7 Channel People of the Week at TD Synnex, Nutanix, Wildix

Artificial intelligence featured heavily on the stages of IBM Think, the vendor's annual conference. The company unveiled a number of new initiatives for partners and their customers. These include developments around watsonx, a product that IBM's partners claim came out as generative AI years before its competitors.

“Amazon just released their first draft of their AI software, while IBM has been at it for 10 or more years,” Innovative Solutions VP of product and service delivery Travis Rehl said. "It shows how much more experience IBM has with this technology compared to its competitors."

Learn more about IBM Partner Plus Day and the vendor's reveals here.

TD Synnex launched its Beyond Security 2024 event this week by unveiling its MSP Evolve program, which will aggregate all of its resources and tools to help MSPs and partners address their current needs.

“MSP Evolve was created to meet MSPs where they are today and enables them to make larger strides toward building a more agile business, whether they are looking to expand into new areas or accelerate growth in an existing practice,” said Meredith Payne, TD Synnex’s senior director of cloud. “By leveraging the breadth of our comprehensive offerings, MSPs can achieve greater automation, expand their capabilities and maximize their market potential in this highly competitive industry."

Learn more about MSP Evolve and TD Synnex's plans for it here.

SD-WAN providers are reporting that they're experiencing increasing demand for their products while more clients are adopting cloud services. SD-WAN provides reliable, secure and high-performance connectivity to cloud applications and services. It's also known to come with integrated security features such as encryption, firewall and other advanced features to help protect against security threats and complement the services provided by a cloud-based security service edge.

“Hyperscalers are adding services, colocation providers are increasing connectivity options and network operators are expanding their service offerings,” said Eric Hanselman, chief analyst, TMT, at 451 Research, a part of S&P Global Market Intelligence. “Cloud-delivered services have become more attractive to the midmarket as more of their application use has shifted to cloud and SaaS.”

Learn about SD-WAN market trends and to see who made Channel Futures' list of top providers here.

Palo Alto Networks intends to acquire IBM's QRadar SaaS assets as part of a new partnership between the companies to provide AI-powered security offerings.

Some analysts view the partnership as a significant game-changer in the marketplace by some analysts.

"No doubt one of the most surprising moves I've seen in the enterprise cybersecurity space in many years," Eric Parizo, managing principal analyst at Omdia said. "While I expect more detail about the overall partnership to emerge soon, the overall rationale seems to be that IBM CEO Arvind Krishna ultimately decided that the revenue from a long-term partnership providing security services for Palo Alto Networks was more lucrative than competing in an next-generation security information and event management (SIEM) market where Microsoft's rapid rise is quickly altering the landscape. For proof, look no further than Splunk's recent decision to sell it itself to Cisco, and the newly announced and the newly announced merger of struggling mid-tier competitors Exabeam and LogRhythm."

Learn more about Palo Alto's acquisition here.

Nutanix attempted to pivot and place the company as an alternative to VMware in the hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) marketplace while emphasizing its role as an innovator in generative AI. The company unveiled a number of new product design decisions during its Nutanix Next user conference in Barcelona.

VMWare's grip on that market is fairly tight, which means that its ability to shift the market will likely take some time.

“Customers are asking their partners, ‘What should I do?’ And partners are looking at Nutanix to answer that question,” Dave Gwyn, Nutanix SVP of worldwide channels and customer success said. "We’re seeing a shift there. But this isn’t an overnight thing.”

Learn more about Nutanix's market efforts here.

Wildix, the cloud-based unified communications provider, appointed Jason Uslan, a former executive from RingCentral, as VP of global sales.

Uslan is eager to fulfill his role and has stated that his experience at past companies has prepared him for this role.

"I'm keen to hit the ground running and apply my hard skills and deep wisdom of the UC market to help drive even more success, for both Wildix and our partners," Uslan said.

Learn more about Wildix's latest hire here.

Enterprises and IT teams are slowly migrating their networks off of copper-based wire facilities.

Incumbent local exchange carriers have been closing their copper-based wire facilities fairly quickly after the Federal Communications Commission granted forbearance for carriers in 2022. AT&T, Verizon and CenturyLink all announced that they were shutting down these facilities while moving onward to fiber-based facilities. Those transitions are increasing the bills to cover particular costs for carriers, however.

“We understand why carriers are increasing the pricing because they want everyone off the analog network. I get it. But some of these customers are afraid to make the change. They don't know what to do, because they're scared, and they don't understand the technology," D&M Enterprise president Steve Gerhardt, a channel partner, said. "Some customers technology has passed them by. They know what works, and they don't want to make a change because if they make a change and it doesn't work, people get fired.”

Learn more about the transition from copper to fiber here.

Enterprises and IT teams are slowly migrating their networks off of copper-based wire facilities.

Incumbent local exchange carriers have been closing their copper-based wire facilities fairly quickly after the Federal Communications Commission granted forbearance for carriers in 2022. AT&T, Verizon and CenturyLink all announced that they were shutting down these facilities while moving onward to fiber-based facilities. Those transitions are increasing the bills to cover particular costs for carriers, however.

“We understand why carriers are increasing the pricing because they want everyone off the analog network. I get it. But some of these customers are afraid to make the change. They don't know what to do, because they're scared, and they don't understand the technology," D&M Enterprise president Steve Gerhardt, a channel partner, said. "Some customers technology has passed them by. They know what works, and they don't want to make a change because if they make a change and it doesn't work, people get fired.”

Learn more about the transition from copper to fiber here.