CRN October 2021 - Issue 1406 by The Channel Company

ISSUE 1406 • OCTOBER 2021

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100 PEOPLE YOU DON’T KNOW BUT SHOULD

PAGE 16

ANNUAL REPORT CARD PAGE 28

TRIPLE CROWN AWARDS NEWS, ANALYSIS AND PERSPECTIVE FOR VARs AND TECHNOLOGY INTEGRATORS

The Silicon Man With The Software Plan Pat Gelsinger’s eight-year stint leading VMware cemented his mantra that ‘the future is software.’ Now that he’s in the CEO seat at Intel, he’s determined to team with its large ecosystem of partners to prove that’s still true.

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Computer Reseller News

October 2021

Columns 5 The Final Cut By Steven Burke

On The Record By Robert Faletra

Features 38 Technology Spotlight Check out these 24 hot products ranging from power management to processors and much more.

Windows 11 Security

Triple Crown Award

The Silicon Man With The Software Plan Now that he’s in the CEO seat at Intel, Pat Gelsinger is ready to team with partners to prove that the ‘future is software.’

Solution providers tell CRN that Microsoft’s decision to make security the priority in Windows 11 is a smart play. It’s a coveted list and a crowning achievement for these solution providers. See who CRN is honoring this year.

100 People You Don’t Know But Should These 100 individuals are the unsung channel heroes of 2021. They helped make sure their companies—and their partners— were able to stay on track and thrive during a year of disruptions and challenges.

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. Registered for GST as The Channel Company, GST No. R13288078, Customer No. 2116057, Agreement No. 40011901. Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to: APC Postal Logistics, LLC PO Box 503 RPO W Beaver Cre, Rich-Hill ON L4B 4R6

16 Annual Report Card

For 36 years, CRN has offered solution providers the chance to grade their vendor partners in the Annual Report Card. This year features 24 technology categories and 21 criteria spanning product innovation, support, partnership, and managed and cloud services.

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THE FINAL CUT

Passing Of An Industry Icon BRUCE GEIER WAS THE BEST OF US By Steven Burke BRUCE GEIER, the founder and CEO of Technology Integration Group, No. 86 on the CRN Solution Provider 500, put all his heart and soul into helping build a better channel community. Geier, 68, who passed away on Sept. 11 after a long battle with cancer, was a force in the channel community well beyond his herculean accomplishment building TIG into one of the top global solution providers. Geier helped build what has become the modern strategic service provider channel model. That’s because Geier spent so much time mentoring colleagues and driving what he called his partners—which included vendors, distributors and end-user customers—to build a rich and vibrant channel ecosystem. Geier brought a life-affirming joy to the business of providing technology solutions to customers. He had a big heart and a sense of community that made him a force of nature. He was also a fierce competitor who was resolute in his drive and determination to deliver breakthrough technology solutions to customers through what he called the TIG experience. But he was also a voice for building the channel business model by pushing everyone to realize that it was only when solution provider, vendor, distributor and customer all worked together that the channel was successful. Kirk Robinson, chief country executive at Ingram Micro, which has counted TIG as a top partner for more than 30 years, credited Geier with playing a key role in building the channel ecosystem. “Bruce learned early on the more you give the more you get,” he said. “Bruce didn’t mind being that mentor for many, whether it was other partners, vendors or distributors. ... He was a big voice in the Ingram partner network and a friend with many of us at Ingram.” Big voice indeed. Geier cared about building a better industry. His passing leaves a void that cries out for others to fill. That means being part of the conversation and not being afraid to tackle tough issues aimed at driving the channel forward. Geier was the best of us, always stepping up to help others. What is infuriating is that many in the channel ecosystem today refuse to be part of the conversation. Those executives live in their own bubble, ignoring market realities. They refuse to engage in fruitful conversations, either at industry events or one on one, resorting to sterile prepared statements and fluffy social media comments. That “I, me, mine” mentality is the exact opposite of Geier’s “let’s work together to build a better channel” philosophy. But you cannot get to the legend that was Geier without focusing on his heart, humor and the sheer joy of spending time with him.Victor Gallego, who knew Geier as a close friend before taking a job at TIG two years ago as senior vice president of field sales, will always cherish the many international trips and sporting events he got to attend with his friend, including 17 Super Bowls. Gallego said Geier never forgot his roots and the strong work ethic instilled in him by his parents. “Bruce was very giving, generous and wonderful to be around.That generosity had a life-changing impact on many TIG employees,” he said. “Bruce was very old school in terms of maintaining strong and loyal friendships with his TIG employees.” When Geier was first diagnosed with cancer about two years ago, he was only given six months to live. “He was a Japanese warrior who battled to the very end,” said Gallego. “Bruce was a loving and loyal friend who was always there for his family, friends and his TIG employees. We all loved him so much. It’s heart-breaking to say goodbye to him.” Well said, Victor. Well said. ■ Scan here for more on Bruce Geier's channel legacy.

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OCTOBER 2021

C O V E R S T O RY

hen Intel was hunting for a new CEO in 2018, one technology pundit took to the Twitterverse to nominate then-VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger, Intel’s former CTO, as the best candidate for the job. The ever-polite Gelsinger thanked the TV journalist for the shout-out, but said he had no plans to leave VMware for the chipmaker, closing his tweet with the exclamation, “The future is software!!!” Now that Gelsinger finds himself three years later in that exact seat—having succeeded Bob Swan as Intel CEO this past February—his tweet remains no less prophetic. That’s because Gelsinger believes software has an outsized role to play in the future of computing and, consequently, at Intel. It’s driving him to rethink Intel’s software strategy and adopt a “software-first” approach that aims to make Intel the silicon platform of choice when it comes to running a vast array of applications, from the cloud to the edge. To Gelsinger, this means engaging more independent software developers than ever before. It also means considering new software products and services, some of which could be paid offerings

OCTOBER 2021

that are sold by channel partners. The new mindset means an Intel that looks very different from the one that Gelsinger left in 2009 after a 30-year run to join EMC. “One of the things that I’ve learned in my 11-year ‘vacation’ [at VMware and EMC] is delivering silicon that isn’t supported by software is a bug,” Gelsinger said. “We have to deliver the software capabilities, and then we have to empower it, accelerate it, make it more secure with hardware underneath it. And to me, this is the big bit flip that I need to drive at Intel.” Software has long been a strength of Intel’s. For the most part, applications just work on Intel’s central processing units, which has helped the Santa Clara, Calif.-based chipmaker make up for areas where it has fallen behind in the CPU market. And the company has been introducing a variety of new resources to ensure various workloads are optimized for Intel’s processors. But Gelsinger wants Intel to do more and go faster. Applications are becoming increasingly complex, creating a greater need for heterogenous computing systems that consist of not just CPUs but other types of processors, like GPUs, FPGAs and a new category of chips, infrastructure processing units. And the field is getting more competitive, thanks to Nvidia, AMD, large Intel

customers like Apple developing homegrown chips and a flood of semiconductor startups such as Ampere Computing and Fungible, both based in Santa Clara, Calif. “For Pat, he’s driving a broad recognition across Intel that if we win with software, then we’re going to make it easier for our ecosystem of partners to deliver solutions around Intel,” said John Kalvin, who became Intel’s global channel chief in December to lead the new Intel Partner Alliance program. “The work that he did at VMware, he has obviously gotten deep and rich in software, and he is now coming back with a lot of energy and passion around making sure that we invest at an appropriate level in this particular area.”

Getting Intel’s ‘Mojo Back’ Gelsinger knows Intel wasn’t at the top of its game when he returned in February. The chipmaker had been facing increasing pressure from AMD on the CPU front, Nvidia’s GPU-powered AI growth engine continued to roar, and Intel was working on fixing a manufacturing issue that resulted in a six-month delay for products using its 7-nanometer process. “I was dismayed a bit that we simply had lost that lean-forward mentality and that we’re going to be delivering leadership products, we’re going to be defining categories, we’re going to be creating new standards and interfaces,” he said. But that’s changing, Gelsinger promises, with new advancements coming over the next few years in manufacturing and architecture, plus increased outsourcing to external foundries, that he said will result in more competitive products as part of Intel’s new integrated device manufacturing strategy, IDM 2.0. “We’re ready to get the mojo back in that respect,” he said. His comeback plan is nothing, however, without strong software support and an exhaustive roster of partners who know how to take advantage of Intel’s processors. That’s why Gelsinger is pushing Intel to “dramatically” ramp up partnerships with software providers and expand its software offerings. He also wants to see channel partners up their software expertise. “We have to grow the partners. Some of those will be ISVs. Some of those will be SaaS providers as well,” he said. “Many of those skills need to become part of our channel partners’ repertoires as well, as they increase their cloud and SaaS capabilities and their software capabilities.” The top executive responsible for this software charge is Gelsinger’s former right-hand man and CTO at VMware, Greg Lavender, whom he hired as Intel’s CTO in June to lead the company’s new Software and Advanced Technology Group. The group’s goal, according to Gelsinger, is “to drive a unified vision for software” while ensuring it remains “a powerful and competitive differentiator” for Intel. Lavender has been a self-described “hardware-software person” most of his career, which has given him a diverse range of perspectives in the IT industry. His industry view was honed during time spent in research labs, academia and startups as well as at

large infrastructure companies like Sun Microsystems and Cisco Systems. He also knows what it’s like to be an end customer, having built out Citibank’s global private cloud as the bank’s CTO. “I wasn’t surprised when [Gelsinger] called me up and said, ‘I need you to come over here to help me with my software business because we’ve got a great hardware business, but to be competitive, obviously in the AI [and machine learning] space, in the cloud space, we need to bring a software-first focus,’ which he talks about a lot inside the company,” Lavender said. Intel has long gotten the foundations right when it comes to software, according to Lavender, and this includes the compilers, the firmware and the BIOS software that are so critical to ensuring that applications run correctly and as fast as possible on Intel’s processors. What Intel needs now, Lavender said, is to create “more sophisticated software” to let Intel’s vast ecosystem of partners realize more value from a “total system” perspective rather than just a single processor or a single server in a cluster. This includes working with the largest players in data center and cloud infrastructure, ensuring a wider impact for the channel. “What I bring and where Pat is taking us is whoever that software Infrastructure-as-a-Service provider is, whether it’s VMware, whether it’s Google, whether it’s [Amazon Web Services], whether it’s [Microsoft] Azure, whether it’s private clouds, hybrid clouds, we’re going to be there,” he said. Intel’s new software plans won’t just impact the data center market, though. As an example, Lavender pointed to the new efficiency cores and performance cores that will be introduced later this year in Intel’s next generation of CPUs for client devices, code-named Alder Lake. To help users get the most out of systems with Alder Lake, Intel is incorporating a new silicon-based feature called Intel Thread Director that will tell Microsoft’s new Windows 11 operating system how to balance workloads on the two core types to optimize performance and efficiency. But Lavender said Intel can do more to open the hybrid processor’s capabilities to a greater ecosystem of partners, and he thinks Intel could do it in other areas, like security and power management. “We have these efficiency cores and performance cores. Don’t just leave it up to the operating system to decide what to do. Let the OEMs, ODMs and the channel partners have access to APIs that can do whatever they want to do, let’s say, in telco or at the edge,” he said. Corey Kirkendoll, CEO of Plano, Texas-based 5K Technical Services, said Intel has already proven that a tighter integration of silicon and software can open up new business opportunities for channel partners with the Intel vPro platform, a set of silicon-based remote management and security capabilities that has allowed him to patch computers quicker and more efficiently and increase services revenue. “Any time that the software is written or has the ability to

OCTOBER 2021

C O V E R S T O RY take advantage of the core features of the processors is always a win,” he said. “The only challenge I see with that is they have to make sure that they have a strong ecosystem of partners that are early to the game, to have something that is truly ready for prime time when it’s released.”

Tipping The Scales With Software Optimization Miles Ward, CTO at SADA Systems, knows firsthand how Intel’s investments in software can help open new opportunities for channel partners and tip the scales in the chipmaker’s favor in the face of increasingly competitive processors from AMD. SADA, a Los Angeles-based cloud-native solution provider, recently began a cloud optimization pilot program with Intel that is helping customers optimize Google Cloud instances powered by the chipmaker’s Xeon Scalable CPUs, which can result in significant cost savings. “I think they’re trying to make sure that, for the places where they do have the performance advantage, they’re able to crow as loudly as their competitors can,” Ward said. The pilot is initially focused on SADA’s largest customers, and so far, the results have been promising: Participating customers have reduced compute costs on average by roughly 5 percent, which is a big deal considering the hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars they’re spending. That not only benefits customers but also helps SADA compete against other cloud resellers. “The biggest motivation for most customers is going to be some material cost savings,” he said. “Google has some general price advantages, but if you’re then talking about millions to tens of millions of dollars of annual consumption, a couple percentage points [of savings] is bigger than a discount incentive I might provide or other kinds of incentives to drive their movement.” In several cases, Ward said, Intel’s optimization work has made a crucial difference in shifting the advantage from AMD- to Intelpowered instances. Part of this is made possible by new features in Intel’s Xeon Scalable CPUs that can, for example, accelerate encryption and machine learning workloads. But for large customers with specific application needs, such optimization work also requires time spent by SADA’s engineers to test various configurations, which are then reviewed and tweaked by Intel’s engineers as part of SADA’s pilot program with the chipmaker. “It’s the Intel engineers that are reviewing those configurations and suggesting patches and alterations to the configuration process and other kinds of instructions we want to put in at the machine or network level to get to optimized results,” Ward said. The pilot with SADA is part of a wave of new investments Intel is making to provide more technical resources and expertise to partners for optimizing software on the chipmaker’s products. In the first six months of this year, Intel has added more than 100 partner- and customer-focused technical sellers, most of them focused on cloud and IoT applications. That workforce has increased

OCTOBER 2021

by as much as 20 percent since 2018. “We see that deep integration with our customers as being more and more important,” said Michelle Johnston Holthaus, Intel’s executive vice president, CRO and general manager of the Sales, Marketing and Communications Group. “Not only does it help our customers and offer value that I would say a lot of our competitors can’t, it also helps drive affinity for Intel’s brand at the edge, which is super important for us as well.” Intel is adding other kinds of cloud resources for partners too, including a new training program, a development sandbox and a cloud optimization tool. These efforts will help Intel reach its wider channel, said Kalvin, head of Intel’s global partners and support. “We’re stepping back and saying, ‘OK, how do we take the learnings that we have from that deep, enriched work that we’re doing on cloud placement and then putting that into solutions, documentation, training that we can then bring to our partners at scale around the world,’” said Kalvin.

Playing Catch-Up To Nvidia In AI Gelsinger sees a lot of challenges facing Intel, but there’s one that is coloring his software investment strategy more than others: artificial intelligence. Even Arm, the British chip designer that is enabling large customers like AWS to create competitive homegrown chips, doesn’t rank as high. “The architectural disruption that I’m more concerned about in the data center is the AI one, not the Arm one,” he said. To Gelsinger, this means fighting an “uncontested” Nvidia, Intel’s Silicon Valley neighbor that has dominated the accelerated computing space with its graphics processing units. It’s why he has tasked Lavender with “rapidly pulling together a singular AI software stack” to support Intel’s range of business and hardware offerings, including the upcoming Ponte Vecchio data center GPU Intel promises will deliver breakthroughs in AI and high-performance computing. Lavender knows Intel is now in catch-up mode, but he doesn’t believe Intel has to “go head-to-head” against Nvidia in every one of the verticals the GPU maker has built software for, like medical imaging and smart cities. Instead, he said, Intel will lean on the wider software ecosystem, which is part of the chipmaker’s broader goal in enabling new business models for partners. “Nvidia’s done a good job of creating the market; therefore they have lock-in and therefore they have price leverage with their customers,” he said. “If we can come out with competitive products, and we enable the same software ecosystem that the rest of the world is using … and let other people make money, not just Nvidia, then I think that the market will accept that.” What also differentiates Intel’s approach is how it enables software developers to accelerate those workloads not just on GPUs but also CPUs, FPGAs and other products in Intel’s portfolio. This is made possible by a new effort started a few years ago: Intel oneAPI, a set of toolkits that lets developers use a single programming model for different types of architectures. It also

supports GPUs from Nvidia and AMD as well as CPUs based on Arm architectures. Gelsinger said oneAPI’s open-standards approach serves as an important contrast to the one offered by CUDA, Nvidia’s parallel computing platform and programming model for GPU-accelerated applications. “Nvidia has become too proprietary, and that’s widely seen in the industry, and so we’re going to fill out that stack with oneAPI but do it in a way that’s much more favorable and open to the industry and their innovations,” Gelsinger said. Nvidia did not comment as of press time. But for all this to work, Intel needs to make an unprecedented push in getting software developers to use the company’s toolsets and oneAPI programming model, Lavender said. “We’ve got all the great software and hardware, but how do I enable them to want to choose it when they have a choice, and that’s really where we want to reach out in a new way that historically we haven’t,” he said.

Leveraging Intel’s Software Assets One channel partner who is eager to do more business with Intel is World Wide Technology, the St. Louis, Mo.-based solution provider that ranked No. 9 on CRN’s 2021 Solution Provider 500 list. Jim Kavanaugh, the company’s CEO, believes one way Gelsinger could make this happen is by taking a page out of Nvidia’s playbook and offering software and systems that partners can resell. “I’m not saying that’s the way that Pat and Intel should be doing things, but it’s something that, if I was in his shoes, I’d be thinking about,” he said. “Does it make sense to do some of that?” While WWT has long considered Intel a key strategic partner for many of the solutions it delivers, Kavanaugh has seen the art of the possible with the “rocket ship” he calls Nvidia. That view is reinforced by the fact that while WWT’s Nvidia GPU business is smaller, the five-year growth rate for that business is roughly 40 percent, double that of WWT’s growth rate with Intel. “We’re showing a little over 20 percent growth year over year [with Intel], which is good growth, but we’d like to see even better growth,” Kavanaugh said. One key area to WWT’s growth with Nvidia are the products channel partners can resell. Whereas Nvidia used to only sell GPUs that go inside systems, the chipmaker now sells completely integrated AI systems under the DGX brand that partners can sell like they do servers from OEMs. The GPU maker also sells a portfolio of paid enterprise software that now consists of 10 offerings. One of the latest, a software suite for VMware’s vSphere platform called Nvidia AI Enterprise, makes it easier to manage AI workloads in traditional data center infrastructure, and Nvidia said it sees a multibilliondollar opportunity over time with that product alone. Intel, on the other hand, has become more abstract to channel partners who have left behind their system building practices to focus on reselling OEM systems, cloud instances and software.

