April’s Channel Program Changes

April not only brought spring showers, but a good helping of new and changing channel programs. Some of those were announced at the Channel Partners Conference & Expo.

In our monthly recap, you’ll find Windstream’s plans for partners now that it’s acquisition of EarthLink is complete; a new partnership between Comcast Business and Avant; and new marketing and sales training programs from TBI.

Click through our gallery to catch up on the important news you might’ve missed.

Missed March’s big channel changes? We’ve placed them in a time capsule just for you to open here! Find those here.

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Windstream announced plans for enhancements to its channel partner program following its merger with EarthLink earlier this year.

The Arkansas-based communications giant added sales engineering team members across the company’s service areas, a consolidated service-order coordinator and channel advocate programs.

Get details on the enhancements.

Comcast Business signed an agreement with Avant in which the master agent will offer Comcast Business services to its channel sales partners.

Through the agreement, Avant is expanding its portfolio to enhance high-speed access to SD-WAN and colocation.

Learn more about the partnership.

Speaking of Avant, the company enhanced its channel sales enablement program, delivered to partners as a service, and released its BattleApp v.2.1 with expanded face-to-face selling capabilities.

The program includes sales methodology, skilled sales engineering support resources and enhanced training experiences.

Read about the enablement program.

TBI started new marketing and training programs for its partners.

The company will be offering boot camps on voice, networking, security and cloud in various cities — three regional events showcasing emerging technologies. The distributor also added a certification program for sales support teams.

Find out more about the new TBI programs.

At the Channel Partners Conference & Expo, WTG announced a partnership with communications carrier pdvWIRELESS. WTG agent partners can now sell pdvWIRELESS’ push-to-talk and GPS tracking solutions.

Get details on the partnership.

RingCentral launched its new Channel Harmony: One to Infinity Program, which awards partners 100 percent commissions on all deals while allowing them to work alongside a vertical-and segment-specific subject-matter expert.

RingCentral also announced a new premier master-agent partnership with PlanetOne Communications that extends its market reach to U.S.-based agents and MSPs.

Get the details on RingCentral’s new channel program.

Citrix officially kicked off the new Citrix Services Delivery Program as it moves more of its business to the cloud.

The program has two components: Services Delivery Kits and Services Delivery Certification. The Services Delivery Kits are available to all partners. The kits provide partners with Citrix intellectual property (IP) related to delivering a given Citrix solution, i.e. design, implementation or build.

Learn about these changes.

Ingram Micro partnered with Cisco to sell the Spark collaboration suite through partners.

The distribution giant at the same time earned recognition from Symantec as a global distribution partner authorized to sell Symantec’s network security portfolio. The Integrated Cyber Defense enterprise portfolio includes solutions for cloud security, data loss prevention and data-center security.

Read more about Ingram’s new agreements.

Carousel Industries launched a national agent partner program, which lets telecom agents, VARs and MSPs resell the company’s services, including, cloud, data center, hosted, managed services, networking and inventory management.

Read Carousel’s announcement about the program for more details.

NetFortris, a provider of secure cloud-based communication services, launched its combined channel partner program with Fonality, a provider of UCaaS communications software for SMEs and SMBs.

Earlier this year, NetFortris acquired Fonality, creating a company with operating centers in three countries.

Check out the details on the updated program.

Kaspersky Lab launched a new partner program for MSPs offering security services. The offerings in Kaspersky’s security portfolio include virtualization security, managed security and remote security monitoring.

Check out Kaspersky’s announcement about the program.

Rise Broadband introduced new Alliance Channel Partner programs aimed at identifying, recruiting, motivating and compensating master agents, broadband resellers and aggregators.

The new programs from the fixed-wireless broadband services provider are designed to support partners of all types, and include a tiered commission plan, sales staff and support.

Learn more about Rise Broadband.

CoreSite Realty Corp., the data center and interconnection provider, is now offering a referral program.

CoreSite partners can use three different engagement models with the partner program: referral, reseller and agent.

Read about CoreSite’s channel program changes.