measure just signed a three-year strategic collaboration agreement with AWS.)

Lahav Savir, founder and CTO at MSP AllCloud, agreed.

AllCloud’s Lahav Savir

“It’s bigger than last time,” he told Channel Futures on Wednesday. “There’s a lot of excitement. … The vibe is very mature.”

That maturity comes as cloud reaches widespread adoption.

“There’s no need to convince people ‘why cloud,’” Savir said. “It’s the how … and why cloud can do it better.”

That said, AWS itself is maturing, too, Savir said, especially when it comes to data. On that front, AWS is simplifying operations “and making data much more usable. … Everything is around data,” Savir said. Again, see our second slide for more on data.

We have more, as well, on new releases from AWS re:Invent Day 3, plus announcements from companies including, but not limited to, Accenture, IBM, Red Hat, TD Synnex and Vectra.

(Pictured above: Swami Sivasubramanian, AWS’ VP, database, analytics and machine learning, on stage at re:Invent, Nov. 30)

Unified communications provider 8×8 announced Tuesday that Dave Sipes is no longer its chief executive. Samuel C. Wilson, who most recently held the position of chief financial officer, is succeeding Sipes as interim CEO.

Kevin Kraus, who was senior vice president of finance at 8×8, has been appointed to interim chief financial officer.

8×8 officials responded to a Channel Futures request for comment regarding these changes. However, they did not elaborate about why Sipes was terminated.

8×8’s Jaswinder Pal Singh

Jaswinder Pal Singh is chairman of the 8×8 board.

“We appreciate Dave’s leadership and contributions to the company during his tenure,” Singh said. “8×8 remains committed to delivering long-term value to our stockholders. We have confidence in Sam’s leadership and will work closely with him and the management team to ensure that this change is seamless for our customers, partners, employees and stockholders.”

8×8 has struggled financially, particularly since June 2021. MarketWatch reports that the company’s stock has plunged about 85% during Sipes’ term and that “the stock, which was still inactive in premarket trading, has bounced 37.7% since closing at an 11-year low of $3.02 on Oct. 10, but has still shed 21.1% over the past three months.”

In a blog announcing his first day on the job, Wilson took a more positive tone about the company’s financial circumstances.

8×8’s Samuel Wilson

“I say without hesitation that this is an incredibly innovative, agile and financially strong organization,” he said. “And it will be a privilege to lead 8×8, whose people and mission have inspired me over the past five years.”

Sipes’ Background

Sipes came to 8×8 nearly two years ago from RingCentral, having served as that company’s COO.

At RingCentral, Sipes led go-to-market, product and engineering. He also was instrumental in the company’s 12-year growth trajectory from $10 million to more than $1 billion in revenue. He worked at RingCentral for more than a decade.

Sipes told Channel Futures in 2020 that he was looking forward to leading 8×8.

8×8’s Dave Sipes

“It’s one of the select SaaS businesses to reach [$500 million] in revenue with a strong and expanding customer base,” he said. “The cloud and work-from-home are transforming business communications for every employee and customer touchpoint, and have become a critical focal point for building competitive advantage for businesses today.”

The U.K. is experiencing the greatest cost of living crisis in 60 years.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has created a squeeze on gas supplies throughout Europe. At the same time, rising transport and packaging costs are making imports more expensive. This has resulted in a sharp increase in goods and energy prices.

It has also been revealed that former Prime Minister Liz Truss’ disastrous mini budget in September cost the country £30 billion. This doubles the sum the U.K. Treasury says it will have to raise via a huge program of tax rises and spending cuts.

With recession looming, the current U.K. inflation rate is now more than 11%.

Many people are worried about making ends meet this winter. Research shows that 10% of U.K. employees have missed days at work due to financial problems. A further one-fifth of workers were less productive because they spent working hours worrying about money. This amounts to a total annual cost to businesses of more than £6 billion.

This is only going to worsen in the current economic crisis.

At the same time, a survey has found 39% of U.K. managers do not have a clear strategy in place for supporting staff during the cost of living crisis. Additionally, 57% do not feel well-equipped to support their colleagues through the crisis.

In the slideshow above, five channel firms share with us what they’re doing to support employees during the current crisis. This includes financial help, flexible hours and ensuring people’s mental and physical well-being.

DNSFilter is protecting MSP customers against domain name system (DNS) and web-based threats with the launch of its global partner program. The initiative helps MSPs with technology, training and support, the company said.

With the launch, DNSFilter unveils new scheduled reporting and universal list features for MSPs. In addition, the company names Mikey Pruitt as MSP Evangelist to lead program strategy and execution.

DNSFilter’s Ken Carnesi

Ken Carnesi is CEO and co-founder at DNSFilter.

“MSPs are the lifeblood of our business,” Carnesi said. “Better serving the MSP community was why we started the company in the first place and launching a global partner program builds on our deep commitment to fulfilling our goals. Partners are provided with new tools to secure customer environments and enhanced opportunities to accelerate business traction.”