That has been a challenge, Kavanaugh said, but the two companies have made substantial progress in working together. Much of this is focused around WWT’s Advanced Technology Center, where WWT works with Intel to test new and emerging workloads on a variety of Intel-based solutions from different OEMs and ISVs. “Intel, to a certain degree, can be very abstract to the customer or to the solution, but they’re very instrumental to the technology advancements and how that solution works,” he said. “So I think it is important that you can really understand the benefits and leverage the benefits of the Intel technology and thought leadership.” Gelsinger understands the benefits of a chipmaker offering paid software. After all, he helped lay the foundation for GPU virtualization solutions like Nvidia AI Enterprise as VMware’s CEO by fostering a strategic partnership with Nvidia. He isn’t ready to give too many details, but Gelsinger said Intel is considering new paid software services that channel partners could resell. These would add to the paid software offerings Intel already has, like Intel Unite for collaboration and Intel Data Center Manager for real-time monitoring and management as well as support services for Intel oneAPI and OpenVINO. He calls this a “somewhat natural progression” that mirrors the software industry’s move to “SaaS-oriented” delivery. “I do expect that you’ll see more in that area: How do we leverage our software assets? How do we have unique monetized software assets and services that we’ll be delivering to the industry, that can stand in and of their own right? And yeah, that’s a piece of the business model that I do expect to do more of in the future,” he said. Gelsinger is careful to emphasize that Intel wants to work together with its large ecosystem of partners for any new paid software services it may introduce. “Having done a lot of this for the last eight years at VMware, I’ve gotten a deep appreciation for it and the challenges,” he said. “I’d also say, though, what are the ecosystem-friendly views of those services? How do we build on what others do?” But for channel partners to truly take advantage of where Intel is going next, Gelsinger said they also need to evolve beyond just selling systems and build practices focused on software and services. “I think many channel partners got too comfortable with the sheet-metal-oriented business models, and the ones that I have the most respect for have, at a minimum, started to deliver more of the software, SaaS and additional services on top of it and, in many cases, built entirely new business practices,” he said. Kirkendoll, the CEO of 5K Technical services, said Gelsinger couldn’t be more on point. “The box is almost a commodity today. That’s the necessary vehicle that gets you there. It is always about the value-added [software,] services and support that you add on top,” he said. “And if Intel can help us be better at that, I agree, 100 percent.”

OCTOBER 2021

C O V E R S T O RY What Intel’s CEO Tells His Teams Every Day: ‘Do Better Products. Unquestioned Leadership. Execute, Execute, Execute’ When it comes to Pat Gelsinger’s return to Intel and what it means for the chipmaker’s future, the 30-year company veteran sees a common thread with Steve Jobs’ journey back to Apple and how that ushered in a new golden era for the tech giant. This comes down to the fact that Gelsinger left Intel in 2009 and spent 11 years working at other companies, EMC and VMware in his case, before heeding the call back home. “Steve Jobs had an 11-year ‘vacation’ from Apple. I had an 11-year ‘vacation’ as well. And in it, I learned a lot of things,” he said. Now that he’s CEO of Intel, Gelsinger said he’s setting a “torrid pace” to make the company the “unquestioned leader” in every product category it competes in. In a recent interview with CRN, Gelsinger discussed the importance of channel partners to Intel’s future and how upcoming products will make the company more competitive. Edited excerpts of the conversation follow.

How important are channel partners to the future of Intel? You’re clearly not the most important thing. I’ve got to build fabs and great products, but after that, you’re pretty high up on the list in that sense. And whether it’s direct or indirect in the sense that, hey, Dell is our biggest customer, but Dell sells almost everything they do through the channel. So either directly or indirectly, yeah, it’s pretty important how we work with, partner with and support our channel partners, because that’s fundamentally how we get our technologies to market. We also see, as markets are being created, the role of the channel partners is very high in helping to create the solutions. And then as the market starts to get established, that creation phase dissipates and the distribution and the enablement phase emerges more, and you see that over and over again in different markets. And I do think that we’re going into a phase of significant new market creation. As we think about these edge use cases and 5G use cases and all the things that are occurring as the digitization of everything occurs, I think we’re coming into a phase that there will unquestionably be shifts in who’s playing what [role] and which channel partners step into that, but I do think it’s going to be a very vibrant time for innovation through and with the channel partners.

What is Intel doing to defend its position in the CPU market for PCs and servers? Do better products. It really just comes down to, if the products are better, we’ll do better. So what do I tell my teams every day? Do better products. Unquestioned leadership. Execute, execute, execute. Improve the quality experience. Improve how we support our customers. Engage

OCTOBER 2021

them more deeply in that. And to me, that is the higher order bit. Obviously as we [improve] our manufacturing machine and process technologies, that helps us get better. With that and particularly with the Sapphire Rapids generation [of Xeon Scalable CPUs coming out next year], key new technologies [will be introduced]—DDR5, CXL, PCIe Gen 5—[showing] that we’re getting back to the platform leadership role that you’ve come to expect from Intel where we define the platform for the industry. When you think about the data center space, the role of Arm is very minimal today, and us getting our act together, I think it stays that way. I just don’t see that people want to go through all that hard, heavy lifting of changing the software environment for another architecture if there are not major [total cost of ownership] advantages on the table. When you flip over to the PC side, we’re very happy with [what we presented at Intel] Architecture Day, bringing our hybrid solutions, where we have performance leadership and energy efficiency leadership with Alder Lake, [the next generation of client CPUs that start shipping this year]. We think that’s a game-changer because we’re going to be able to compete on both dimensions where [AMD] is not. We ultimately see the real competition to enable the ecosystem to compete with Apple. I was on the phone with [Microsoft CEO] Satya [Nadella recently and I said,] ‘I’m finishing my exit from the Apple closed garden. I’m now on the open ecosystem of Windows and Android, and we’re making that happen.’ But our experience has to be better. So that’s ultimately the tablet experience, the phone experience, the peripherals, the PC: They have to have a better experience supported by a broad ecosystem of innovation.

So that’s how we see that space, and ultimately Arm has won the mobile category. We’re now trying to draw our lines successively lower as we go deeper into the tablet and education space as opposed to that [Arm] ecosystem growing up ... and now the question is, are we going to come down, or are they going to come up? And obviously we have a certain agenda there. And [finally], hey, we’ve opened ourselves up entirely to supporting the Arm and RISC-V ecosystem with our [Intel Foundry Services] strategy, where we want to make margin on our wafers as a foundry supplier as well. And we’ll do that with the richest IP library on the planet as we support RISC-V, Arm and x86 like nobody else can.

Do you expect Sapphire Rapids, the next generation of Xeon Scalable CPUs, to slow down AMD’s market-share growth in the data center when it launches next year? I think we’re in a supply-constrained environment, so in that view, I don’t think there’s a lot more opportunity for share movements one way or the other in this period of time. I see it as a fairly stable environment in terms of market share and ASP [average selling price] in that environment. And if anything, ASPs are rising, not falling because of supply constraints and the costs of the supply chain coming at us and at [AMD] in this period of time. In that sense, I just don’t see a lot of change on market share, which in some respects, OK: As our products are rebuilding strength, we’ll be in an environment where as the products get better as they ramp, and as we look out a couple, three years, we expect unquestioned leadership products in every dimension that we participate in. So this period of time when people could say, ‘Hey, [AMD] is leading’—that’s over.We are back with a very defined view of what it requires to be leadership in every dimension: leadership product, leadership [chip] packaging, leadership process, leadership software, unquestioned leadership on critical new workloads like AI, graphics, media, power-performance, enabling the ecosystem. This is what we will be doing with aggressive actions and programs over the next couple of years.

What does Intel need to do to win GPU market share from Nvidia in segments like gaming, AI and high-performance computing? Deliver great products in those segments. [They have to have] compelling features, performance, power at the right price points with the right software capabilities to go with them. And the market’s hungry for us to deliver them an alternative. We need to then deliver it with unique, differentiated value-add. If [a customer comes] in and says, ‘Hey, they’re

delivering 100 [tera operations per second] and you’re delivering 100 TOPS, why would we want to work with Intel? I already got this one over here.’ Well, we better show up with some differentiation to our strategy. And in the GPU business, we go to the customer and we say, ‘Well, guess what, we just happen to be the unquestioned leader in integrated graphics. You already qualify all of our stuff all the time for every unit that you’re going to ship, and we’re going to make it seamless to go from integrated to discrete [graphics] on the Intel platform. And even better than that, we’re going to make integrated and discrete work together. So if you have three [execution units] worth in the integrated [GPU], then you have 10 EUs worth in the discrete [GPU], we’re going to give you 13 EUs worth, and you’re only going to buy 10 EUs worth in the discrete GPU, and you’re going to qualify one product that [works] seamlessly between those two.’ Well, that’s pretty differentiated. And that’s just one example. But [we] have to deliver great products. They have to be clean, well validated, supported by ISVs, etc., create some differentiation and value, and then build on our great channel partners and the programs that we have with them, our strong OEM presence, and we’re going to start seeing the market respond very favorably to that.

With the competition stronger than ever before, what are the reasons partners should continue to point customers to Intel-based solutions? There are probably three or four answers to that matter. One is, we have 80-ish percent share. We’re not 80-ish percent share because we don’t satisfy the customers and satisfy the market and enable the partners as well. And yeah, AMD has done a solid job over the last couple of years. We won’t dismiss the good work that they’ve done, but that’s over with Alder Lake and Sapphire Rapids. We have the best product. We have 80 percent market share. We have the best software assets that are available in the industry. We do the best job supporting our partners and our OEMs with it. We have an incredible brand that our channel partners, customers want and trust. Wow, that’s a lot of assets in that. If the channel partner doesn’t see value in that, I want to talk to him. Intel is back. These are the best products in their category. We have the best supply situation. We have the best quality software assets. The most respected, venerable technology brand in the industry. Yeah, that’s what your channel readers need to be delivering to their customers. ■ Scan here for more CRN coverage on the future of Intel.

OCTOBER 2021

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100

People You Don’t Know BUT SHOULD

By CRN Staff

hese unsung channel heroes helped keep their companies and channel partners on track amid the massive and sudden shift to work from home, accelerated timelines for digital transformation and global supply chain disruptions that kept everyone guessing.

Peter Giardino

Sr. Director, Cloud Sales

Lauren Gotlib

Acronis

Partner Development Manager, AWS Public Sector

With years of cloud and channel experience under his belt, Giardino drives a team of seasoned partner account managers for Acronis, mentoring several up-and-comers along the way. He leverages his own strong personal brand and long-term relationships to help the company get a leg up.

Gotlib ensures that strategic partners receive the key program resources, tools and support they need to grow their AWS business. She is described as having a “learn and be curious” attitude as well as a “bias for action,” which have benefited partners as they expand their portfolios and attain new competencies.

OCTOBER 2021

Amazon Web Services

Mark Nehring

NSP Channel Leader

AMD

Nehring joined AMD in May and is responsible for relationships with some of the biggest solution providers in the U.S., bringing to bear his considerable experience building and mentoring sales teams from previous channel roles at HP, Dell Technologies, Seagate and Oracle.

Anderson Hackney Brown Director, Channels

AppDynamics, part of Cisco With a strong background in health-care and retail verticals from her previous roles at Cisco, Hackney Brown is now helping lead the channel charge at its AppDynamics application performance management business. She’s also made it her mission to mentor nextgeneration leaders.

Clay Speckmiear Director, North America Channel Sales

AppRiver, a Zix company

Jamie Bourne

Channel Marketing Manager

Arctic Wolf

Ksenia Gulyakina

Olivia (White) Jolliffe

Area 1 Security

Arrow Electronics

Sr. Marketing Manager, Demand Generation

Marketing Specialist, North America Campaigns

Speckmiear joined AppRiver in April and is leaning on his trove of experience developing strategic sales initiatives, uncovering new business opportunities and executing growth plans as he helps drive channel sales for the company’s cloud-enabled security and productivity services.

Bourne spearheads partner program promotion and incentive strategy for Arctic Wolf, with a big focus on the company’s national partners. Solution providers laud the creativity Bourne brings to Arctic Wolf’s promotion program as well as her work finetuning the prize selection, structure and qualifying criteria.

Gulyakina drives Area 1’s email marketing campaign process from asset creation to the actual sending of emails, handling everything from campaign emails to webinar invites to event promotion. She’s had a big role in helping Area 1 grow in the channel by expanding the company’s solution provider contact list.

At Arrow, Jolliffe has a reputation for being quick to jump in and help wherever it’s needed, and is always happy to do it. She’s also won praise for being a master wordsmith who can take any channel partner’s marketing message and make it sound even better.

Carla Boyling

David Becker

Ben Nowacky

Rachel Barnett

Canadian Channel Director

Aruba, an HPE Company

Director, Channel Marketing, Product Enablement, Partner Solutions

SVP, Product

Axcient

Sr. Manager, National Channel, Field Operations

AT&T

Barracuda Networks

With Aruba partners pivoting toward a cloudfirst approach, Boyling has been instrumental in driving the national strategy for delivering networking as a service, flexible financing and marketing efforts for solution providers. She’s also winning praise for helping partners achieve growth through the pandemic.

A 14-year AT&T veteran who has a passion for ch a n n e l p a r t ners, Becker is praised as a marketing champion for the carrier’s wireline product initiatives aimed at expanding its portfolio as well as promotions and pricing actions to enable channel growth.

Nowacky is putting his extensive technical chops to good use managing engineering and security for Axcient as the company pushes out innovations such as a local cache addition to its x360Recover Direct to Cloud offering, which he said takes the best of appliance-based backups and eliminates “kludginess” and expense.

As a longtime member of Barracuda Networks’ channel organization, Barnett handles day-to-day escalations in sales processes to make sure the company is operating as efficiently as possible. She is described by colleagues as “the backbone of our team,” who add “it would be hard to function without her.”

Paula Enache

Tina Patel

David Fisher

Lauren Ventura

Bitdefender

Broadcom

Brother USA

Check Point Software Technologies

An experienced channel marketing and s ales management leader who has routinely exceeded sales targets, Fisher leads sales development for Brother document imaging solutions through the VAR/MSP channel. He’s known for his ability to analyze and present the business case for marketing spend.

Ventura has led the charge to find new ways to communicate with partners, including best-in-class newsletters, executive calls and advisory forums. She excels at finding creative ways to go to market and improve demand generation and is praised for her work ethic and pursuit of excellence.

Worldwide Digital Partner Program Manager

Enache has led Bitdefender’s transition of its existing marketing processes into the company’s unified channel marketing automation tool. She ensured the best marketing experience for channel partners, helping them easily find the marketing resources they need to generate more leads.

Sr. Manager, North America Partner Marketing

Patel’s superpower is connecting and building trusted relationships with solution providers, who rave about what a great business partner she is as she works with them to build effective marketing programs. She also played a key role in the buildout of a new MDF program.

Sr. Sales Manager, VAR Channel

Head of Channel Marketing

OCTOBER 2021

100

BUT SHOULD

Brian Overmyer

Tiffany Person

Jennifer Miller

Anne Aalders

Cisco Systems

Citrix Systems

Cohesity

Comcast Business

Sr. Manager, Partner Programs

National Account Manager

Director, Global Distribution

Sr. Director, Partner Support

Overmyer has been the driving force behind the development of the new Cisco Partner Program, the most significant change to its programs in over a decade. He also has run the vendor’s competency teams and is responsible for foundational programs that help partners build a Cisco practice.

Winner of the Citrix U.S. Public Sector MVP award in 2020, Person is credited with changing the vendor’s relationship with national partners, developing new strategies and expanding executive dialogue. Implementing a structure around co-selling, she drove significant growth and helped customers see the value of Citrix solutions.

Miller’s focus is on scaling Cohesity’s distribution network globally, a critical role when it comes to on-boarding, enabling and helping partners grow their business with the 100 percent channel company. Her vast experience has been key to helping the vendor develop important distribution programs.

A consummate professional, Aalders leads her team fearlessly to ensure channel orders remain on track. She has a network of contacts across the country that she leverages when the need arises and has built the trust and confidence of leaders across the company.

Ty Rottare

Tully Cento

Connie Arentson

Mary Lehane

VP, Global Channels

Comm100 Network

Director, Americas Partner Sales

Comm100 in August said its global partner program has grown 93 percent this year, with a pipeline that is on track to double 2020’s revenue by December. Credit Rottare’s strategy of making sure the vendor’s services fit its partners’ mold “instead of fitting them into ours” in large part for that success.

Since joining Commvault two years ago, Cento has increased the level of partner enablement with strategic and improved enablement sessions, streamlined the partner business planning process, and increased efficient use of partner marketing funds to ensure all dollars are being maximized.

Arentson finds tremendous fulfillment in guiding the execution of ConnectWise IT Nation’s peer membership programs, helping MSPs strengthen their business and reach their goals through shared knowledge that helps them adapt and grow, while learning best practices for future success.

Lehane has streamlined and automated many existing internal and external processes to make it easier to partner with CrowdStrike. She played a key role in the revamping and relaunching the Elevate Partner Program, working tirelessly to make partnering with CrowdStrike as smooth and efficient as possible.

Damon Kegerise

Catherine Garrett

Lisa Ortiz

Rick Trobman

Dell Technologies

DLL Group

Director, Cloud Vendor Management, Operations

D&H Distributing

Kegerise is an invaluable resource for ch a n n e l p a r t ners looking for advice on navigating Microsoft’s partner programs, and he laid the foundation for the distributor’s Device-as-a-Service program, which has evolved into the current Everythingas-a-Service solution delivery model.

People You Don’t Know

OCTOBER 2021

Commvault

Project Manager, Marketing

Program Manager

ConnectWise

Datto

Channel Sales Director, Dell EMC

Garrett is responsible for the planning and execution of Datto’s hosted events, including DattoCon. As the world shifted to virtual events, she was critical in planning the vendor’s MSP Tech Days, Discover Dattos and Datto Partner Summits, helping to bring its channel ecosystem together.

Ortiz began her Dell career as a factory worker and moved her way up into a channel leadership role, so she knows the business from all sides. Known for being proactive, inclusive and resultsfocused, her “art-of-the-possible” brand of leadership has contributed to her years of strong performance.

Director, Global Alliances Operations

CrowdStrike

President, Technology Solutions Global Business Unit

Trobman helps OEMs and the ch a n n e l f u n d technology sales in over 30 countries with white-label financing and leasing. He’s enabling solution providers to sell more products and services through the ability to spread out the cost of IT investments, including as-a-service and consumptionbased payment options.

100

People You Should Know

Unlock. Unleash. Un-limit Your Growth Potential Everyone is on the lookout for emerging trends and technologies, including your customers. We all want to unlock, unleash and un-limit our ability to grow more profitably, create new opportunities and deliver a better experience for our customers. For more of today’s channel partners and providers, the path to growth is faster and easier with the help of Ingram Micro’s Emerging Business Group (EBG). Led by Donald Scott, one of this year’s CRN Top 100 People You Should Know, Ingram Micro’s Emerging Business Group serves as a breakthrough go-to-market partner for many of today’s top tech innovators and channel newbies. With more than 55 rising technology brands within its portfolio, Ingram Micro’s EBG has helped its channel partners net more than $5 billion in emerging technology sales over the last 10 years. Another call out we’re pleased to note: Ingram Micro’s EBG portfolio is partner-led.

