By Khali Henderson

After 17 years, the Agent Alliance is rebranding as The Alliance in an effort to better reflect its present mission and membership, which has evolved from telecom agents to channel partners providing telecom, IT and cloud services.

The Alliance, a corporation owned by 18 member companies, voted to make the change at the quarterly board meeting held at the end of March.

“This is an important next step in our mission and evolution,” said The Alliance Chairman Richard Murray, who also is owner of CarrierSales. “As key influencers and opinion leaders in the industry, we want to be inclusive of all trending business segments rather than exclusive to the telecom industry alone. Our new name reflects that objective.”

Along with the new name, the group is rolling out a new logo and tagline: “Forging the Future. Together.”

The rebranding effort has been underway for the past several months and reflects the organization’s new board composition and direction in the cloud and IT universe, according to The Alliance CEO Bill Power.

In a July 2013 interview, Power told Channel Partners that the alliance wants to accelerate its growth plans. Last  year, the alliance has added four new members – Cloud Taskforce, Fostar Telecommunications, Avant Communications Inc. and Exemplify Inc. – and is expecting to add more, with an initiative aimed at recruiting more IT solutions providers.

Alliance members offer expertise in telecommunications and IT products and services, including voice and data services, wide area networks, collaboration technologies, VoIP and cloud services.