New Technical Features

Prior to DNSFilter, Carnesi founded a hybrid MSP and ISP called Anaptyx, and was an OpenDNS customer following its acquisition by Cisco Umbrella. As a customer, Carnesi found himself frustrated with the solution’s lack of innovation, convoluted pricing and lack of support for ISPs and MSPs. Carnesi identified an opportunity to build a better technology and service. This was particularly for MSP and ISP partners, which led to the launch of DNSFilter.

DNSFilter’s global partner program launches with new technical features including scheduled reporting. This provides partners with customized report frequency into how DNSFilter is protecting customers against threats and malicious content. Additionally, universal lists allow partners to create multiple global lists, either vertical-specific or based on customer restrictiveness. They create a uniform deployment across accounts.

Benefits of the Program

Key features and benefits of the program include ML-powered security via DNS. This allows partners to more effectively secure customers against phishing, malware and web-based threats.

The program also features multitenant architecture, which enables deployment of multiple clients with logical segregation and centralized management. The company is also offering deep discounts off retail pricing, allowing partners to increase profit margins. Partners get free not-for-resale (NFR) product trials to test functionality pre-customer deployment.

Robust training and support are free for all aspects of sales, onboarding and ongoing product support. Partners also gain access to DNSFilter’s partner portal. This includes courses for training technical staff on best use cases for deploying DNSFilter. They also gain access to quarterly webinar fireside chats to engage with global DNSFilter partners on strategies and lessons learned for success.

Finally, product white labeling provides MSP customers with co-branded DNSFilter dashboards or fully customized partner dashboards. Software tracks only to the partner.

Ivanti has made two global channel hires.

Ivanti’s Michelle Hodges

The first is new senior vice president, global channels and alliances, Michelle Hodges. Hodges has global experience working with companies in international expansion both in operating and go-to-market strategies. Most recently, she led the channel business at GitLab during its IPO.

Ivanti cited Hodges’ experience of building global channels at companies like Microsoft, VMware and Business Objects.

“I am excited to join Ivanti and eager to get to work building value for our partner community,” said Hodges. “There is tremendous opportunity in the Ivanti Partner Program.”

The exec said her first focus will be on building Ivanti’s ecosystem strategy and expanding its programs around the world.

“I am committed to driving impact for Ivanti by building value and profitability for our partners across our strategy, programs and go-to-market,” she said.

Ivanti’s John Beuchert

At the same time, John Beuchert joins Ivanti as VP, global partner programs and strategy.

Beuchert is a seasoned channel executive wit a background in SaaS and Fortune 500 companies. He has held leadership channel roles with brands such as Citrix, CA, Veritas, and Symantec. He was most global head of partner programs and operations for Freshworks.

“Joining Ivanti is a great opportunity to build a strong partner community and make a real impact for our partners and customers,” said Beuchert. “I was attracted to the culture of collaboration and opportunity at Ivanti and am eager to bring this same culture to our partner community. Ivanti has the right solutions to help organizations solve the problems presented in today’s hybrid work environment and address the needs of IT teams and employees.”

More Partner Benefits and Support

Ivanti COO Dennis Kozak said he was “thrilled” for Hodges and Beuchert to join the company.

Ivanti’s Dennis Kozak

“Their addition to our team will further enable Ivanti to focus our efforts in the field, maximize our partnerships, and provide our customers with superior support. They both bring deep experience in leading world-class channel operations and have a proven ability to execute.”

The firm said the Ivanti Partner Program gives partners access to resources, tools, and connections to grow their business.

“Ivanti is consistently increasing our investment in our partnerships by offering more benefits and support through the partner program. Ivanti provides our partners a unique opportunity to rapidly grow their business,” said Kozak.

AWS RE:INVENT — Amazon Web Services (AWS) re:Invent on Monday shared the message that partnership is the “highest obsession” for the cloud giant.

AWS re:Invent is taking place this week in Las Vegas, and has drawn more than 50,000 global partners and customers.

Ruba Borno is AWS’ vice president of worldwide channels and alliances.

AWS’ Ruba Borno

“We’re really excited about how we’re working with partners to transform customers together, to innovate together, to create more opportunities for our partners together,” she said. “And also I’m really excited about the impact that we’re having on our communities with our partners.”

This year marks the 10th anniversary of AWS Partner Network and AWS Marketplace, Borno said.

“One of the things that we’re really excited about is it sounds like so much has already happened in terms of cloud transformation, but it’s still day one, only 5%-15% of IT workloads that could migrate to the cloud have migrated to the cloud,” she said. “So we believe there’s still a tremendous potential there for us to work with our partners to deliver more value through the cloud. And we’re really excited about the future.”

AWS ‘Heavily Vested’ in Partner Ecosystem

AWS is heavily vested in its partner ecosystem, and it’s one of the foundations that the cloud giant sees as key for it to enable customer growth over the next decade and beyond. That’s according to Chris Casey, AWS’ director and general manager of industry software and data alliances.

Casey directly manages the ISV and data provider team, but AWS also works with MSPs, SIs and consulting partners.