Q. What does Ingram Micro EBG mean by “partner-led” portfolio and why is it important?

A. Many of the brands we bring to market as part of Ingram Micro’s Emerging

Business Group come from the asks of our partners and other providers, as well as our varying teams of highly specialized solution technicians. We also look to the recommendations of Ingram Micro’s communities—Trust X Alliance and SMB Alliance—as well as our top providers and their growing tech ecosystems.

Q. What do you look for in an emerging vendor?

A. New. Innovative. Complementary. Those are three lenses we look through. We also

look for tech innovators who are new to distribution or the channel, in general. Part of the business value we bring to partners and providers is being able to unlock the market potential within these emerging brands by offering them the resources they need to grow, build and support a confident and successful channel sales force locally, regionally and on a global scale.

Q. What tech categories does Ingram Micro’s EBG specialize in?

A. We have solutions across several emerging categories including automation, cybersecurity, data center, lifecycle management, networking and physical security. Some brands you may recognize include Arctic Wolf, BeyondTrust, Rubrik and UiPath.

Learn more about how Ingram Micro’s Emerging Business Group can help you imagine next and exceed your company’s goal.

Visit and download the EBG Playbook at https://imaginenext.ingrammicro.com/emergingbusinessgroup

Donald Scott

”

Director, Emerging Business Group

Together with our channel partners, Ingram Micro’s EBG generated more than $5B in incremental business over the last 10 years and brought to market many of the channel’s favorite emerging brands. If you are bringing new, disruptive technologies to market, and are looking for ways to reach more customers and accelerate growth, Ingram Micro EBG is eager to listen and ready to build.

”

100

BUT SHOULD

Darren McGeorge

Sussan McLoughlin

Dynabook

Eaton

Manager, Marketing, Sales

Channel Marketing Manager

Yatia “Tia” Hopkins VP, Cyber Risk Advisory, Solutions Architecture

eSentire

Vanessa Delrieu

VP, Finance, Operations

Exclusive Networks

McGeorge is the driving force behind Dynabook’s partner programs. His ability to seamlessly manage a wide variety of tasks including MDF, inventory, pricing, reseller relations, training and program benefits for the Preferred Partner Program is a key part of the company’s channel growth strategy.

McLoughlin turned heads by tapping into her boundless energy, enthusiasm and efficiency to transform her role. She has enhanced the established relationships with Eaton partners and was a key contributor to the sales growth that it saw in 2020.

Hopkins works diligently to enable eSentire’s customers and partners to really understand the value of the company’s solution, how it works and what differentiates it from the competition. She focuses not only on current problems, but also looks for ways to address future issues and strengthen relationships.

As Exclusive Networks partners faced the challenges of credit and cash flow during the onset o f C OV I D - 1 9 , D e l r i e u responded with ingenuity and compassion, working with them one on one to find a solution and help keep them operational despite the unpredictable nature of the pandemic.

Braiden Ludtka

John Barger

Navin Tallam

Susan Huber

Extreme Networks

Fortinet

Google Cloud

Channel Marketing Manager

ExtraHop Networks

VP, Worldwide Sales Enablement, Engineering

Ludtka won kudos for creatively “gamifying” ExtraHop’s channel s ales incentive program and creating memorable experiences for sales teams to earn. She also worked to overhaul its Panorama Partner Portal and created a more userfriendly tool partners can use to expand the ExtraHop solutions they sell.

B arger implemented a training and certification program for Extreme Networks sales, technology partners and employees, and he also led the development of the Dojo certification program, which is lauded for being easy and accessible. His behind-the-scenes efforts help Extreme’s channel program run smoothly.

Tallam earlier this year started leading Fortinet’s channel deals desk, where he has been charged with managing partner conflict and deal registration. On the channel operations side, he has been critical to integrating thousands of new Fortinet partners into its reporting and partner management systems.

As she drives channel policy, rules of engagement, channel sales contracts and enterprise agreements, Huber is known for always wanting to do right by partners and ensuring clarity, simplicity and equality for the Google Cloud channel. She’s a tireless partner advocate who’s only satisfied when partners are profitable.

Kathleen Walsh

Theresa Garcia

Mary Beth Walker

John Hammond

Hewlett Packard Enterprise

Hitachi Vantara

HP Inc.

Director, Tech Pro, Channel Enablement, Storage Enablement

A pro at bringing partners the tools they need to succeed, Walsh drove the custom learning program offered by HPE Sales Pro. She also spearheaded the launch of the HPE Sales Pro Learning Center and was a key figure in the development of H PE’s Storage Ranger program.

People You Don’t Know

OCTOBER 2021

Sr. Global Alliance Manager, Global Partners, Alliances

Garcia has a long history of successful business development, go-tomarket strategy and sales enablement prowess that she now brings to bear managing strategic alliances for Hitachi Vantara, where she is responsible for hundreds of millions of dollars in annual revenue stream.

Manager, Channel Operations/ Deals Desk, USA, Canada

Head of Global Channel Strategy

Walker helped develop and launch HP Amplify, the company’s overhauled partner program, which features a revamped compensation structure and bigger focus on rewards for data collaboration, among other changes. She is described as “a tireless advocate for partner intelligence and partner and customer satisfaction.”

Head of Policy, Governance, Global Partner Programs

Sr. Cybersecurity Researcher

Huntress

Hammond protects SMBs through stateof-the-art threat hunting, where he actively locates, analyzes and mitigates security threats MSPs face on a daily basis. He was on the frontlines for the Kaseya ransomware attack and become the go-to source for MSPs needing to know how to keep their lights on.

Amy Simeone

Security Channel Manager, U.S. VADs

Carl Gersh

Donald Scott

Jennifer Bossin

Ingram Micro

Intel

IGEL

Director, Emerging Business Group

A 10-year tech veteran, Simeone is known for bringing energy, expertise and credibility to her role, which is becoming increasingly critical as the need for the channel to build strong cybersecurity solutions skyrockets. She prides herself on maximizing productivity and delivering results.

Gersh is considered a talented, results-producing marketing professional whose recent projects include the “Made in the Shade” lead generation campaign for partners and a fitness-related giveaway called “All Gain. No Pain.” He’s also known for injecting humor into online events and webinars.

Scott ferrets out the hidden gems and brings those emerging vendors into the Ingram Micro fold, helping them by doing the heavy lifting around technical alignment, partner programs, support and enablement so channel partners can engage with confidence.

Described as “a source of strength, encouragement and learning” for colleagues, Bossin leads an Intel team that supports solution provider partners building cutting-edge IoT solutions. As she has grown into her role, she’s built up her team and now has five direct reports.

Adam Klodner

Shea Kopelman

Veronica Lopez

Esther Kim

IBM

VP, Application Development

IntelePeer

VP, North America Marketing

Sr. Channel Marketing Manager

Intermedia

Inside Account Liason

Sr. Director, IoT Partner Scale, U.S. Region

Intuit

Business Operation Manager, Global Distribution

Juniper Networks

Partners in need of solution execution support often come to Klodner, who’s “always willing to go the extra mile.” He is quick to jump into a session with partners to talk through challenges and best practices to help optimize the solutions they are building on the IntelePeer platform, giving them a better chance of success.

Kopelman increased Intermedia’s distributor partner engagement by 55 percent year over year and won kudos for creative projects such as building new partner welcome kits. She has the reputation for owning things end to end to ensure they get done.

After nine-plus years, Lopez is among Intuit’s most tenured inside account managers and is described as “an absolutely invaluable part of the team.” Over the past year, Lopez has impressed colleagues with her ability to grow and adapt, exceeding their high expectations.

Winning kudos as “the rising star of the distribution team” at Juniper, where she is instrumental in driving and executing business strategies, Kim has cultivated a reputation as a go-to person that can be relied on while at the same time displaying a positive attitude that others find inspiring.

Will Bishop

Lisa Kilpatrick

Stephen Harwanko

Doug Frazier

Kaseya

Kaspersky Lab

Lenovo

Sr. Director, Channel

Kaseya partners are “always in great hands” when Bishop—a former MSP himself—is tapped to lend his subject matter expertise and collaborate on go-tomarket strategies. MSPs report a high success rate when he helps them with their webinars.

Head of B2B Sales

In Kilpatrick’s nearly six years at Kaspersky, she has held multiple sales and channel positions and is responsible for cybersecurity sales in the SMB and B2B business segments. She unified the internal North American team to drive SMB sales, and continues to exceed company expectations for channel revenue growth.

Partner Insights Leader

Described by one colleague as a true “unsung channel hero” for Lenovo, Harwanko was one of the driving forces that brought Lenovo’s innovative Partner Hub to partners. The 10-year Lenovo veteran has dramatically improved the partner experience and delivered better analytics to drive partner sales growth.

Manager, North America Channel Telesales

Lexmark

Frazier oversees three targeted inside sales teams and has helped propel the printer maker to new channel heights. The U.S. Army Reserve veteran’s leadership has earned him channel sales manager of year honors and high praise from partners for helping grow their business.

OCTOBER 2021

100

BUT SHOULD

Kendrics Hawkins

Shyanne Pozon

Danny Benedetti

Liongard

LogicMonitor

Lumen Technologies

Director, Partner Success

Channel Enablement Manager

Director, Inside Sales

Lisa Sussman

National Channel Development Manager

Masergy

A onetime MSP operations manager, Hawkins has used that first-hand experience to help make Liongard a red-hot automation platform for MSPs. MSPs say Hawkins’ tireless efforts to improve the partner experience with best-in-class training and engineering support have proven to be a gamechanger.

Pozon has been instrumental in helping partners take advant a ge o f m o re of the robust features of LogicMonitor’s cloud-based infrastructure monitoring platform. She has dramatically upped the company’s partner training game, which has led to faster time to sales for partners.

The 21-year Lumen channel s ales veteran has been the driving force in a no-holds-barred effort to help partners achieve sales growth working hand in hand with a robust insides sales team. Benedetti’s channel fire, passion and energy have inspired partners as well as the Lumen team.

You can’t get better than this tribute to enterprise s ales veteran Sussman from a respected colleague: “She loves to coach partners, sell side by side with them and also advocate for her partners to help them win deals, all with enthusiasm to overcome any roadblocks.”

Kristol Johnson

Karen Fassio

Sara Harold

Avital Cohen

McAfee

Microsoft

Mimecast

monday.com

Manager, Global Sales Development

Director, Worldwide Partner Marketing

Sr. Channel Marketing Manager

Sr. Partners Enablement Team Lead

Johnson has been a force in the McAfee Device to Cloud Suites initiative that is delivered with partner services. The high-energy, 18-year McAfee veteran is also an active member of McAfee’s Women in Security, African Heritage Community and founder and CEO of the INcourager, a mental wellness company.

Fassio, a 22-year Microsoft marketing whiz, is taking partner digital marketing efforts to new heights. Her expertise in all things Microsoft has been a gamechanger for partners. She is also admired for her advocacy for inclusivity as cofounder and steering chair of Women in Cloud.

A digital marketing powerhouse with deep channel knowledge, Harold has helped power big sales gains for Mimecast national partners. She also gets high marks from colleagues for driving channel breakthroughs on strategy and alliances. She’s a channel force widely admired by partners and colleagues.

Cohen has raised the bar across all of monday.com’s channel efforts. One of her biggest accomplishments is driving breakthroughs in partner on-boarding and training with the Partner Academy certification program. She also brings new meaning to monday.com’s Work Without Limits tagline.

Tyler McDonald

Monia de Rambures

Rina Doering

Elizabeth Kim

N-Able

NetApp

Nextiva

Nutanix

Director, Business Development

McDonald is the driving force behind N-able’s Te c h n o l o g y Alliance Program through which the company expands its services portfolio with innovative IT from Microsoft, Cisco and others. Ever the MSP advocate, McDonald ups the value proposition by calling on TAP members to provide incentives for MSPs.

People You Don’t Know

OCTOBER 2021

Worldwide Channel Program Manager

De Rambures knows that the quality of the partner experience is critical. With multiple major transformations at NetApp this past year, she worked to ensure that all parties were focused on the partner experience and were maintaining high levels of excellence in MDF and partner education.

Channel Sales Manager, Southeast Region

Doering has gained attention by working with partners to close large strategic opportunities and expand their presence within big-name accounts in the Southeastern U.S. Her expertise in cloud unified communications, VoIP, business communications software and related technologies is key to that success.

Sr. Manager, Global Channel Marketing Programs

When Kim joined Nutanix four years ago she began helping to build the company’s worldwide channel marketing operations. Today she leverages her strategic and tactical B2B marketing expertise to provide partners with sales skills and enablement resources and educate them about new hybrid and multi-cloud technologies.

How To

Succeed

by Seeing the Whole Story

Future-Proof Collaboration With Intel Unite

Q. What should organizations be looking for in a collaboration solution in a post-COVID-19 world?

A. Many businesses shifted to a fully remote or hybrid setup in the wake of the

pandemic and finding the right collaboration solution to adjust to this new reality can be tricky. It’s important for organizations to adapt quickly and easily, especially because they’re still determining what work collaboration will look like as the situation evolves, and still effectively facilitate a phased return to work. However, we know that organizations want something that works with their current setup, can be plugged in and work quickly and functions for both now and later.

Q. How does the Intel Unite® solution differ from other solution stacks and what makes it unique?

Dave Buchholz

A. The Intel Unite® solution is flexible like nothing else. This scalable, open stack

wireless collaboration platform works for all types and sizes of organizations and can quickly address changing collaboration needs, using many plugins to integrate industry-standard tools. Session participants can securely share digital content to any display, no matter where they are. With this, businesses can improve productivity, while also enhancing engagement and ideation. Not only does it drastically improve collaboration, but it’s easy to set up, too. There’s no new cabling, and integration with current infrastructure and devices is a breeze. Onboarding is quick, no training is required and support needs are minimal. Manageability occurs at a single point, providing IT an easy way to view data, enact new capabilities and reconfigure hubs, as needed. The Intel Unite® solution also provides end-to-end encryption using transport layer security and is entirely hosted within the firewalled network. There isn’t any information stored on the Intel Unite® hub and no personal data is sent to the cloud.

Q. What value does the Intel Unite® solution bring to service providers that partner with you?

A. We’re here to partner with you and provide incentives and resources to help you

be successful. Intel continually builds trust with partners and works to grow business. After all, we’re only successful if you are, too. The Intel Unite® solution is an easy cloud console that works with multiple customers at one time and simplifies the ability to create custom solutions using our publicly available SDK and APIs. It can lower total cost of ownership and acts as a cost-effective, open-platform option for service providers. MSPs will save money and their customers will increase efficiency without sacrificing security. It’s a win-win.

Learn more about the Intel Unite® solution at: Intel.com/Unite

”

Principal Engineer, Global Sales & Tech Enablement Director, CCG Collaboration Sales Team

We’re here to partner with you and provide incentives and resources to help you be successful. Intel continually builds trust with partners and works to grow business. After all, we’re only successful if you are, too.

”

100 Geoff Fancher Head of Worldwide Distribution

BUT SHOULD Jennifer Schulze

Harold Grisamore

OpenText

Fancher leads Nvidia’s global distribution strategy and go-tomarket teams. In his four years at Nvidia, he has redefined the company’s distribution models, adding value-added distribution to its channel operations and recruiting some of the most important global data center distribution partners.

Schulze joined OpenText earlier this year, charged with leading the company’s channel and field marketing teams on a worldwide basis. Leveraging her more than 20 years of experience at SAP, GE and Epicor, she recruits best-in-class partners and drives partner success through education and lead generation.

Five years in his current post, Leen has played a major role in the success of Okta’s partner organization. Building on his finance background, he has become an expert in many facets of the channel and leverages that expertise to move forward in partner community, infrastructure and back-end processes.

Helping solution providers build services around a company’s products is key to success in the channel. Grisamore, in more than six years of services and channel enablement work at Palo Alto Networks, has been instrumental in helping partners establish their own security services practices.

Jamil Eman King

Brandon Christensen

Jordan Saylor

Chevon Martin Khan

Pax8

PlanetOne

National Sales Manager, U.S. Distribution, DMR Teams

Panasonic USA

VP, Channel, Field Marketing

Bronzon Leen

Sr. Manager, Strategy, Operations

Nvidia

Channel Development Manager

Park Place Technologies

Okta

Director, Channel Programs

Director, Services Sales Americas

Palo Alto Networks

Director, Operations

With years of sales and distribution experience to his credit, King is the driving force behind Panasonic USA’s rapid distributor and direct market reseller channel growth. His focus on sales enablement as well as program and process optimization has improved product availability and ship times.

Christensen joined Park Place in May, bringing his nearly 13 years of sales and business development experience at SHI International to the data center services provider. Success, he says, requires a combination of people, process and technology together with a passion for delivering exceptional customer experiences.

With a reputation for being detail-oriented and unafraid to take risks, Saylor is responsible for Pax8’s education and enablement events, Mission Briefings, Bootcamps and other programs that provide partners with advanced solutions knowledge. She was promoted to her current role in January.

In Martin Khan’s two-plus years at PlanetOne, she has been tapping into her strong listening skills and collaborative nature to make improvements across nearly every facet of the organization and introducing new ways to engage and enable the company’s partners and providers.

Pat Piwowarczyk

Tony Booth

Smiti Mohan

Jennifer Heard

Pure Storage

Red Hat

Head of Channel Business Development

Poly

Piwowarczyk is an integral part of Poly’s channel team, embracing the partner community and navigating the many “tricky steps” it takes to enable growth for global systems integrators. He joined Polycom in 2017 before the acquisition, bringing his 20-plus years of channel sales and marketing experience with him.

People You Don’t Know

OCTOBER 2021

Sr. Director, Channel Sales Engineering

Proofpoint

Booth is a go-to source for technical know-how for the many solution providers throughout Proofpoint’s partner ecosystem. He strives to enable partners to be as selfsufficient as possible throughout the sales cycle, helping educate them on peoplecentric security practices.

Partner Program Manager

Described as invaluable to Pure Storage’s Americas partner organization, Mohan is the company’s dedicated channel operations partner, supporting the entire team with innovation, creativity and enthusiasm. She was promoted to her current role in April after four-plus years with the company.

Global VP, Midmarket Sales

Heard is constantly seeking out new ways to unlock business opportunities with Red Hat in the midmarket while leveraging partners. She joined the company in January, bringing a wealth of experience after threeplus years as channel chief of Turbonomic and 20-plus years with Microsoft.

Michael Day

Sr. Director, Global Partner Sales

RingCentral

Sofia Tulchinsky VP, Alliances, Channels Strategy

Salesforce

Summer Recchi

Partner Enablement Lead

Michael Patterson

SAP

Director, North American Sales

Scale Computing

Day has been an instrumental part of building and developing RingCentral’s Territory Partner Manager and Partner Account Manager organizations, where his touch has been felt in the U.S., the Philippines and throughout Europe. Taking their cues from him, his teams are known to thrive consistently as they find new ways to support partners.

As the head of one of Salesforce’s most critical teams within its partner organization, Tulchinsky leads resource allocation, territory management, business reporting and strategic initiatives. Her teams win kudos for consistently providing high levels of service while focusing on strategic and operational excellence.

