Image Gallery: Bridgepointe Technologies Rebranding Event, Featuring AT&T, CenturyLink
The trusted IT strategist.
That’s how Bridgepointe Technologies wants you to view it and its partners. The master agency gathered partners, employees and suppliers in a two-day event in San Francisco in order to unveil its new branding.
The company dedicated Thursday, Feb. 8, to reintroducing its logo and mission. An outside consultant oversaw the overhaul, creating a modern brand that projects Bridgepointe as tech-savvy and unbiased. Steve Brazell, who led the rebranding, told partners that Bridgepointe wants to better present itself as a vendor-agnostic adviser that can credibly navigate customers through an endless list of technology choices.
But the event featured more than just Bridgepointe. AT&T Partner Solutions channel chief Zee Hussain made an appearance and recapped changes to the partner programs he oversees. CenturyLink co-channel chief John DeLozier spoke on Friday, Feb.9, about the company’s integration with Level 3 Communications.
Bridgepointe dedicated Friday’s proceedings to panels. A unified communications panel kicked the day off and preceded talks about cloud and SD-WAN.
Scroll through the gallery below to see the event highlights.
Zee Hussain
AT&T's channel chief opened up the proceedings on Feb. 8. Hussain, who took the helm of AT&T Partner Solutions in October, detailed the changes that the carrier has made to Partner Exchange, Alliance Channel and ACC Business — the company's three major indirect programs that now are rolled up under the Partner Solutions umbrella.
Hussain explained that AT&T Business is increasing its focus on the channel as a whole. The new initiative has resulted in increased staffing within ACC and a successful pilot within Alliance Channel.
Read more from Hussain's presentation (his section begins at the bottom of the page).
Evars and MillerBridgepointe co-founders Brian Miller (left) and Scott Evars (right) played occasional emcee roles at the event. They explained that they believed it was wise to entrust the rebranding of the company to outside eyes. The third party later took the audience through the details of the rebranding.
Evars and Miller founded Bridgepointe in 2002.
The Hitman
Steve Brazell of Hitman masterminded the rebrand and presented it to Bridgepointe partners. He introduced sleek, Matrix-themed logos and taglines that expand on the idea of Bridgepointe being "Your Signal in the Noise."Brazell said the modern master agent needs to stand out in the abundance of confusing choices business customers face.
“The biggest problem in the market: overwhelming choice," he said. "Everyone is saying their product will solve your needs, but how can you be sure?"
Get details about the rebrand on our event recap.
New Logo
Brazell unveiled the drastically altered Bridgepointe signage. The master agent is calling itself and its partners "trusted IT strategists." The San Mateo, California-based company plans to use its proximity to Silicon Valley to enhance its reputation for understanding technology.“In short, we’re able to tell our clients, ‘Look, we know what’s hot. We know what’s next, and we know what you should pay for it,’" Brazell said. "We can give them that strategic advice."
CenturyLink
John DeLozier, vice president of strategic partners and alliances for CenturyLink, opened the session on Feb. 9 by speaking to Bridgepointe partners. He aimed to reassure them that they will not be negatively impacted by CenturyLink's $34 billion acquisition of Level 3 Communications. He dismissed the rumors that direct sales people will encroach on partner territory.“We’ve actually, in some places, tripled, quadrupled pre-sales resources, post-sales resources, project management, the things that make a huge difference for you in the weeds," he said. "If those things don’t go well, everything can go bad, so we’ve made a huge investment there to stand on your own."
Read more about what DeLozier said.
UCaaS Panel
The first Feb. 9 morning panel featured (left to right) Jon Heaps of Talkdesk, Ken Bisnoff of TPx Communications, Scott Sampson of 8x8 and Doug Starzak of RingCentral. The four discussed the present state and future of unified communications, and they agreed that it has reached a new stage of evolution. Businesses are expecting contact-center functionality and the unification of previously separated features to enhance the customer experience.
The panelists also fielded a question about the emergence of Slack and other collaboration upstarts.
Read our recap of the discussion.
Cloud Panel
The second panel featured (left to right) Jim Vonich of Equinix, Ryan Ribary of Synoptek, Todd Brockdorf of IBM and Brian Eichman of CoreSite. The topic, "How to Capitalize on the Impact Hyperscale Cloud Providers are Having on Colocation and Private Cloud Businesses" inspired a lengthy discussion on the relationship between data centers and public cloud providers.
SD-WAN
Panelists from Cato Networks, Tata Communications, Telstra and Masergy spoke on the topic of software-defined wide area networking (SD-WAN). Cato's Shawn McCarthy (far left) drew a sharp contrast from his colleagues on the topic of MPLS. He sees SD-WAN as a replacement for MPLS — and his CEO echoed that sentiment in our latest SD-WAN roundup.
Bridgepointe Partners
Attendees celebrated the event wrap-up the afternoon of Feb. 9. Bridgepointe served breakfast and refreshments for attendees as they watched three technology-related panels Friday morning. Bridgepointe employees, partners and suppliers comprised the audience.