AWS’ Chris Casey

“As we start to get more and more customer demand for more and more industry-specific use cases and workloads, it’s critical for us to be able to solve that end-customer outcome with a really deep and wide partner ecosystem that can offer as many of the imaginable use cases that a customer might ask us to fulfill on the cloud,” he said. “And so from our side, we certainly are diving into industry-specific themes and workloads in each industry. Those differ, but fundamentally across those industries, AWS has success in being able to unlock that end-customer value. It’s really foundationally built on top of not only our native services, but also the partner solutions that we have available.”

Innovation at AWS re:Invent

Jenni Troutman is head of products and services for AWS training and certification.

AWS’ Jenni Troutman

“There’s a lot of innovation with all of the announcements we’ve had over the last couple of days,” she said. “There’s a lot of innovation and frankly things that we can do to do good for the world. I work with training and certification where we’re really focused on building cloud skills across the globe. And our theme here is really the time is now. We’re seeing that the need for cloud skills is only growing. And so our focus here is really about, hey, we have lots of resources and opportunities for people to build and validate their cloud skills, and get started today.”

AWS is always looking to continuously reinvent how it goes to market, and looks to evolve what it’s doing with customers, and most importantly with partners, Casey said.

“What I’d really love our industry partners and our data providers to take away is that we really value their feedback and we’re listening to it, and we’re iterating as fast as possible with them,” he said. “For partners who have attended re:Invent or even watched some of the keynotes, I hope it’s really resonating with them that AWS is continuously investing in improving how we’re supporting those partners, simplifying their experience and ultimately simplifying the end-customer experience as fast as we possibly can. And we’re nowhere near done with that. We’re pushing the boundaries with some of these partners in brand-new areas. But that’s super exciting because we’re unlocking brand-new use cases for customers in almost every imaginable industry.”

See our slideshow for more from AWS re:Invent.

The migration from MPLS to SD-WAN is an inevitable proposition for most companies, one partner told Channel Futures.

IDC earlier this month unveiled a GTT Communications-commissioned white paper, “Realizing the Full Potential of SD-WAN.” The report, based off the survey of hundreds of IT decision-makers, points to widespread adoption of SD-WAN, shifting motivations for deploying the technology and increased popularity of the managed services consumption model.

IDC pointed to three broad drivers for SD-WAN adoption. First, customers view SD-WAN as an overlay that can centralize, automate and optimize a wide sprawl of networks, vendors and workloads. Second, it can save customers time and money and make life more simple.

Third, SD-WAN aids businesses in furthering their strategic technology objectives around areas like cloud and cybersecurity. For example, 39% of respondents said they highly prioritize establishing the secure access service edge (SASE).

SD-WAN Experts’ Steve Garson

Steve Garson, who leads the advisory firm and networking consultancy SD-WAN Experts, said migration will occur even for the companies that haven’t been diving into digital transformation. That stems mainly from the slow, yet oft-predicted retirement of MPLS networks that many enterprises face.

“While digital-first companies are leading adopters of SD-WAN, my experience is that nearly every company in an MPLS network will migrate to SD-WAN as that contract approaches expiration. It’s simply common sense today,” Garson said.

IDC surveyed 650 U.S. and European companies. Each operates in at least two countries. Moreover, each drives more than drove €200 million (US $206 million) in revenue annually.

Scroll through the seven images above to read more insights from the survey with commentary from Garson.

Cognizant is buying AustinCSI. The acquisition aims to enhance Cognizant’s vertical industry expertise and advisory capabilities. It will aid in goals for delivering a comprehensive digital transformation strategy, as well as top-notch solutions, to clients.

Cognizant’s Michael Valocchi

“Client demand for end-to-end digital strategy and industry-specific solutions continues to accelerate,” said Michael Valocchi, senior vice president, head of Cognizant Consulting and Americas strategy. “AustinCSI has built a stellar reputation by improving business outcomes for some of the world’s most recognizable brands, particularly in the telecommunications, media, technology and automotive sectors, markets where Cognizant is also strong. We look forward to welcoming AustinCSI’s talented experts to our team and further enriching the value we’re providing to our clients as they embrace cloud, AI, data analytics, and other advancing technologies.”

Acquiring a Digital Transformation Consultancy

AustinCSI provides consulting services for Fortune 500 clients across different industries. The company has more than 175 consultants who design and deliver cloud and automation solutions. They utilize data to help businesses up-level their customer’s experiences and business outcomes.

AustinCSI’s Karen Moree

“We’re excited by the opportunity to become part of Cognizant and combine our strengths in delivering advanced and transformative technologies to clients,” said Karen Moree, CEO and co-founder, AustinCSI. “Together, we can provide more impact for our current clients with broader capabilities in emerging digital technologies and reach a wider market leveraging Cognizant’s global scale.”

A Strategic Focus

Cognizant has its eye fixed on expanding its consulting practice and advisory capabilities. This is designed to give clients end-to-end digital transformation strategy and solutions. Adding AustinCSI’s enterprise cloud and data analytics expertise supports all of this. Cognizant also continues to invest in expanding capabilities in four key technology areas. These include data and artificial intelligence, cloud, digital engineering, and internet of things.

The transaction will likely close in the fourth quarter of 2022, subject to satisfaction of closing conditions.