Leading SAP’s partner enablement and channel development teams means that Recchi strengthens the ecosystem behind the scenes and collaborates with partner management, sales, demand management and line-of-business teams. Best practices instilled by her team are expected to have a positive impact for years to come.

Patterson took on his current role in August and has become known as a main driver of Scale Computing’s “partner-first” commitment to being a 100 percent channel company. He coaches the field sales team on growing regions through strategic partnerships and a mutually beneficial channel network.

Gail Fredrickson

Brian Kroneman

Luke Calabrese

Wayne Wilkening

Schneider Electric

SentinelOne

SherWeb

Fredrickson is a key behindthe-scenes contributor with responsibilities that have included projects to optimize back-office processes for partners, as well as the implementation of partner-friendly updates for Schneider Electric’s channel program. She is described as the “ultimate team player.”

A key player in helping to drive the channel program at SentinelOne for the past four years—during which time the company went from a small player in cybersecurity to a publicly traded leader in the space— Kroneman since March has been focused on shaping the company’s channel strategy.

Calabrese is responsible for bringing crucial tools and knowledge to partners, particularly around improving productivity. Key parts of his role include working with partners to streamline their business. He also brings a deep understanding of the Microsoft ecosystem that ultimately benefits SherWeb’s partners as well.

A 16-year veteran of SonicWall, Wilkening’s responsibilities have included hiring, managing and enabling presales channel and territory engineers. A key initiative he helped drive was the creation of enablement content that is used at road shows for the partner community.

Moe Askar

Mike Biondi

Christian Gonzalez

Barry Hughes

Sophos

Spectrum Enterprise

Splunk

Director, Channel Marketing, Strategic Execution

Sr. Director, Americas Channels

As a central figure overseeing the Americas channel, Askar is credited with signifcantly growing the national partner business through efforts such as creating crossselling campaigns—helping partners to detect the best opportunities for new product sales—and scaling margin enhancement programs across the partner base.

Sr. Director, Worldwide Channel Programs, Strategy

Sr. Manager, Channel Sales Engineering

Known for always going the extra mile to help his team at Spectrum Enterprise, Biondi is a key behind-the-scenes player helping to generate new sales and find ways for his team to deliver. He combines this willingness to help with a deep understanding of the needs of partners to help drive their success.

Enablement, Process Manager, Partner Sales

Director, Global Partner GTM Strategy, Operations

As the head of strategy and operations for Splunk’s global partner ecosystem—and someone with 12 years of IT industry experience across Splunk, AWS, HP Inc. and Hewlett Packard Enterprise—Gonzalez excels at crafting key data-driven strategies and compelling frameworks for going to market with partners.

Sales Engineering Leader

SonicWall

Territory Manager

StorageCraft Technology During his five years at StorageCraft, Hughes has made a name for himself within the channel organization as a channel manager—and now territory manager—who will go above and beyond the normal expectations when it comes to treating partners well and building close relationships with them.

OCTOBER 2021

100 Sonya Witcher

Sr. Manager Business Development, Networking

Synnex (now TD Synnex)

BUT SHOULD Lisa McGarvey

Director, Solution Development, Vertical Markets, IoT, Data Solutions, Americas

Lisa Harrup Mieuli

Liz Dinan

Tenable

ThreatLocker

VP, Marketing

Marketing Manager

Witcher, who is a 15-year veteran of Synnex, is known within her organization for her prowess in coaching her team on bringing a customerfirst mentality above all else. This focus on Synnex customers—which include resellers and retail customers—has earned her accolades from customers and vendors alike.

Tech Data (now TD Synnex) McGarvey does the critical work behind the scenes to identify multi-vendor solutions that are ready for the market and the channel. Her efforts include the copious research required to create industry blueprints, reference architectures and vendor marketing programs—ultimately saving significant amounts of time and money for partners.

Harrup Mieuli brings 20-plus years of marketing experience with several leading IT vendors to Tenable where she is the executive sponsor for the company’s first global virtual partner event, Tenable AssureWorld. She also develops partnerfocused global programs and leads global partner marketing teams.

Dinan is an upand-comer both at ThreatLocker and in IT, and someone to watch in the future. She is focused on developing and implementing ThreatLocker’s marketing program, ensures all events and campaigns run smoothly, and provides educational resources for partners to help them more effectively bring security to clients.

Tricia Treacy

Zack Schwartz

Lindsey Legacki

Alex Johnson

Veeam Software

Vertiv

National Cloud Strategy Manager

Trustifi

Sr. Manager, Partner Marketing Programs

Treacy brings a wealth of channel experience to her role at Trend Micro, having spent almost five years at CDW. Treacy was a big part of Trend Micro becoming the first ISV to close an AWS Marketplace consulting partner private offers opportunity, and was appointed Trend Micro’s first national cloud strategy manager.

Schwartz went all out to help launch Trustifi’s new channel program this year, helping assemble resources including selfpaced sales training, online tools, MDF incentives as well as virtual training labs to teach partners about the company’s approach to cybersecurity.

Legacki has spent nearly all her IT career at Veeam. She is focused on bringing Veeam’s partners the industry’s most compelling programs, looking at where those programs can be improved, and tailoring solutions to customers’ cloud data management requirements.

Johnson is a proven advocate for Vertiv’s channel partners. He has spent his entire career so far in the IT power and cooling industry, including with Vertiv and its top competitor, and it shows in his ability to work with his marketing colleagues to find new ways to provide the maximum support for partners.

Richard Steeves

Vilas Belagodu

Jennifer Reid

Kevin Thomsen

VMware

Wasabi Technologies

WatchGuard Technologies

Zoom Video Communications

Trend Micro

Sr. Director, Lifecycle Services

Steeves is a longtime partner advocate for VMware and plays a key role in shaping VMware’s partner ecosystem. He was the behind-the-scenes architect of the VMware Partner Connect channel program, which launched in early 2020, and continues enhancing the program while defining the company’s partner life-cycle services strategy.

People You Don’t Know

OCTOBER 2021

VP, Channels

Sr. Director, Partner, Product Management

In the nearly three years Belagodu has been at Wasabi, he has become the go-to person for helping partners certify the software technologies they use to work with Wasabi Hot Cloud Storage. Belagodu helps channel partners integrate the Wasabi Account Management API into their customer billing and provisioning platforms.

Regional Field Marketing Director, North America

Reid has spent the past six years engaged in security industry marketing. She leads the development and execution of WatchGuard’s field marketing strategies and played a major role in bringing the newly acquired Panda Security portfolio to the WatchGuardOne partner program, which was done in less than a year.

Director, National Channel Accounts

North America Channel Sales Lead

A veteran sales leader in the communications space, Thomsen now leads Zoom’s channel push via relationships with master agents, resellers, distributors and referral partners. He helps them build their unified communications business for customers looking at ways to conduct business in remote and hybrid work environments.

How To

Succeed

by Seeing the Whole Story

Versapay Drives Business Improvement With AR Transformation

Q. Why should organizations transform their accounts receivable (AR) functions and how does it improve business? A. Today, many organizations are looking to AR automation to drive strategic goals like

digitization in finance. By automating routine tasks in our AR teams, clients can see a reduction in manual time managing receivables, an increase in speed of payment and a decrease in past due invoices. However, we’re going beyond simple AR automation to help businesses to transform their processes and close the gaps that customers and business alike experience between the AR department and customers.

Q. How does Versapay help partners deliver AR automation, and what benefits do their customers experience? A. We recently commissioned a study with PYMNTS.com where we learned that 9/10

firms are currently digitizing their AR. It reiterates the market opportunity of partnering with Versapay. Not only do our partners have a market opportunity, but they also get access to industry-leading AR automation and collaboration tools, sales acceleration support with customizable campaigns, sales training and co-branding and recurring revenue with excellent margins, generous incentives and rebates.

With hands-on support throughout the sales process, our team of Versapay experts are here to make sure partners and their customers are satisfied. Our AR automation platform bridges the gap between AR departments and customers that traditional automation products still hold. By eliminating the AR-customer communication gap, our customers enjoy an industry-leading 80 percent customer adoption rate.

Q. How is efficiency and cash flow increased through the Versapay Network? A. The Versapay Network transforms our clients’ AR by connecting AR departments with

their customers over the cloud to drive both efficiency and cash flow. By automating manual, back-office AR tasks in the cloud, like invoicing, reminders, payment processing and reconciliation to the ERP, customers on the Versapay Network reduce manual time managing receivables by more than 50 percent. Also, with automated features like autopay, easy online payment options and automated reminders, we also see customers experience a 25 percent increase in speed of payment and a 30 percent decrease in past due invoices.

Q. Why is the Versapay Network easy to integrate and how can partners take advantage? A. Businesses survive and thrive by selling to customers and other businesses, and it’s the

Versapay mission to make that seamless. We’re here to help our partners and their customers sell seamlessly, by extending the value of partners ERP expertise to include automated and collaborative AR. As the leading integration software for payment processing into major ERPs on the market, clients can seamlessly deploy immediately.

To learn more and become a VersaPartner, visit: www.versapay.com/partners

Craig O’Neill CEO

”

With 96 percent of CFOs saying the main reason they are digitally transforming their AR functions is to benefit customers and suppliers, we need to go beyond simple AR automation to provide customers with a collaborative approach.

”

C R N AN N UAL RE P O RT CAR D

Annual Report Card: In A Class Of Their Own By Rick Whiting

For the 36th year, CRN offered solution providers in North America the opportunity to grade the performance of their IT vendor partners with the CRN Annual Report Card. Solution providers were asked to score vendors across 24 technology categories, including established technologies such as enterprise network storage and enterprise and SMB network security as well as newer segments such as hyperconverged infrastructure, SD-WAN and edge computing. Partners graded IT vendors on a total of 21 criteria spanning four subcategories: product innovation, support, partnership, and managed and cloud services. Companies received average scores for each subcategory and an overall score. In some technology categories a single vendor dominated the scoring, winning not just the top overall score, but also the top grades across all four subcategories and, in some cases, even sweeping all 21 criteria. Other technology categories were more competitive with two or more vendors splitting the results. Which IT companies are at the top of their game in the eyes of their channel partners? Here is this year’s Annual Report Card results. Scan the QR code to see the full 2021 ARC database.

OCTOBER 2021

SOURCE: ANNUAL REPORT CARD 2021

ARC ANNUAL REPORT CARD D ATA P R O T E C T I O N & M A N A G E M E N T

CLOU D S ECU R IT Y

DATTO

SOPHOS

Channel Chief: Rob Rae, SVP, Business Development

Channel Chief: Kendra Krause, SVP, Global Channels, Sales Operations

Sophos was the big winner in this year’s ARC, coming out on

This technology category, the first of two won by Datto in the

top in five technology categories. Sophos swept the cloud secu-

2021 ARC, was a closely fought battle between Datto and

rity technology category in all criteria and earned an overall

Barracuda Networks with Datto edging out a win with an

score of 89.6.

overall score of 89.8 to Barracuda’s 89.2.

managed and cloud services.

89.8

OVE RALL SCOR E

85.7

MANAGED & CLOUD SERVICES AVERAGES

92.4

PARTNERSHIP AVERAGES

86.9

SUPPORT AVERAGES

93.5

PRODUCT INNOVATION AVERAGES

DATA PROTECTION & MANAGEMENT

OVE RALL SCOR E

cloud services (85.7).

MANAGED & CLOUD SERVICES AVERAGES

uct innovation (93.5), partnership (92.4) and managed and

innovation, 85.5 for support, 91.3 for partnership and 87.6 for

PARTNERSHIP AVERAGES

and Proofpoint, Sophos received grades of 93.3 for product

SUPPORT AVERAGES

Datto scored highest in most subcategories including prod-

PRODUCT INNOVATION AVERAGES

Competing against rivals Check Point Software Technologies

Barracuda Networks

93.4

87.0

90.3

85.2

89.2

Sophos

93.3

85.5

91.3

87.6

89.6

Veeam Software

90.8

82.8

84.8

80.7

85.0

Check Point

87.3

80.2

84.6

81.3

83.5

HPE

85.1

81.8

83.0

75.9

81.6

Proofpoint

87.8

79.3

83.1

80.6

82.9

StorageCraft Technology

76.4

69.4

72.7

70.9

72.5

CLOUD SECURITY

CLOU D STORAG E

Datto

D ATA S E C U R I T Y

WASABI TECHNOLOGIES

SOPHOS Channel Chief: Kendra Krause, SVP, Global Channels, Sales Operations

Channel Chief: Marty Falaro, EVP, Chief Operating Officer

Wasabi received an overall ARC score of 85.0 in the cloud stor-

Sophos swept this technology category with an overall score

age technology category. The company garnered scores of 90.0

of 88.7.

for product innovation, 73.9 for support, 87.4 for partnership and 87.8 for managed and cloud services.

The company came out on top in all 21 criteria with subcategory scores of 90.1 for product innovation, 86.3 for sup-

Wasabi received a score of 107.2 for product quality and reliability (part of the product innovation subcategory)—the high-

port, 91.4 for partnership and 86.4 for managed and cloud services.

87.4

87.8

85.0

Broadcom

SOURCE: ANNUAL REPORT CARD 2021

Symantec, a Division of

OVE RALL SCOR E

73.9

MANAGED & CLOUD SERVICES AVERAGES

90.0

PARTNERSHIP AVERAGES

Sophos

SUPPORT AVERAGES

Wasabi Technologies

PRODUCT INNOVATION AVERAGES

CLOUD STORAGE

DATA SECURITY

PRODUCT INNOVATION AVERAGES

est grade given to any vendor for any criteria in this year’s ARC.

90.1

86.3

91.4

86.4

88.7

74.1

62.6

67.8

69.1

68.7

OCTOBER 2021

ARC ANNUAL REPORT CARD EDGE COMPUTING

E NTE R PR I S E N ETWOR K I N FRASTR UCTU R E

SCALE COMPUTING

ARUBA

Channel Chief: Scott Mann, Director, North American Channel

Channel Chief: Donna Grothjan, VP, Worldwide Channel Sales

A HEWLETT PACKARD ENTERPRISE COMPANY

Edge computing is the first of two technology categories won by

This is the first of three technology categories won by Aruba

Scale Computing in this year’s ARC.

in this year’s ARC.

95.8

91.6

95.9

86.2

92.5

MANAGED & CLOUD SERVICES AVERAGES

OVE RALL SCOR E

Nvidia

92.2

84.3

87.4

79.8

86.2

Aruba, an HPE company

92.4

87.2

90.0

84.8

88.8

Intel

84.9

77.2

80.9

75.0

79.8

Nvidia

86.3

79.8

84.3

78.8

82.5

PRODUCT INNOVATION AVERAGES

Scale Computing

PARTNERSHIP AVERAGES

nership and 84.8 for managed and cloud services.

SUPPORT AVERAGES

95.9 for partnership and 86.2 for managed and cloud services.

PRODUCT INNOVATION AVERAGES

92.4 for product innovation, 87.2 for support, 90.0 for part-

OVE RALL SCOR E

nology segment and swept all subcategories with scores of

received scores of 95.8 for product innovation, 91.6 for support,

MANAGED & CLOUD SERVICES AVERAGES

nology category with an overall score of 92.5. The company

PARTNERSHIP AVERAGES

Aruba earned an overall score of 88.8 in this critical tech-

SUPPORT AVERAGES

Scale Computing dominated this emerging, fast-growing tech-

EDGE COMPUTING

E NTE R P R I S E N ET WOR K STORAG E

ENTERPRISE NETWORK INFRASTRUCTURE

E NTE R PR I S E WI R E LE SS LANs

HEWLETT PACKARD ENTERPRISE Channel Chief: George Hope, Worldwide Head of

ARUBA

A HEWLETT PACKARD ENTERPRISE COMPANY

Channel Chief: Donna Grothjan, VP, Worldwide Channel Sales

Partner Sales

This is the first of two technology categories won by Hewlett

Aruba earned an overall score of 89.1 in the enterprise wire-

Packard Enterprise in this year’s ARC.

less LAN segment.

HPE garnered an overall score of 85.1 in this important

Partners gave it particularly high marks for product quality

technology category. The company received scores of 88.6 for

and reliability, with a score of 100.2. The company’s subcat-

product innovation, 81.8 for support, 84.4 for partnership and

egory scores included 94.7 for product innovation, 86.7 for

84.8 for managed and cloud services.

support, 89.8 for partnership and 84.0 for managed and cloud

85.1

OCTOBER 2021

Aruba, an HPE company

OVE RALL SCOR E

84.8

MANAGED & CLOUD SERVICES AVERAGES

84.4

PARTNERSHIP AVERAGES

OVE RALL SCOR E

81.8

SUPPORT AVERAGES

MANAGED & CLOUD SERVICES AVERAGES

88.6

ENTERPRISE WIRELESS LANs

PRODUCT INNOVATION AVERAGES

PARTNERSHIP AVERAGES

HPE

SUPPORT AVERAGES

ENTERPRISE NETWORK STORAGE

PRODUCT INNOVATION AVERAGES

services.

94.7

86.7

89.8

84.0

89.1

SOURCE: ANNUAL REPORT CARD 2021

C R N

A R C

W I N N E R ’ S

C I R C L E

Tenable Reduces Cyber Risk Through Revamped Partner Program Q. Who is Tenable and what problems does Tenable solve? A. Tenable®, Inc. is the cyber exposure company. More than 30,000 organizations around the globe rely on us to understand and reduce cyber risk. As the creator of Nessus®, Tenable extended its expertise in vulnerabilities to deliver the world’s first platform to see and secure any digital asset on any computing platform. We help organizations confidently answer the question: “How secure are we?” With digital transformation, the modern cyberattack surface has changed. Yesterday’s processes are being used to solve today’s problems—when the surface was a static computer or on-premises server. As a result, organizations struggle seeing assets, detecting weaknesses, prioritizing issues for remediation, measuring risk and comparing to peers. The digital era requires a new approach. We’re building on our deep technology expertise as a pioneer in the IT and VM market, providing broad visibility across the modern attack surface, including active directory and cloud environments, and deep insights to help prioritize and measure cyber exposure.

“ We’ve made several key investments in our Tenable Assure Partner Program to help distributors, resellers and MSSPs better support end-user organizations to understand and reduce cyber risk.” — Jeff Brooks, Vice President, Global Channels and Business Development

Q. Why is this ARC award meaningful and what does it say about Tenable’s partner ecosystem? A. Tenable was the overall winner in the Security Management category and all subcategories, including product innovation, support, partnership and managed and cloud services. It highlights Tenable’s dedication to our partner community, and how valuable our partnership is to our mutual customers. Cybersecurity is always a team effort. The recent shift to remote work, along with the continued adoption of cloud, IoT, mobile and DevOps technologies, underscored this need for collaboration. Tenable integrates with many security and IT operations technology partners as part of its cyber exposure ecosystem. This creates the world’s richest set of cyber exposure data to analyze, gain context and take decisive cyber risk action.

Q. What are some benefits included in the Tenable Assure Partner Program and how has it recently improved? A. We’ve made several key investments in our Tenable Assure Partner Program to help distributors, resellers and MSSPs better support end-user organizations to understand and reduce cyber risk. Some of our recent game-changing updates include a revamped, peer-tested partner portal, optimized for easy access to product updates, sales playbooks and turnkey web, social, email and digital ad campaigns. We also have modular training and certification that enable sales, technical and service delivery practitioners to master risk-based vulnerability management and operational technology security at their own pace. We provide simplified deal registration that removes minimum license counts on eligible products, achieving protection and incumbency on Tenable opportunities.

Learn more about the Tenable Assure Partner Program https://www.tenable.com/partners

A R C

ARC ANNUAL REPORT CARD HYPE RCONVE RG E D I N FRASTR UCTU R E

MANAG E D DETECTION & R E S PON S E

SCALE COMPUTING

SOPHOS

Channel Chief: Scott Mann, Director, North American Channel

Channel Chief: Kendra Krause, SVP, Global Channels, Sales Operations

Scale Computing swept all criteria in this technology category

Sophos received an overall score of 91.2 for this category of

with some of the highest scores on this year’s ARC, including

security technology. The company garnered scores of 93.4 for product innova-

earning an overall score of 93.0. The company scored 95.9 for product innovation (including a very impressive 103.4 for product quality and reliability),

tion criteria, 89.0 for support, 93.2 for partnership and 88.6 for managed and cloud services.

91.9 for support, 95.9 for partnership and 87.7 for managed

87.7

93.0

HPE

86.0

81.5

83.7

78.5

82.6

StarWind

84.3

79.6

82.7

72.2

79.9

LAPTOP S & MOB I LE DEVICE S

MANAGED DETECTION & RESPONSE

Sophos

OVE RALL SCOR E

95.9

MANAGED & CLOUD SERVICES AVERAGES

91.9

PARTNERSHIP AVERAGES

95.9

SUPPORT AVERAGES

Scale Computing

HYPERCONVERGED INFRASTRUCTURE

PRODUCT INNOVATION AVERAGES

and cloud services.

93.4

89.0

93.2

88.6

91.2

M S P P L AT F O R M S

ACER AMERICA

N-ABLE

Channel Chief: Philip Burger, VP, U.S. Channel Sales

Channel Chief: David Weeks, Sr. Director, Partner Experience

This was another hotly contested technology category with

N-able came out on top in a battle with Datto in this tech-

Acer America coming out on top with an overall score of

nology category with an overall score of 73.9. N-able took

74.7. That win was thanks to Acer’s top scores for product

top scores in three of four subcategories including product

innovation (83.6) and managed and cloud services (65.6).

innovation (81.8), partnership (74.2) and managed and

PRODUCT INNOVATION AVERAGES

SUPPORT AVERAGES

PARTNERSHIP AVERAGES

MANAGED & CLOUD SERVICES AVERAGES

OVE RALL SCOR E

PRODUCT INNOVATION AVERAGES

SUPPORT AVERAGES

PARTNERSHIP AVERAGES

MANAGED PRINT SERVICES AVERAGES

OVE RALL SCOR E

cloud services (71.5).

Acer America

83.6

69.4

78.5

65.6

74.7

N-able

81.8

66.6

74.2

71.5

73.9

Dynabook

77.0

70.1

80.9

63.2

73.0

Datto

77.3

68.3

72.9

68.6

72.0

LAPTOPS & MOBILE DEVICES

OCTOBER 2021

MSP PLATFORMS

SOURCE: ANNUAL REPORT CARD 2021

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ARC ANNUAL REPORT CARD M U LT I F U N C T I O N P R I N T E R S

N ETWOR K S ECU R ITY—E NTE R PR I S E

FORTINET

LEXMARK Channel Chief: Greg Chavers, VP, North America Channel Sales

Channel Chief: Jon Bove, VP, Channel Sales

This is the first of two product technology categories won by

The fact that Fortinet not only won but dominated this cat-

Lexmark in this year’s ARC.

egory is impressive given that eight companies were competing

Lexmark received an overall score of 73.9 for this channel

Fortinet had an overall score of 88.3.

PARTNERSHIP AVERAGES

MANGED PRINT SERVICES AVERAGES

OVE RALL SCOR E

Lexmark

SUPPORT AVERAGES

MULTIFUNCTION PRINTERS

PRODUCT INNOVATION AVERAGES

81.0

70.8

75.3

66.8

73.9

N ETWOR K CON N ECTIVITY

OVE RALL SCOR E

Fortinet

MANGED PRINT SERVICES AVERAGES

ship and 66.8 for managed print services.

NETWORK SECURITY— ENTERPRISE

PARTNERSHIP AVERAGES

quality and reliability), 70.8 for support, 75.3 for partner-

SUPPORT AVERAGES

uct innovation (including 91.3 in the criterion of product

PRODUCT INNOVATION AVERAGES

mainstay technology. That included scores of 81.0 for prod-

91.7

86.6

89.5

84.7

88.3

WatchGuard

88.0

83.5

86.2

80.8

84.8

Aruba, an HPE company

90.5

82.9

83.9

80.4

84.7

SonicWall

89.3

81.7

85.7

78.7

84.1

Sophos

83.6

79.3

82.6

78.3

81.1

Barracuda Networks

83.7

78.3

81.2

77.0

80.2

Check Point

81.6

75.2

74.9

72.6

76.4

72.2

64.9

66.9

67.6

68.1

Symantec, a Division of Broadcom

N ETWOR K S ECU R ITY—S M B

COMCAST BUSINESS

SOPHOS

Channel Chief: Craig Schlagbaum, SVP, Indirect Sales

Channel Chief: Kendra Krause, SVP, Global Channels, Sales Operations

Comcast Business garnered an overall score of 77.7 in the net-

Sophos dominated this all-important security technology cat-

work connectivity technology category.

egory with an overall score of 91.1. That included top scores for

The communications giant earned grades of 82.5 for product innovation (including 94.6 for quality and reliability), 73.9 for

product innovation (94.1), support (89.7), partnership (92.6), and managed and cloud services (87.2).

support, 80.2 for partnership and 73.3 for managed and cloud

OVE RALL SCOR E

89.7

92.6

87.2

91.1

Barracuda

93.3

89.1

89.5

84.8

89.4

Fortinet

92.0

86.6

88.5

82.3

87.6

90.2

85.0

86.2

78.9

85.3

Check Point

87.7

84.1

86.1

81.1

84.9

88.8

82.1

84.6

76.4

83.2

SUPPORT AVERAGES

PARTNERSHIP AVERAGES

MANGED PRINT SERVICES AVERAGES

OVE RALL SCOR E

Comcast Business

PRODUCT INNOVATION AVERAGES

NETWORK CONNECTIVITY

WatchGuard

82.5

73.9

80.2

73.3

77.7

SonicWall

OCTOBER 2021

PARTNERSHIP AVERAGES

94.1

SUPPORT AVERAGES

Sophos

NETWORK SECURITY—SMB

PRODUCT INNOVATION AVERAGES

MANAGED & CLOUD SERVICES AVERAGES

services.

SOURCE: ANNUAL REPORT CARD 2021

ARC ANNUAL REPORT CARD P OW E R P ROTECTION & MANAG E M E NT

S D -WAN

EATON

FORTINET

Channel Chief: Curtiz Gangi, VP, U.S. Channels

Channel Chief: Jon Bove, VP, Channel Sales

Eaton came out on top in this technology category with an

Fortinet largely ran away with this technology category,

overall score of 89.5 and took the top scores for product in-

scoring 88.6 overall and earning top scores of 91.1 for prod-

novation (94.1) and managed and cloud services (79.4).

uct innovation, 88.4 for support, 88.9 for partnership and

Eaton’s product innovation grades included 104.5 for

85.5 for managed and cloud services.

product quality and reliability, the second highest grade in

79.4

89.5

Tripp Lite

94.4

78.4

89.1

Schneider Electric

92.6

86.8

91.4

78.3

87.5

CyberPower

82.1

75.7

81.0

68.8

Vertiv

82.3

73.6

81.2

68.1

SD-WAN

OVE RALL SCOR E

93.2

90.8

MANAGED & CLOUD SERVICES AVERAGES

90.5

92.2

PARTNERSHIP AVERAGES

94.1

SUPPORT AVERAGES

Eaton

POWER PROTECTION AND MANAGEMENT

PRODUCT INNOVATION AVERAGES

any criteria in this year’s ARC.

77.2

Fortinet

91.1

88.4

88.9

85.5

88.6

76.6

Aruba/Silver Peak

90.3

85.9

84.9

82.3

86.1

PROCESSORS

S ECU R IT Y—E N DP OI NT P ROTECTION

INTEL

SOPHOS

Channel Chief: Jason Kimrey, GM, U.S. Channel, Partner Programs

Channel Chief: Kendra Krause, SVP, Global Channels, Sales Operations

Microprocessor giant Intel was the big winner in this key tech-

Sophos dominated this technology category, earning an overall

nology category with an overall score of 81.2, including top

score of 89.3 and recording a clean sweep with top scores in

scores for product innovation (90.9), support (78.3) and part-

all criteria. For product innovation Sophos scored 93.3 while earning a

MANAGED & CLOUD SERVICES AVERAGES

OVE RALL SCOR E

managed and cloud services. PARTNERSHIP AVERAGES

quality and reliability, the third highest grade in any criteria in

score of 87.0 for support, 91.0 for partnership and 85.2 for

SUPPORT AVERAGES

Intel’s product innovation grades included 104.4 for product

PRODUCT INNOVATION AVERAGES

nership (84.1).

Sophos

93.3

87.0

91.0

85.2

89.3

SonicWall

86.2

80.2

82.3

77.6

81.8

WatchGuard

83.4

80.1

82.6

77.9

81.1

Check Point

79.5

77.2

79.2

76.0

78.0

72.6

63.6

64.6

67.4

67.3

this year’s ARC.

PRODUCT INNOVATION AVERAGES

SUPPORT AVERAGES

PARTNERSHIP AVERAGES

MANAGED & CLOUD SERVICES AVERAGES

OVE RALL SCOR E

SECURITY ENDPOINT PROTECTION

Intel

90.9

78.3

84.1

69.5

81.2

Nvidia

84.9

76.9

82.5

69.9

78.9

PROCESSORS

SOURCE: ANNUAL REPORT CARD 2021

Symantec, a Division of Broadcom

OCTOBER 2021

ARC ANNUAL REPORT CARD S ECU R ITY MANAG E M E NT

S M B N ETWOR KI NG

TENABLE

ARUBA

Channel Chief: Jeff Brooks, VP, Global Channels, Business Development

Channel Chief: Donna Grothjan, VP, Worldwide Channel Sales

A HEWLETT PACKARD ENTERPRISE COMPANY

Tenable led the way in this technology category, scoring 87.9

Aruba swept this category with an overall score of 89.8. Aruba

overall and garnering scores of 90.9 for product innovation,

earned scores of 93.9 for product innovation (including an

86.6 for support, 89.6 for partnership and 84.0 for managed

impressive 102.2 for product quality and reliability), 88.4 for

and cloud services.

support, 91.0 for partnership and 85.2 for managed and cloud

84.0

87.9

Fortinet

89.8

85.2

87.9

82.3

86.5

Symantec, a Division of

72.1

66.0

69.9

68.4

69.2

Broadcom

OVE RALL SCOR E

89.6

MANAGED & CLOUD SERVICES AVERAGES

86.6

PARTNERSHIP AVERAGES

90.9

SUPPORT AVERAGES

Tenable

SECURITY MANAGEMENT

PRODUCT INNOVATION AVERAGES

services.

Aruba, an HPE company

93.9

88.4

91.0

85.2

89.8

Datto

84.2

78.8

84.7

77.4

81.4

SMB NETWORKING

WOR KG ROU P C OLOR P R I NTE R S

S M B E XTE R NAL STORAG E HAR DWAR E

BUFFALO TECHNOLOGY

LEXMARK Channel Chief: Greg Chavers, VP, North America Channel Sales

Channel Chief: Bill Rhodes, Director, Channel Sales

Buffalo Technology ran away with this technology category,

Lexmark received an overall score of 76.6 in the workgroup

winning with an overall top score of 90.2 and recording top

color printer technology category.

scores of 92.8 for product innovation (including an impressive

The company scored 81.9 for product innovation, 75.7 for

102.4 for product quality and reliability), 88.0 for support,

support, 78.0 for partnership and 69.6 for managed print

92.5 for partnership and 87.0 for managed and cloud services.

services. Its highest marks came in the criterion of features

87.0

90.2

HPE

89.9

82.7

84.8

82.7

85.2

Synology

88.0

77.5

80.2

80.1

81.8

OCTOBER 2021

WORKGROUP COLOR PRINTERS

Lexmark

OVE RALL SCOR E

92.5

MANAGED PRINT SERVICES AVERAGES

MANAGED & CLOUD SERVICES AVERAGES

88.0

PARTNERSHIP AVERAGES

92.8

SUPPORT AVERAGES

Buffalo Technology

SMB EXTERNAL STORAGE HARDWARE

PRODUCT INNOVATION AVERAGES

and functionality, where it earned a score of 88.8.

81.9

75.7

78.0

69.6

76.6

SOURCE: ANNUAL REPORT CARD 2021

How To

Succeed

by Seeing the Whole Story

Venn Solves VDI Issues With New Alternative Q. With the pandemic changing how businesses operate, what are the challenges to using legacy virtual desktops? A. The pandemic has accelerated three key IT transformations that are now major

challenges for virtual desktop solutions: • SaaS – The move of critical business platforms to the cloud has diluted the value of VDI since these applications are available through a browser instead of outdated Windows-only clients. • Mobile – VDI has never worked properly on mobile devices, which like SaaS apps, have become a primary method of access to key business systems. • Video conferencing – The use of meeting solutions like Teams and Zoom exploded during the pandemic along with the ever-present issues associated with running these solutions through virtual desktops.

Q. What is Venn’s Virtual Desktop Alternative and why does it work better than traditional VDI? A. Venn® is the industry’s first Virtual Desktop Alternative (VDA), an innovative

approach that provides the centralized management and compelling information security benefits of traditional VDI without any drawbacks from hosted virtual desktops. Powered by our breakthrough LocalZone technology, the platform leverages the power and flexibility of modern devices and their local browser, desktop or mobilebased applications, delivering a 10X improvement in user experience by eliminating the lag and compatibility challenges associated with legacy VDI.

Q. How does Venn’s LocalZone simplify sensitive work application protection? A. Venn’s core and breakthrough technology is LocalZone™—a smart, secure perimeter

created around work applications and data that enables users to work locally with sensitive information. Not a client hypervisor or an open-source container, LocalZone separates work applications, files and data from personal computing resources on the same device. Through patented application, filesystem and network isolation techniques, LocalZone enables work applications, files and data to safely and securely co-exist alongside users’ personal digital assets. With its Blue Border and Badge, LocalZone is also the first technology that clearly distinguishes work from personal resources: inside the blue border, users know what is protected and monitored by their organization, and outside the blue border, they have their privacy.

Q. What do you see for Venn in the next 12 months, and how will it benefit partners? A. As we launch and bring our VDA, powered by LocalZone technology, to market, we

believe that partners desire to align with a solution that finally delivers the centralized management, security and compliance benefits of traditional VDI without any of its performance, compatibility and user experience challenges.

Discover the virtual desktop alternative purpose-built for MSPs and IT leaders. Visit www.venn.com.

”

David Matalon

Chief Executive Officer

After twenty years of remotely hosting customers’ applications and virtual desktops, we invented LocalZone™—a 10-times better user experience that delivers productivity, protection and privacy for security-minded organizations.

”

T E C H N O L O GY S P O T L I G H T

24 Hot Products From Channel-Friendly Vendors From power management and processors to storage and security and much more, here’s a look at some of the new and upcoming products that have caught CRN editors’ attention.

Arcserve OneXafe Solo

Armor Defense Armor Anywhere

Axcient x360Recover Directto-Cloud Local Cache

Armor Defense has added two new features to its Armor Anywhere enterprise-grade cloud security and compliance offering. Armor Anywhere with EDR provides customers with an integrated, enterprisegrade endpoint detection and response capability from VMware Carbon Black. “If it detects threat actors trying to drop ransomware on that machine, it’s going to quarantine that machine for a bit and cut it off from the network to make sure it can’t spread the ransomware to other machines within that network,” said Ryan Smith, product evangelist. Armor Anywhere for Containers extends the ability to do threat detection and response to container environments.

Axcient unveiled its new local cache addition to the company’s x360Recover Direct-to-Cloud offering to provide customers with a high-speed local recovery in case of a data outage without the need to purchase proprietary local hardware appliances. Local cache provides the performance of a local data protection caching appliance while giving businesses their choice of local hardware ranging anywhere from a low-cost USB thumb drive to a spare NAS appliance, said Ben Nowacky, Axcient’s senior vice president of products. With local cache, the hottest data can be recovered instantly from the on-premises device, with older data recovered from the cloud, he said.

Binary Defense Managed Detection & Response

ConnectMeVoice Hosted VoIP

Crewhu

Binary Defense plans to add Security Information and Event Management features to its Managed Detection & Response offering by the end of 2021 to expand its capabilities for SMB customers, according to CEO Mike Valentine. Regulators are increasingly requiring SMB and midmarket customers or others in their supply chain to have SIEM-like capabilities in place to protect their business. Smaller customers aren’t prepared either financially or from a staffing perspective to deploy the existing SIEM tools available in the market today. As a result, most of Binary Defense’s customers aren’t currently using SIEM, according to Valentine. Adding SIEM features will allow Binary Defense to expand from the SMB to the midmarket and fulfill the supply chain requirements of larger customers.

VoIP and UC specialist ConnectMeVoice has been in business for more than 25 years but recently realized that the best way to go to the market was through the channel. Now, the company is working side by side with MSPs, agents and solution providers to bring its ConnectMeVoice Hosted VoIP offering to business customers. ConnectMeVoice Hosted VoIP gives customers access to cloud-based communications and mobility features at a fraction of the cost. In fact, its pricing is one of its big differentiators for customers, as well as its high margins for partners, according to the company. Solution providers are able to private-label and customize the hosted PBX solution to meet the needs of their end customers.

Arcserve, which earlier this year merged with StorageCraft, recently updated its OneXafe Solo data protection appliance for SMB customers or midmarket remote office and branch office users. Arcserve has made the bundling of the StorageCraft Cloud to do backups now an option for customers, said Shaun Massey, director of sales engineering for North America. “It was always bundled with the StorageCraft Cloud,” Massey told CRN. “Now it will not be included if customers want to use another cloud such as Wasabi, Microsoft Azure or AWS.” Arcserve will soon offer support for the object lock capability in Wasabi and AWS environments to store data in a WORM (write once, read many) format, he said.

OCTOBER 2021

Crewhu’s employee recognition and customer satisfaction platform is aimed at helping MSPs improve their customer service capabilities. The Crewhu platform integrates with many of the top MSP professional services automation, documentation and VoIP platforms and measures several factors that keep teams motivated, said CEO Stephen Spiegel. Ryan Denning, Crewhu’s vice president of sales, said the right recognition helps teams work together and work with customers better. “When you can publicly recognize people on a daily basis, they will engage more,” he said. “And that makes it more profitable for the business as a whole.” Crewhu integrates with platforms from ConnectWise,Autotask, Kaseya, IT Glue, Microsoft Teams and BrightGauge.

CrushBank Resolve CrushBank Resolve is an automated AI layer for ConnectWise Manage designed for the service port. When an IT expert clicks on a ticket, the AI layer automatically reads the ticket and performs a search. “In a split second it comes back with all the tickets and all the configs,” said Brian Mullaney, Crushbank’s chief revenue officer. “It would pull back from ConnectWise, from IT Glue, from SharePoint, from any number of systems that you run. Most of the data you have is unsearchable, and we bring it back in a moment’s notice,” Mullaney said. When a user clicks on a ticket in the service board, CrushBank Resolve automatically throws a query string back to IBM’s Watson and then returns the most relevant tickets, configurations and documents.

Dynabook Satellite Pro L50 Dynabook Americas, formerly Toshiba America Client Solutions, has revived Toshiba’s former Satellite Pro laptop series with new SMB-focused models including the Satellite Pro L50. The notebook features a 15.6-inch FHD display, a 10th-generation Intel Core i7 processor, discrete Nvidia GeForce MX250 graphics, 16 GB of RAM and 512 GB of storage. Other features include an HD webcam, dual-array microphones and a wide selection of ports (including USB-A, USB-C, HDMI and Ethernet). On portability, the Satellite Pro L50 weighs 4.07 pounds and measures 0.74 of an inch thick. In addition, Dynabook introduced two other new models in the series—the 14-inch Satellite Pro C40 and the 15.6inch Satellite Pro C50.

CyberPower Systems PowerPanel Cloud App

Dell Technologies PowerEdge XE8545

CyberPower Systems’ PowerPanel Cloud app enables remote monitoring of the company’s UPS system from anywhere. Designed for iOS and Android mobile devices as well as desktop applications, CyberPower’s new cloud application simplifies power monitoring of one or more CyberPower UPS systems to help reduce IT resources and gain operating efficiencies. With the PowerPanel Cloud app, UPS systems are monitored from a colorized dashboard that provides monitoring of each unit’s status, including instant problem recognition and power conditions.The application targets the SMB market, including retailers and restaurants that rely on digital cash registers and other point-of-sale systems.

Dell’s PowerEdge XE server line is purpose-built for complex, emerging workloads that require high perfo r m a n c e a n d large storage, which is why NVMe is critical. The servers deliver the reliability and security for demanding applications inside traditional data centers or in extreme conditions stretching from outside the data center to the harsh edge environment of the IT infrastructure. Dell’s PowerEdge XE8545 server combines the maximum core counts of two third-generation AMD EPYC processors with four of the highestperforming Nvidia A100 GPUs. Dell said it has increased the speed of storage with NVMe and reduced data latency with PCIe to accelerate I/O throughput, which prevents performance bottlenecks.

Eaton 9PX UPS

Egnyte Platform

Eaton recently launched its new 9PX lithium-ion UPS. The new UPS provides longer battery life and a smaller footprint than valve-regulated leadacid battery-powered UPS technology, targeting distributed and edge environments as well as industrial applications ranging from health care to education. Eaton’s new 9PX lithium-ion UPS offers seamless integration for virtualmachine-centric management and disaster preparedness in the event of outages. It has a life expectancy of eight to 10 years with increased reliability and a smaller footprint compared with VRLA-powered UPSes. The company said the new lithium-ion battery innovation for its UPSes provides longer battery life to enable customers to “set it and forget it” and requires little on-site support from IT staff, data center professionals and maintenance personnel.

Egnyte, which develops a unified platform to help manage, secure and govern businesses’ data across any cloud or any device from anywhere, is getting ready to launch an offering aimed at the architecture, engineering and construction market. Eric Anthony, director of MSP community and engagement, said users in that market need specialized solutions to solve unique issues related to large file sizes and the amount of remote collaboration. “There are a lot of problems shifting the large architecture, engineering and construction files,” Anthony told CRN. “Traditional email attachments don’t work. And employees often collaborate on those files from remote trailers, so it’s hard to connect.” Security is also an issue, Anthony said. “If building plans are compromised, a company is open to breaches,” he said.

OCTOBER 2021

T E C H N O L O GY S P O T L I G H T

Evo Security Privileged Access And Password Management

Hewlett Packard Enterprise Alletra

Evo Security plans to debut a password manager and release an updated version of its privileged access management offering in the fourth quarter, according to CEO Michael Roth. As the attack surface accelerates toward MSPs and their SMB customers, SMBs need to adopt a similar mentality as their enterprise brethren and fi nd a way to look at disparate parts of their IT infrastructure. Evo Security overhauled its elevated access tool to address the needs of key channel stakeholders. In 2022, Roth said Evo Security plans to focus on enriching the collection of information that’s been aggregated into a company’s technology to help it take proactive and pre-emptive action.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s Alletra is a portfolio of cloud-native data infrastructure offerings for managing a business’ data. At its core is a new Data Services Cloud Console that helps shift the data infrastructure from the edge to the cloud to give customers a way to access and utilize data in an on-demand and as-a-service fashion. HPE Alletra aims to simplify data management by abstracting the data infrastructure control plane from the data plane and moving it to the cloud. This provides a single, consistent operational experience that allows automatic discovery and configuration of any newly connected system, an AI-based approach to automating storage provisioning based on intent, and the ability to manage the data infrastructure from anywhere.

Lexmark Cloud Bridge

Liongard Essentials

Lexmark is seeking to create new opportunities for partners with its growing suite of cloud services, including cloud print management and cloud fleet management. And the company’s cloud services were recently expanded to cover printer hardware from all manufacturers, not just Lexmark, with Lexmark Cloud Bridge. Lexmark Cloud Bridge aims “to open up a whole new world for our partner community,” enabling partners to connect multibranded devices to the Lexmark cloud services suite, said Greg Chavers, vice president for North America channel sales. “The Cloud Bridge suite gives partners the opportunity to connect these devices into the cloud services— where before, they were limited to just Lexmark-branded devices,” Chavers said. “Now you can connect all brands to Lexmark cloud services so that you can execute with Cloud Print Management and with Cloud Fleet Management.”

Liongard in May unveiled Liongard Essentials, a streamlined version of its core platform for automating and scaling MSPs’ businesses. Liongard Essentials targets MSPs looking to better manage their lower-tier managed services customers with a focus on Microsoft 365 license management, domain and TLS/SSL monitoring. Liongard Essentials helps MSPs standardize processes and their technicians’ tool stack as a way to help reduce management time and increase efficiency. Liongard Essentials includes five Inspectors: Microsoft 365, Internet Domain, TLS/SSL, Identity Monitoring and Google Workspace. MSPs can have up to 10 of these Inspectors active per customer environment. All of the other capabilities of Liongard’s core platform are included as well.

OCTOBER 2021

Intel Xeon E-2300 Intel has adapted its Rocket Lake desktop CPU architecture for a new line of Xeon E processors that are designed for entry-level servers in the small-business and cloud services segments. The company said the 10 Xeon E-2300 CPUs for single-socket servers provide up to a 17 percent improvement in performance over the Xeon E-2200 processors that were made generally available in 2019. The processors are being supported by Dell Technologies, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Lenovo, Supermicro and other server vendors. The processors are available in four-, six- and eight-core configurations with thermal design power ranging from 65 to 95 watts. They support base clock speeds of up to 3.7GHz and turbo boost speeds of up to 5.1GHz using Intel Turbo Boost Technology 2.0.

Park Place Technologies Entuity Software Version 19 Park Place Technologies’ version 19 of its Entuity Software now offers new physical storage and server monitoring, OS monitoring of Windows and Linux servers, and new discovery capabilities and features for asset management. Entuity Software version 19 gives businesses a single source for customerdiscovered and customer-managed assets, and provides detailed reporting and an at-a-glance view of what is in the network. As new assets are discovered, those assets will be flagged to let users quickly evaluate them. That single view will let users manage or unmanage assets all from a single location. Entuity Software version 19 can also discover server infrastructure and storage assets and list them directly from its builtin configuration management database.

How To

Succeed

by Seeing the Whole Story

Sesame By ITRenew Overcomes Infrastructure Cost, Supply-Chain And Sustainability Barriers Q. What are the unique advantages hyperscale cloud service providers have when it comes to meeting new data center compute, storage and networking demands? A. The scale of the world’s largest data center operators enables them to define their

own supply chains and systems. They’ve designed IT hardware architectures from the ground up that deliver best-in-class performance, compute density, power and cooling efficiency. And they’ve optimized their supply chains to achieve the lowest possible total cost. Now, for the first time, ITRenew is making those advantages available to the broader market. Our circular economic approach puts that same hyperscale-grade infrastructure, performance and efficiency in the hands of data center operators everywhere, at 50 percent lower total cost of ownership (TCO) than conventional OEM gear. Sesame by ITRenew compute, storage and networking solutions are optimized for critical workloads like Kubernetes, AI/ML and edge, and configured to suit any environment or deployment. Plus, modular, open architecture design makes it easy to add capacity as workloads and business needs evolve.

Q. What’s the consequence of the massively supply constrained global environment that exists today for customers’ ability to scale? A. While the biggest industry players can still get anything they need, the rest of the

world is seeing extraordinarily long lead times on everything from bicycles and cars to servers. What’s different about Sesame by ITRenew is that we’re not beholden to traditional supply chains. Our circular economic approach means that all the material needed to build new IT infrastructure is already manufactured and in our possession. We’ve eliminated long order cycles and can deliver fully integrated, tested and assembled rack-scale systems, ready to plug-and-play in as little as four weeks.

Q. With the persistent drum beat of negative climate news, everyone is talking about zero carbon goals. How should partners think about sustainability relative to IT equipment? A. Obviously, a focus on renewable energy and run-time operations is great, but nei-

ther are a task for the channel. Where partners can do their part—and have a huge opportunity to differentiate themselves—is by looking toward delivering recertified and circular economic solutions that have the potential to avoid up to 75 percent of the CO2e impact of IT equipment that comes from manufacturing. With sustainably sourced IT equipment, there’s zero compromise on performance or quality. In fact, it actually out-delivers in both regards, while also having massive positive global impact on reducing CO2 and e-waste. Sesame by ITRenew compute and storage solutions: Sustainable scale made practical. Get started today. ITRenew.com/become-a-reseller

”

Ali Fenn

President

Cost, supply chain and sustainability imperatives are very real. Sesame by ITRenew’s unique approach helps you solve for all three while you scale your essential infrastructure.

”

T E C H N O L O GY S P O T L I G H T

Pure Storage Portworx Enterprise 2.8

Rackmount.IT Rack Mount Kits

Red Sift Lookalike Domain Services

Pure Storage’s Portworx Enterprise 2.8 provides the same cloud-like experience for Kubernetes applications whether they reside on Pure Storage’s FlashArray or FlashBlade storage infrastructures or in the cloud, said Michael Ferranti, senior director of product marketing for its cloud-native business unit. Pure Storage is also enhancing its Portworx Essentials free versions, allowing customers to manage containers across an unlimited number of nodes with unlimited capacity, he said. In addition, Portworx now provides container-native storage on VMware Tanzu and any container storage interface-compatible storage system to provide container-granular data management including backup and recovery, encryption, and data migration over VMware or cloud block storage.

With vendor rack mounts sometimes amounting to simple ear brackets that leave ports in the back and power supplies dangling, Rackmount.IT offers a kit that aims to solve some of the headaches of desktop firewalls. Rackmount.IT offers rack mount kits to bring network interfaces to the front, a fixed power supply to decrease the chance of outages and custom air flow cutouts to avoid overheating, according to the company. The company’s industrial rack mount kits add shielded cables and shielded CAT6 couplers to protect against high frequencies. Installation takes five minutes, according to the company, and Rackmount.IT offers custom designs and colors. Supported brands include Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Fortinet and Palo Alto Networks.

Red Sift plans to launch services for brand protection and lookalike (or cousin) domains later this year to build upon the defense against fraudulent attacks it already provides to domains owned by customers, said Senior Vice President of Strategy Chuck Swenberg. Adversaries are trying to impersonate legitimate domains by—for instance—replacing a “1” with an “l” in the domain name, Swenberg said. In response, Red Sift plans to apply a tremendous amount of automated capacity to scanning domains for minor typographical changes as well as aggressively report to authorities any lookalike domains spotted in hopes of getting them taken down, he said.

Scale Computing HE150

Schneider Electric APC Smart-UPS Ultra

ScopeStack

Scale Computing’s HE150 appliance combines Scale Computing’s self-healing platform for autonomously running applications at the edge with a small, allflash, NVMe storage-based compute appliance that delivers simplicity, efficiency and enterprise-ready virtualization. The product provides a fully functional, integrated platform for running applications including high-availability clustering, rolling upgrades and integrated data protection. Robbie Wittman, regional sales manager for Scale Computing, said restaurants, coffee shops and grocery store chains that have data being created at the edge will benefit. “With our system, if the hardware itself fails, everything automatically replicates to the remaining two nodes, and everyone’s up and running,” he said.

Schneider Electric’s new APC SmartUPS Ultra is 50 percent smaller and lighter than the company’s traditional UPS, meaning there’s more rack space inside edge environments for networking gear. Smart-UPS Ultra also has three times the battery life of its traditional VRLA batteries thanks to lithium-ion innovation, has two times faster recharge power, and provides mounting options including rack, tower or wall/ceiling mounts to be installed anywhere. The new UPS utilizes Schneider Electric’s EcoStruxure remote monitoring, management and servicing offering, which channel partners can leverage. Schneider Electric’s cloudbased software delivers data-driven results to optimize performance and enables wherever-you-go visibility across multiple UPS devices.

OCTOBER 2021

ScopeStack’s platform helps MSPs automate the scoping, pricing and level of effort required when preparing to offer services to customers. ScopeStack founder and CEO Jon Scott said MSPs have traditionally depended on Excel spreadsheets and Word documents to scope out services, which is very much a manual process. “Our web-based platform sits between an MSP’s CRM or project management tools to automate the process,” Scott said. “[This automation] is something MSPs are really looking for,” said Roy Harmon, ScopeStack’s head of marketing. ScopeStack integrates with ConnectWise Manage and Microsoft Dynamics and in the near future will also be integrated with Autotask, Kaseya and several distributor platforms, Scott said. ■

How To

Succeed

by Seeing the Whole Story

How Successful Business Leaders Get More Out Of Their Data Q. With a large portion of data not being used, how can businesses get the most out of their data?

A. Data is a treasure trove of value that businesses don’t always know what to do

with. The 2020 Rethink Data report noted that only 32 percent of data available to enterprises is used. How can businesses get more value out of their data? Tackle the barriers that impede this value—unpredictable cloud economics, growing TCOs associated with data storage and movement, the siloing of data, ignorance regarding how to move and optimize massive unstructured data sets and a lack of a unified data strategy. These are opportunities for our partners to guide business leaders to get more out of their data.

Q. How does data agility factor into this process?

A. Hugely. The modern data landscape is marked by unprecedented data growth,

with 179ZB of data volume expected by 2025, and with enterprise data growing at the rate of 42 percent this year alone. The data is more sprawled than ever—from endpoints to edge to on-prem data centers and the multicloud core. The current shifts in data gravity usher extraordinary amounts of data in two directions—toward the edge and toward the multicloud core. This means not only that data resides at these two locations, but that the movement of data streams between them needs support. Helping a business overcome the cost and complexity challenges of data sprawl can position a VAR or MSP for success.

Q. How does Seagate lower TCO to ensure businesses maximize and monetize their data usage, while increasing value?

A. Businesses managing massive data sets (100TB and higher) find that the bandwidth

is often insufficient for quick transfers. For them, we built Lyve Mobile, a mass-capacity mobile edge storage and data transfer service using frictionless, rugged data shuttles that quickly move heaps of data. Companies that reach scale find themselves facing unpredictable bills and fees (API, egress, etc.) for moving data sets in and out of the public cloud. As a complement of their cloud strategy, we created Lyve Cloud, a TCO-optimizing data storage-as-aservice platform situated close to where data is located (at the edge). It’s simple and efficient, with zero unpredictable fees. Finally, for enterprises that want to scale their private data centers with industry-leading density, Seagate recommends storage systems powered by our industry-leading enterprise-class hard drives and SSDs. The self-healing, high density CORVAULT and other data storage systems are built on trust, affordability and ease of use.

Learn how to get more value out of data in Seagate’s Mass Data on the Go report.

Jeff Fochtman

”

Senior Vice President, Business and Marketing

The leading companies of tomorrow need to overcome the cost and complexity challenges that come with data sprawl today.

”

WI N D OWS 11 S E CU R ITY

Solution Providers: Windows 11 Security Is ‘Job No. 1’ Prioritizing security in Windows 11 is the smart thing to do in today’s landscape of increasing cyberattacks, solution providers tell CRN.

By Kyle Alspach

HE ROLLOUT OF of Windows 11 is

highlighting a major shift in Microsoft’s strategy for the Windows operating system, with the company putting a higher priority on improving security than on enabling the most PC upgrades possible, solution providers and industry analysts told CRN. For Windows 11, which will be generally available Oct. 5, Microsoft has issued hardware requirements that are far more stringent than users have been accustomed to in the past. Along with requiring a TPM 2.0 security chip, Windows 11 is only compatible with CPUs released in the past four years. This is also widely seen as a security measure since it ensures that most PCs running Windows 11 will have hardware protections against the Spectre and Meltdown vulnerabilities discovered in 2018. The requirements for newer CPUs and TPM 2.0 are expected to exclude a significant number of PCs from installing Windows 11, however. That’s a stark departure from Microsoft’s approach with past releases of Windows—especially Windows 10— but is ultimately a worthwhile trade-off, solution providers told CRN. “I would say that they are prioritizing security first. And I’d say that’s the prudent thing to do, given what’s going on in this environment,” said Matthew Bookspan, CEO of Altamonte Springs, Fla.-based Blacktip. “It’s a smart play.” The six years since the launch of Windows 10 have seen Microsoft ensnared in a series of massive cyberattacks, even as troubling new hardware-level vulnerabilities such as the Spectre and Meltdown processor flaws have emerged. While security was a focus for past Windows releases as well, the emphasis on tightening hardware security is a greater focus with Windows 11, analysts told CRN. “What I think is new is the recognition that it’s not just about fixing the OS, but rather looking at the entire stack from the hardware up through the applications and the user experience and trying to make the entire stack work better and more securely,” said Stephen Kleynhans, research vice president at Gartner. “There are some things you need to do that you can’t do solely in the operating system, which needs the newer hardware.”

OCTOBER 2021

The CPU requirements for upgrading to Windows 11 include—with just a few exceptions—having a processor from Intel’s eighth generation and newer, or AMD’s Zen 2 series and up. Those CPU requirements appear to be aligned with mitigations against Spectre and Meltdown side-channel vulnerabilities, analysts told CRN. However, Microsoft has not specifically confirmed this, and some Windows 11-compatible chips did come out before hardware protections for Spectre and Meltdown arrived. Microsoft did not make an executive available to comment for this article. In an interview with CRNtv in August, Microsoft Channel Chief Rodney Clark said that the Windows 11 chip and security requirements are in part a response to the new places, such as edge devices, where cyberattacks are now originating. “When you think about the security landscape that we are in today, it’s changed quite a bit,” said Clark, Microsoft’s corporate vice president of global channel sales. “Yesterday’s PC doesn’t necessarily address today’s security concern and tomorrow’s security concern.” Along with protecting against existing cyberthreats, Microsoft does appear to be trying to set up a stronger security baseline for the future with its Windows 11 security requirements, analysts said. “I think Microsoft is looking at the things that we know we need to do for security in the future that we simply can’t do on some of the really old hardware,” Kleynhans said. “At some point they knew that they’d have to make a tough call. This is an opportunity to make that tough call.”

‘Security Is Job No. 1’ While Apple has taken a similar approach with macOS, this approach by Microsoft has come as a shock to some Windows users. In past releases, Windows has tended to support a “long legacy of hardware,” said Tom Mainelli, group vice president for device and consumer research at IDC. “There are certainly challenges with supporting older hardware, particularly on the security side,” Mainelli said. “I think that Microsoft’s decisions around what will be supported are

ultimately in service of driving a better experience and a more secure experience.” With the Windows 11 processor requirements, it’s evident that “security is job No. 1” for Microsoft, he said. “Now, you have to prioritize security,” said Zach Saltzman, senior director for the Microsoft platform at Carlsbad, Calif.based FMT Consultants. “It’s not like when Windows 10 came out when, sure, Microsoft talked about security, but they were just trying to get away from Windows 8.”

Microsoft Is ‘Always In The Middle’ Microsoft has also become a security vendor powerhouse in its own right in recent years, with a portfolio of security offerings ranging from identity to cloud to endpoint protection. Meanwhile, the company’s platforms are not only a prime target for hackers, but have also gotten entangled in numerous high-profile cyberattacks such as the massive SolarWinds compromise and an attack on IT distributor Synnex, now TD Synnex, in July. “It doesn’t matter where the problem is, Microsoft’s always going to be in the middle of fixing it,” Kleynhans said. In terms of Windows security specifically, the vulnerabilities known as “PrintNightmare” have been vexing Microsoft and IT departments for the past few months. Since unveiling Windows 11 in June, Microsoft has made it clear that security is at the forefront of its strategy for the new operating system. A blog post that month, for instance, listed security first among the guiding principles for Windows 11. Using key Windows 11 security features in combination on test devices—including Windows Hello facial recognition, device encryption, secure boot and virtualization-based security—reduced malware by 60 percent on those devices, Microsoft said. The solution providers who spoke to CRN said they do believe Windows 11 will be a meaningful step up in security, and they agree with Microsoft’s strategy of putting security first. “I strongly feel that Microsoft is doing the right thing by prioritizing security” with Windows 11, said Marc Menzies, president and CTO of Ronkonkoma, N.Y.-based Overview Technology Solutions. “I’m fine with them prioritizing security over being able to roll this out to every computer.” While the TPM 2.0 requirement has caused grumbling among some users, Menzies noted that the security chip is necessary for enabling BitLocker encryption. BitLocker encrypts all data on a device, ensuring that the data cannot be accessed in the event the device is lost or stolen. “Security needs to be paramount,” Menzies said. “I’m definitely on Microsoft’s side here.”

Spectre, Meltdown ‘Woke Up The Industry’ In terms of the requirements for CPUs made in the past four years, many in the industry believe that this requirement is tied to the Spectre and Meltdown vulnerabilities. The Spectre and Meltdown processor flaws pose the threat of enabling hackers to access protected data. The discovery of the vulnerabilities “really woke up the industry,” Kleynhans said. “Because it was so fundamental, there was no simple way to

get around that one,” he said. “It opened up the [industry’s] eyes that there’s a whole raft of potential new vulnerabilities.” Software patches against Spectre and Meltdown were rolled out going back multiple generations of processors, but chipmakers agreed it would take a hardware fix to fully solve the issue. While ensuring strong performance is also a motivation for requiring newer processors, that appears to be secondary to security with the Windows 11 CPU requirements, analysts said. “The state of security has changed, with hardware embeds being more important to the posture,” said J.P. Gownder, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester. Notably, Microsoft has pursued its strategy of requiring newer chips even amid an industrywide shortage of components, particularly processors. The shortages are constraining the production of PCs at a time when demand continues to be high and are expected to slow the rollout of Windows 11. At least in the short term, Mainelli said he sees little evidence that Microsoft is expecting to drive a significant amount of new PC sales via its Windows 11 hardware requirements. Currently, “the industry can’t make more PCs,” he said. “They’re making as many as they can.” Fortunately, all indications suggest that upgrades of compatible PCs to Windows 11 will not be nearly as risky as the shift was from Windows 7 to Windows 10, solution providers and analysts said. Because the two operating systems share a similar codebase, application compatibility from Windows 10 to Windows 11 should not be a major issue if one chooses to upgrade—as long as one’s PC meets the CPU and TPM requirements, of course (see footnote). For businesses that have put off refreshing their PC fleet, upgrading to Windows 11 may simply not be an option until more hardware becomes available. Still, none of the solution providers who spoke with CRN for this article offered any criticism of Microsoft’s compatibility requirements for Windows 11. At Kirkland, Wash.-based FusionTek, for instance, CEO Brian Miller applauded Microsoft for sticking to its strategy of putting security ahead of competing considerations. As a managed services provider, “we’re being asked to take care of and be responsible for our clients’ data,” Miller said. Windows 11, he said, “is just giving us the right tools to do that. This sets that security bar higher.” Footnote: While there are methods available for running Windows 11 on non-compatible hardware, which Microsoft is allowing but does not openly condone, businesses “should not take that chance,” said Derek Nwamadi, CEO of Dallasbased solution provider Quantum Symphony. Individual users who know what they’re doing may be able to pull this off without issues, but “as a business, it’s just a bad idea,” Nwamadi said. ■

Scan here for more of CRN’s Windows 11 coverage. OCTOBER 2021

T R I P L E C R O W N AWA R D S

Crowning Achievement

By Rick Whiting

he last 18 months have been a major challenge for the IT industry and the channel as the global pandemic created wild economic swings and forced changes in how businesses operate. That’s led to big shifts in IT priorities and spending—including spiking demand for products and services to support millions of remote workers—and solution providers have scrambled to meet those rapidly changing needs. Amid the shifts and uncertainties, many solution providers rose to the challenge. Each year CRN publishes a number of solution provider lists and rankings including the Solution Provider 500, listing the largest solution providers operating in North America by revenue; the Fast Growth 150, ranking the fastest-growing solution providers; and the Tech Elite 250, showcasing those that have achieved the highest partner levels and certifications from leading IT vendors. And every year a number of solution providers go above and beyond to make all three lists. This year 45 solution providers achieved that feat to become the 2021 class of CRN Triple Crown winners. Making the Triple Crown list for a fourth year is Seattle-based 2nd Watch, which works with Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and—starting this year—Google Cloud Platform to provide managed and professional services for business transformation, data center migration, application modernization and more. The upheaval of the past two years has accelerated demand

OCTOBER 2021

for 2nd Watch’s cloud-based services, said CEO Doug Schneider. Businesses today more clearly see the benefits and flexibility of the public cloud, he said, and the “breadth and depth” of the public cloud services platform. “I think [the pandemic] has changed people’s mindsets, accelerated the change in mindsets, in terms of their becoming more comfortable with the public cloud as their core [IT] execution venue,” Schneider said. “We need to get out of our [on-premises] data centers.” DVBE Technology Group, making the Triple Crown list for the first time, is a Sacramento, Calif.-based provider of IT consulting and staffing services to government and business customers. The company’s IT architecture, integration and project management expertise spans such technology areas as cloud, DevOps, security, storage and telecommunications. The solution provider has seen strong—and growing—demand for its services despite the pandemic and economic uncertainty. “For the last couple of years we’ve been on fire,” said founder and CEO Richard McKinnon. DVBE, for example, is involved in three large health-care IT projects for the state of California worth hundreds of millions of dollars. What’s driving demand? “Anything in security,” McKinnon said. And demand for managed services is surging as government and business customers look to reduce capital spending for IT. “They don’t want to own anything anymore,” he said.

TR I PLE C R O W N AWA R D S

2nd Watch Doug Schneider CEO Seattle

Working with AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud, 2nd Watch provides services around business transformation, data center migration, cloud optimization, data management and analytics, compliance and security, and business continuity.

Advanced Computer Concepts Reza Zarafshar President McLean, Va.

Advanced Computer Concepts’ portfolio of solutions spans cloud, security, networking, collaboration and data center technologies along with audiovisual system design and systems integration and deployment services.

2021 SP 500 Rank: No. 151 2021 Fast Growth Rank: No. 83 2021 Fast Growth: 47% Triple Crown Winner: 2017, 2018, 2020

2021 SP 500 Rank: No. 79 2021 Fast Growth Rank: No. 38 2021 Fast Growth: 88% Triple Crown Winner: 2015, 2016, 2017, 2020

ANM

ATSG

Raminder Mann CEO Albuquerque, N.M.

Anthony D’Ambrosi CEO New York

AHEAD

Daniel Adamany Founder, CEO Chicago

All Covered, IT Services Division of Konica Minolta

Todd Croteau President Ramsey, N.J.

AHEAD builds platforms for digital business, providing enterprise cloud infrastructure, cloud-native applications and intelligent operations management. AHEAD merged with Data Blue and Sovereign Systems in 2019 and acquired RoundTower and Kovarus in 2020.

With an emphasis on what the solution provider calls “intelligent information management” and the “intelligent connected workplace,” All Covered provides services that address applications, cloud, IT security, managed IT and business consulting.

2021 SP 500 Rank: No. 28 2021 Fast Growth Rank: No. 3 2021 Fast Growth: 535% Triple Crown Winner: 2015, 2020

2021 SP 500 Rank: No. 112 2021 Fast Growth Rank: No. 112 2021 Fast Growth: 34% Triple Crown Winner: 2016

Burwood Group

Candoris

Mark Theoharous CEO Chicago

Stephan Van Der Ploog Founder, President, Chief Accountability Officer Annville, Pa.

ANM provides implementation and support services around enterprise networking, cloud, remote workforce, collaboration, security and audiovisual systems. The solution provider just surpassed the $100 million annual sales mark with vendor partner Cisco Systems.

ATSG’s solutions cover IT infrastructure, desktop, disaster recovery and backup, and security. ATSG acquired MTM Technologies in December and the infrastructure management business unit of DatAvail in March.

Burwood Group boasts expertise in cloud, collaboration, cybersecurity, DevOps and network technologies. Google Cloud named Burwood Group its 2020 Industry Solutions Partner of the Year for Public Sector.

2021 SP 500 Rank: No. 140 2021 Fast Growth Rank: No. 88 2021 Fast Growth: 45% Triple Crown Winner: 2017, 2020

2021 SP 500 Rank: No. 203 2021 Fast Growth Rank: No. 26 2021 Fast Growth: 109% Triple Crown Winner: 2020

2021 SP 500 Rank: No. 116 2021 Fast Growth Rank: No. 75 2021 Fast Growth: 52% Triple Crown Winner: 2016, 2017

2021 SP 500 Rank: No. 319 2021 Fast Growth Rank: No. 48 2021 Fast Growth: 75% Triple Crown Winner: New to list

CBTS

CDW Canada

Computacenter United States

Converged Technology Group

Jeff Lackey President Cincinnati

CBTS has expertise in cloud consulting and networks, unified communications, application development and more. A Microsoft Gold partner and Gold Cloud Service Provider, CBTS recently expanded its managed Microsoft solution practice.

2021 SP 500 Rank: No. 40 2021 Fast Growth Rank: No. 148 2021 Fast Growth: 23% Triple Crown Winner: 2020

Ginette Adragna VP, GM Etobicoke, Ontario

CDW Canada is a provider of technology solutions for business, government, education and health care. CDW greatly expanded the operations of its Canadian subsidiary with the 2019 acquisition of Scalar Decisions, one of Canada’s largest solution providers. 2021 SP 500 Rank: No. 42 2021 Fast Growth Rank: No. 126 2021 Fast Growth: 30% Triple Crown Winner: 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018

Kevin Shank, President, Computacenter North America New York

Candoris provides managed IT, application development and digital transformation services and has deep expertise in implementing Salesforce cloud applications. Candoris was just acquired by Computer Design & Integration.

Leo Galletta President, CEO Islandia, N.Y.

Computacenter U.S. has a broad portfolio across data center, cloud, network, security and service desk, complemented by deployment, integration, managed and professional services. NetApp named Computacenter its 2021 North America Flash Partner of the Year.

With a specific focus on the New York and Long Island regions, Converged Technology Group provides IT solutions for data center and cloud, enterprise networking, collaboration and security as well as managed IT and professional services.

2021 SP 500 Rank: No. 27 2021 Fast Growth Rank: No. 15 2021 Fast Growth: 166% Triple Crown Winner: 2020

2021 SP 500 Rank: No. 425 2021 Fast Growth Rank: No. 118 2021 Fast Growth: 32% Triple Crown Winner: New to list

OCTOBER 2021

TR I PLE C R O W N AWA R D S

Coretelligent Kevin Routhier Founder, CEO Westwood, Mass.

CPP Associates Patrick O’Dell Managing Partner Clinton, N.J.

Davenport Group

Decisive Technologies

Sonia St. Charles Co-Founder, CEO St. Paul, Minn.

Mitchell Carkner CEO Stittsville, Ontario

Coretelligent is a provider of managed and co-managed IT support, cybersecurity and cloud services. The solution provider has expertise in IT planning and strategy, security and compliance, unified cloud management, and disaster recovery and backup.

CPP focuses on IT infrastructure, networking and security as well as managed services for midsize to enterprise businesses and the state/local government and education markets. CPP recently lauched a data intelligence practice.

Davenport is an end-to-end IT solution and services provider for commercial and government customers, specializing in data center modernization, virtualization, storage, data protection, hyperconverged infrastructure and client computing.

Decisive implements and maintains resilient and fully integrated custom enterprise IT infrastructure, hybrid cloud, data protection and cybersecurity solutions. Key offerings include the Decisive Group Cloud hosting platform and the Decisive Defensive Cyber Operations Centre.

2021 SP 500 Rank: No. 329 2021 Fast Growth Rank: No. 39 2021 Fast Growth: 86% Triple Crown Winner: 2017, 2020

2021 SP 500 Rank: No. 321 2021 Fast Growth Rank: No. 13 2021 Fast Growth: 187% Triple Crown Winner: New to list

2021 SP 500 Rank: No. 320 2021 Fast Growth Rank: No. 125 2021 Fast Growth: 30% Triple Crown Winner: 2018, 2019

2021 SP 500 Rank: No. 234 2021 Fast Growth Rank: No. 50 2021 Fast Growth: 74% Triple Crown Winner: 2018, 2019, 2020

Denali Advanced Integration

DH Technologies

DVBE Technology Group

Majdi Daher Founder, CEO Redmond, Wash.

Denali delivers enterprise IT solutions and services around data centers, cloud, networking, security, distributed workforce, mobility, collaboration, IoT and contact centers—all supported by managed IT and deployment and integration expertise.

Devin Henderson Founder, CEO Leesburg, Va.

DH Technologies focuses on virtualization and virtual desktops, data center optimization, GPU acceleration, hyperconverged platforms, software-defined networks and AI. The solution provider is a HUBZone-certified small business.

Richard McKinnon Founder, CEO Sacramento, Calif.

Evotek

Cesar Enciso Founder, CEO San Diego

DVBE specializes in IT consulting and staffing services for the public and private sectors. Services extend to cloud, DevOps, security, storage, telecommunications, systems integration and project management.

Evotek provides solutions for data center and cloud environments—including security and mobility—with a focus on digital business transformation. In 2020 it bought Mystic River Consulting to extend its intelligent automation expertise. 2021 SP 500 Rank: No. 97 2021 Fast Growth Rank: No. 27 2021 Fast Growth: 108% Triple Crown Winner: 2018, 2019, 2020

2021 SP 500 Rank: No. 48 2021 Fast Growth Rank: No. 17 2021 Fast Growth: 141% Triple Crown Winner: 2014, 2015

2021 SP 500 Rank: No. 194 2021 Fast Growth Rank: No. 67 2021 Fast Growth: 56% Triple Crown Winner: 2017, 2019, 2020

2021 SP 500 Rank: No. 478 2021 Fast Growth Rank: No. 11 2021 Fast Growth: 226% Triple Crown Winner: New to list

Eze Castle Integration

F3 Technology Partners

Focus Technology

HighPoint

Eze Castle Integration provides managed IT, cybersecurity and business transformation services for the financial and professional services industries. In 2020 the solution provider acquired NorthOut and Alphaserve Technologies.

F3 Technology Partners says it was born in the data center but grew up in the cloud. The solution and managed services provider offers expertise in data center and hybrid cloud infrastructure in addition to data protection and data analytics solutions.

Focus Technology provides managed, professional and help desk services and next-generation IT infrastructure, cloud automation, cybersecurity and data analytics systems. Its new IT SecurManage is a complete, secure network Infrastructure as a Service.

HighPoint develops data center, network infrastructure, security, collaboration and mobility solutions backed up by professional and managed services. HighPoint was named a Cisco CX Specialized Customer Experience Partner this year.

2021 SP 500 Rank: No. 171 2021 Fast Growth Rank: No. 69 2021 Fast Growth: 56% Triple Crown Winner: New to list

2021 SP 500 Rank: No. 383 2021 Fast Growth Rank: No. 51 2021 Fast Growth: 71% Triple Crown Winner: 2016, 2019

2021 SP 500 Rank: No. 278 2021 Fast Growth Rank: No. 117 2021 Fast Growth: 33% Triple Crown Winner: 2014, 2015, 2016, 2020

2021 SP 500 Rank: No. 109 2021 Fast Growth Rank: No. 99 2021 Fast Growth: 39% Triple Crown Winner: 2015, 2020

David Andrade CEO Boston

OCTOBER 2021

Thomas Colleary President West Hartford, Conn.

Douglas Alexander CEO Boston

Mike Mendiburu President Sparta Township, N.J.

How To

Succeed

by Seeing the Whole Story

Cradlepoint’s Partner Program Keeps Business Connected Q. Cradlepoint prides itself on LTE and 5G expertise. Can you provide a high-level overview of Cradlepoint’s solutions and portfolio? A. Cradlepoint’s partner program is helping resellers, service providers and alliance

partners take advantage of the burgeoning Wireless WAN and enterprise 5G opportunity. Cradlepoint’s NetCloud Service and portfolio of LTE and 5G wireless edge solutions for branch, mobile and IoT networking offers partners increased recurring revenue, higher margins and more pull-through sales. Over the last year, Cradlepoint has committed to boosting this program with the launch of our second generation 5G Product Portfolio, including the industry’s first 5G enterprise router.

Q. What market segments and verticals does Cradlepoint serve?

A. With more than 25,000 customers, Cradlepoint helps all companies that need secure,

reliable and flexible connectivity across the enterprise, including everything from small businesses to Fortune 500 corporations and some of the largest government agencies around the world. Cradlepoint provides flexible solutions so organizations can seamlessly connect offices, vehicles and things across industries.

Q. What is the opportunity for Cradlepoint channel partners, and why should they partner with you?

A. According to IDC, the global wireless WAN industry is growing at more than a 30 percent compound annual growth rate and the 5G and LTE Router/Gateway market is forecasted to reach $4.2 billion by 2025.1 Customers are increasingly cutting the cord of traditional wired networks and Cradlepoint is leading the industry in 4G and 5G connectivity. Our heritage is ingrained in wireless and now with Ericsson at our side, our commitment to providing partners with the people, platforms and programs to build a profitable and sustainable Wireless WAN practice is even stronger.

Q. What investments has Cradlepoint made to enable Partners to seize the 5G opportunity and help build a Wireless WAN practice?

A. Cradlepoint has made significant investments in its program to seize greater opportunities. First, our 5G for enterprise branch specialization is the industry’s first business and technical framework to help partners build a successful Wireless WAN and 5G practice based on Cradlepoint’s NetCloud Service. Cradlepoint Cascade is a new engagement platform offering channel partners a streamlined experience to roll out and monetize Cradlepoint solutions to enable customers to capitalize on the era of 5G and Wireless WAN. Lastly, the Technology Alliance Program (TAP) is a curated ecosystem of partnerships delivering a portfolio of “Connected by Cradlepoint” solutions for wireless branch, mobile and IoT networking. 1

IDC Worldwide 5G and LTE Router/Gateway Forecast, August 2021

To learn more about the Cradlepoint Partner Program, visit: https://cradlepoint.com/partners-CRN

Eric Purcell

Senior Vice President, Global Partner Sales and Technology Alliances

”

Customers are increasingly cutting the cord of traditional wired networks and Cradlepoint is leading the industry in 4G and 5G connectivity. Our heritage is ingrained in wireless and with Ericsson at our side, our commitment to providing partners with the people, platforms and programs to build a profitable and sustainable Wireless WAN practice is even stronger.

”

TR I PLE C R O W N AWA R D S

InCare Technologies Brian Walker CEO Birmingham, Ala.

Internetwork Engineering Chuck Steiner President, CEO Charlotte, N.C.

Intuitive Technology Partners Jay Modh, Founder, CEO Edison, N.J.

Involta

Bruce Lehrman Founder, CEO Cedar Rapids, Iowa

InCare Technologies offers expertise in such areas as security, data backup, Microsoft 365 and more. The company’s InCare360 provides IT service and support for a fixed fee. InCare also offers solutions and services for K-12 schools.

Internetwork Engineering provides IT services and solutions in data center, networking, collaboration and cybersecurity. The solution provider’s services follow its “12E” ideas-to-execution methodology.

2021 SP 500 Rank: No. 393 2021 Fast Growth Rank: No. 43 2021 Fast Growth: 85% Triple Crown Winner: 2020

2021 SP 500 Rank: No. 174 2021 Fast Growth Rank: No. 149 2021 Fast Growth: 23% Triple Crown Winner: 2014

2021 SP 500 Rank: No. 436 2021 Fast Growth Rank: No. 20 2021 Fast Growth: 138% Triple Crown Winner: New to list

2021 SP 500 Rank: No. 255 2021 Fast Growth Rank: No. 98 2021 Fast Growth: 40% Triple Crown Winner: 2018

Kovarus

Lewan Technology

Logically

MNJ Technologies

Kovarus provides customers with infrastructure optimization, cloud automation and application delivery solutions—all of these bolstered by managed, professional and systems integration services. Kovarus was acquired by AHEAD in late 2020.

Lewan’s solution portfolio spans IT infrastructure, cloud hosting, virtualization, network security, data protection, VoIP and videoconferencing, and application delivery and mobility. Lewan is owned by Xerox, so print solutions are a core focus.

Logically provides managed services for SMBs, focusing on cloud, security and Microsoft 365 solutions. The solution provider has made several acquisitions over the past year, including MSSP Cerdant to boost its new security business unit.

MNJ provides solutions that cover cloud, data center, security, collaboration, SD-WAN, and network bandwidth and connectivity. Its PremiumCare includes monitoring, configuration management and break/fix managed services.

2021 SP 500 Rank: No. 93 2021 Fast Growth Rank: No. 135 2021 Fast Growth: 27% Triple Crown Winner: 2014, 2015, 2016

2021 SP 500 Rank: No. 256 2021 Fast Growth Rank: No. 124 2021 Fast Growth: 30% Triple Crown Winner: 2015, 2020

2021 SP 500 Rank: No. 303 2021 Fast Growth Rank: No. 35 2021 Fast Growth: 94% Triple Crown Winner: 2016, 2020

2021 SP 500 Rank: No. 128 2021 Fast Growth Rank: No. 110 2021 Fast Growth: 35% Triple Crown Winner: New to list

N2grate Government Technology Solutions

NexusTek

Ntiva

NexusTek specializes in managed IT, cloud hosting and cybersecurity services, including managed protection, detection and response security plans for hybrid and remote workforces. NexusTek won the 2021 Microsoft U.S. Partner Award for Modern Workplace for SMBs.

Ntiva offers managed IT services, cybersecurity solutions, cloud services and business phone systems for commercial businesses and nonprofits. It specializes in providing services and support for Apple and Microsoft products.

Patrick Cronin Co-Founder, Principal San Ramon, Calif.

Mobius Partners Jay Uribe & Junab Ali Co-Founders, Presidents San Antonio

Mobius delivers advanced data center, cloud, digital workspace and DevOps/observability IT solutions, complemented by managed services and professional services such as project management and governance and compliance. 2021 SP 500 Rank: No. 301 2021 Fast Growth Rank: No. 130 2021 Fast Growth: 29% Triple Crown Winner: 2017, 2020

OCTOBER 2021

Daniel Jaramillo VP, IT Sales, Marketing Englewood, Colo.

Steve Halligan President, COO Greenbelt, Md.

N2grate provides strategic services in infrastructure, data center, cybersecurity and cloud computing for government and commercial customers. Its expertise includes enterprise networking and collaboration. 2021 SP 500 Rank: No. 101 2021 Fast Growth Rank: No. 66 2021 Fast Growth: 57% Triple Crown Winner: 2017, 2018, 2020

Intuitive’s infrastructure and cloud services portfolio spans VMware Cloud on AWS, software-defined data centers, cloud and containerization management and automation, SD-WAN, Scrum and Agile development project management, and storage and data protection.

Mike Cowles CEO Portland, Maine

Bill Wosilius CEO Greenwood Village, Colo.

2021 SP 500 Rank: No. 248 2021 Fast Growth Rank: No. 127 2021 Fast Growth: 30% Triple Crown Winner: 2019, 2020

Involta offers data center and colocation services, managed IT, hybrid cloud solutions and security and compliance expertise—all supported by consulting services in IT strategy, assessments, organizational change management and employee skills development.

Susan Kozak, Co-Founder, CEO Buffalo Grove, Ill.

Steven Freidkin CEO McLean, Va.

2021 SP 500 Rank: No. 286 2021 Fast Growth Rank: No. 12 2021 Fast Growth: 189% Triple Crown Winner: 2018, 2019, 2020

How To

Succeed

by Seeing the Whole Story

BlueVoyant Provides Award-Winning Cybersecurity Services For Your Customers Q. What is BlueVoyant and why should partners work with you? A. Founded by past Fortune 500 execs and former government cyber officials,

BlueVoyant is a cybersecurity company providing managed security services that empower and strengthen partners’ existing services portfolio. We’re also a proud winner of a Microsoft Security 20/20 Partner Award for the Top MDR (Managed Detection and Response) Team. I don’t need to talk about the current increase in ransomware, phishing and data breaches for partners to know that managed security services are a must-have for their customers. The global managed security services market size is projected to grow from USD $31.6 billion in 2020 to USD $46.4 billion by 2025, according to a report from Markets and Markets. It’s an amazing opportunity to tap into this recurring revenue stream. BlueVoyant is the right partner to help you do something special for your customers.

Q. What benefits do partners receive by working with BlueVoyant?

A. We’re a Microsoft Gold Partner and a member of the Microsoft Intelligent Security Association (MISA). BlueVoyant was selected as one of the association’s first managed security service providers. We are also a Splunk Premier Partner, our BlueVoyant Modern SOC for Splunk® Cloud Platform service is designed to empower customers and maximize their investment in Splunk Cloud Platform. Our commitment to a channel-first model provides a full spectrum of simplified, onboarding, enablement, co-selling and post-sales support to ensure success throughout the process. BlueVoyant provides technical resources to help partners properly qualify and scope client requirements and generate timely proposals. We have redesigned our partner program to provide maximum value to our partners in a simplified structure designed for growing revenue. We also provide additional quarterly pipeline and sales incentives to our partners.

Q. Why is BlueVoyant different?

A. BlueVoyant doesn’t simply monitor the threat landscape or provide a dashboard— we operate a fully managed SOC, run by an elite team of security analysts providing 24/7 detection, response and remediation. Incident Response is part of our offering, as is the provision of 24/7 SOC services at scale, backed-up by best-of-breed software and talent. The addition of this service to a partner’s offerings provides an incredible opportunity for partners to offer a high-demand service to their customers. Once a partner sees how our team engages, executes and partners with them, the growth and revenue opportunities are unlimited. https://www.bluevoyant.com/partners

Steve DeSantis

Head of North America Partnerships and Alliances

”

It is truly an exciting time to partner with BlueVoyant. By combining BlueVoyant’s industry-leading services with our channel-first strategy, we can provide a highly profitable revenue opportunity for our partners, while delivering awardwinning security service to customers.

”

TR I PLE C R O W N AWA R D S

Red River

ROVE

Sterling

Brad Moore President, CEO North Sioux City, S.D.

Sycomp

David Brown CEO Charlotte, N.C.

Red River has expertise in services and solutions that span data center, cloud, cybersecurity, collaboration, data management, networking, mobility and DevOps. It partnered with Cisco earlier this year to deliver advanced UCaaS solutions.

ROVE provides an array of solutions around audiovisual systems, enterprise collaboration, security and data center management. The solution provider’s TraX platform helps customers manage their IT asset maintenance contracts and renewals.

Sterling serves commercial, education, state and local government, and federal government customers with managed services around data center, cloud and security. It was named Dell Technologies’ 2021 Federal Partner of the Year.

Sycomp is a global provider of data center infrastructure, cloud and security solutions. The company’s professional services include system assessment, design, integration, delivery and implementation backed by training and support.

2021 SP 500 Rank: No. 50 2021 Fast Growth Rank: No. 137 2021 Fast Growth: 26% Triple Crown Winner: 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018

2021 SP 500 Rank: No. 65 2021 Fast Growth Rank: No. 65 2021 Fast Growth: 37% Triple Crown Winner: 2020

Alan Dumas CEO Claremont, N.H.

2021 SP 500 Rank: No. 49 2021 Fast Growth Rank: No. 121 2021 Fast Growth: 31% Triple Crown Winner: 2015, 2016, 2020

Technologent Marco Mohajer President Irvine, Calif.

2021 SP 500 Rank: No. 384 2021 Fast Growth Rank: No. 142 2021 Fast Growth: 25% Triple Crown Winner: 2020

Thrive

Rob Stephenson CEO Foxborough, Mass.

Michael Symons CEO Foster City, Calif.

ThunderCat Technology

Veristor

Tom Deierlein CEO Reston, Va.

Ashby Lincoln, President, CEO Duluth, Ga.

Technologent, which calls itself a global provider of “edge-to-edge” IT solutions and services targeting Fortune 1000 companies, has expertise in converged infrastructure, cloud, security, data storage, and IT automation and operations monitoring.

Thrive offers a range of IT services, from data center and cloud to security and collaboration, running on the ServiceNow-based Thrive Platform. Services utilize a five-step methodology for assessment, system design and implementation.

ThunderCat provides data center infrastructure, cybersecurity, collaboration and data analytics solutions, complemented by cloud and managed services. It is a major IT system and service provider to the U.S. federal government.

Veristor offers a wide range of solutions across data center infrastructure, networking, security, cloud, DevOps, enterprise storage and big data, helping drive its customers’ technology transformation initiatives.

2021 SP 500 Rank: No. 58 2021 Fast Growth Rank: No. 105 2021 Fast Growth: 36% Triple Crown Winner: 2020

2021 SP 500 Rank: No. 247 2021 Fast Growth Rank: No. 102 2021 Fast Growth: 37% Triple Crown Winner: 2019, 2020

2021 SP 500 Rank: No. 51 2021 Fast Growth Rank: No. 141 2021 Fast Growth: 26% Triple Crown Winner: 2020

2021 SP 500 Rank: No. 165 2021 Fast Growth Rank: No. 106 2021 Fast Growth: 36% Triple Crown Winner: 2016, 2017, 2018

WrightCore Scott Byers President, CEO Franklin, Tenn.

WrightCore’s broad solution portfolio covers data center, networking, security and cloud—including AWS, Microsoft Azure and Microsoft 365 as well as the company’s WrightCloud platform.

2021 SP 500 Rank: No. 450 2021 Fast Growth Rank: No. 116 2021 Fast Growth: 33% Triple Crown Winner: New to list

OCTOBER 2021

Congratulations to all of this year’s honorees!

FAST GROWTH

150



How To

Succeed

by Seeing the Whole Story

Ready To Take Your Business To The Next Level? The Spectrum Partner Program is looking for partners that want to expand their reach and grow their business. With premium services for businesses like internet, Voice, TV, Networking, Mobile and Managed Services, Spectrum is making it easier for clients of Partners’ businesses to evolve their networks and address a wide range of business and technology challenges. Best of all, Spectrum Enterprise fiber technology solutions make it easier to work with clients that have multiple locations, or need to expand their business into new markets.

5 Simple Ways the Spectrum Partner Program Can Help You Succeed 1. Comprehensive Product Portfolio – Spectrum offers much more than just internet. In fact, our wholly owned fiber network is built to support the latest emerging technologies, including Managed Services, Wireless Internet Backup and Managed Network Edge, our all-in-one network solution that simplifies the deployment and management of a client’s network. 2. Powerful Earning Opportunities – Through the partner program, you can earn residual commissions and access powerful incentives to boost your revenue. 3. Competitive Offers and Promotions – We provide a selection of offers and promotions designed to help you meet your clients’ budgets, while still maximizing revenue. 4. Our People – Having the right team to support you is crucial. At Spectrum, our dedicated, in-market Channel Managers are always here to help you learn, sell and grow. 5. Systems and Tools – Our advanced partner platform makes it easy to market and sell our products. Access a wide variety of marketing materials, serviceability tools and resources, all designed to help you close more deals. Then, enjoy streamlined order processing and tracking platforms to maximize every opportunity.

Want to learn more about the Spectrum Partner Program? Visit partners.spectrum.com today.

Michelle Kadlacek

Vice President, Enterprise Partner Program, Spectrum Enterprise

”

We continue to

elevate the partner

experience by adding new capabilities

to automate and

streamline functions

”

of our portals.

ON TH E R ECOR D

The Black Hand Of The Channel: It Doesn’t Work

By Robert Faletra E DON’T talk about it much, but we

all know it happens and thankfully we have a work-around. I’m talking about vendors that twist arms in the channel community and tell partners not to talk to CRN reporters. It’s been going on for decades. And, frankly, we know it really doesn’t work. It may slow us down, but it doesn’t stop us from getting the real story. Heck, we like the challenge and the thrill of victory from exposing that hidden gem. There are certain vendors that are far more aggressive in this tactic, and I could name them right now but I won’t for fear of retribution. I say that jokingly but when partners often talk to us they need to go on background or off the record, as we call it, which means I’ll give you the dirt but don’t rat me out. Vendors have two means of controlling the information that gets out. Try to get ahead of it and position it as positively as possible via proactive public relations, which is really marketing. Or try to stop the flow of information by telling everyone not to talk. The first one works. The second one does not. We have a large solid team of aggressive reporters here at CRN. It’s the largest team in high-tech focused on producing content for strategic service providers. So it’s no secret we are publishing stories almost daily with lines like “sources said” or “according to a partner who asked not to be identified.” Frankly, we would rather everyone talk on the record but unfortunately some vendors will take action against a partner that “sings like a canary.” That, by the way is a line out of the movie “On The Waterfront.” In the end, none of these hard-ass tactics ever work for too long and ultimately make for a bigger story that throws a more harsh spotlight on the vendors that act in this manner. Think about it. When our reporters can’t get anyone to talk on the record, the story becomes laden with sources asking not to be identified for fear of retribution.

OCTOBER 2021

That never looks like anything more than what it is. Partners who know what’s happening are not happy and are concerned there are some folks inside that organization who might cause further problems if they know they are the source. This entire situation is impossible to control for every vendor, so why do it? Here are some thoughts on what should be happening. First and foremost, come clean with the CRN team. Explain what is happening and why. The reason for this is it’s the best, fastest and cleanest way to get this information out to the entire channel. And because it’s moving through CRN, our editors are asking the uncomfortable questions that need to be answered but won’t be addressed if it’s a marketing-only announcement. Let’s face it, it’s often not what people tell you that matters— it’s what they don’t tell you. When delivering news that partners may not agree with via a public relations/ marketing message, there is bound to be information left out that ultimately looks like the vendor is trying to hide it. Nothing stays hidden for too long, however. So that approach often backfires. More importantly, being up front as to why the changes causing the channel conflict are being rolled out clarifies what is really going on. Partners appreciate it and can deal with a business decision. They have to make them as well, and we all know the right decision isn’t always the easy decision. If you’re not up front and honest, it ultimately gets exposed and then partners lose trust. So ask yourself this. Do you do more or less business with someone you don’t trust? That answer explains it all. n

B A C K T A L K : Make something happen. Robert Faletra is Executive Chairman of The Channel Company. You can contact him via email at rfaletra@thechannelcompany.com.

Women of the Channel Events 2021 Don’t Miss These One-of-a-Kind Events

These events provide a unique experience for attendees to expand their skills, connect with peers, build new relationships, and get inspired by the women making a significant impact on the IT channel.

Join us for the 2021 Women of the Channel Event Series:

Leadership Summit WEST

November 16-17, 2021

December 6-7, 2021

Palm Springs, CA

New York City

The Women of the Channel Event Series offers women in the IT channel a one-of-a-kind opportunity to take their skills to the next level, connect with peers, and hear from the women having the biggest effect on the IT channel today. Attendees from across the IT channel benefit from motivational keynotes, networking time, skill development, and engaging sessions that all focus on helping them develop their personal, professional, and corporate goals. These events aim to empower and cultivate the next generation of women leaders.

Learn More www.WomenoftheChannel.com

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