Channel Partners’ Top 12 Stories in April

April was another big month for news in the channel, with the Channel Partners Conference & Expo being a driver behind some important announcements.

As is the norm, our top 12 is determined by comparing online page views with our weekly newsletter results.

April featured the marriage of Windstream and Broadview Networks, a team-up with big channel implications. We handed out awards to 25 worthy partner businesses and 14 channel executives. Avaya laid out a chapter 11 reorganization plan and partners continued to talk about the shutdown of Toshiba’s telecom division. Those stories and more are in our monthly gallery.

So what was No. 1? Click through our gallery to find out!

Looking for more top stories? Click here to see our most-read posts in March.

Follow executive editor @Craig_Galbraith on Twitter.

In an interview ahead of the Channel Partners Conference & Expo, NTT America’s Rob Westervelt told us that managed services and infrastructure outsourcing services have gained significant traction with recent wins for the company’s partners, including a data center upgrade and expansion, and a global end-to-end managed infrastructure deal.

NTT Com launched its Global Solutions Channel Partner Program, an indirect sales program tailored to the U.S. market, two-and-a-half years ago.

Read more about NTT’s recent success here.

Ingram Micro Cloud used the first day of its Cloud Summit in Phoenix to unveil a long list of solutions of tools that are said to help partners master infrastructure as a service (IaaS).

The solutions include a new generation of Odin Automation – Ingram Micro’s cloud delivery program; Ingram Micro Cloud Orchestrator – which simplifies and automates workloads in various cloud environments; and an expanded cloud referral program.

Renee Bergeron, Ingram Micro’s senior vice president of global cloud, called IaaS “the biggest opportunity” for channel partners.

Click here to read more about the IaaS opportunity.

Varnex, the peer-to-peer community of Synnex resellers, celebrated its 10th anniversary at its spring conference in Austin, Texas.

Synnex’s Bob Stegner, senior vice president of marketing, North America, told us that adaptability is key to a partner’s business, whether that means changing their business model or expanding to new vertical industry sectors — that’s where Varnex focuses on helping partners today.

See our image gallery for highlights and a recap of the event.

We recognized 25 partner business at the Channel Partners Conference & Expo with our Channel Partners 360° Business Value Awards.

Agents, VARs, MSPs, SIs and channel consultants are all eligible for the honors, now in their fifth year. You can be part of our networking event at Channel Partners Evolution if you submit an application highlighting a case study where you provided holistic telecom and IT solutions to a customer.

See our gallery of winners accepting their hardware.

Extreme Networks’ purchase of Brocade’s data-center networking unit, along with its planned purchase of Avaya’s networking business, could make it the third-largest wired and wireless enterprise networking equipment vendor behind Cisco and HPE.

So says Jim Duffy, senior analyst of networking at 451 Research.

Extreme’s $55 million bid for Brocade comes a year after Brocade purchased Ruckus Wireless and months after Broadcom announced it would buy Brocade for about $6 billion.

Read our complete story here.

A well-known IT channel leader took a new job with Xerox.

Pete Peterson, who spent 19 years at Tech Data, is the new senior vice president of global channel strategy for the digital printing services provider.. The company said his appointment reflects its desire to extend its reach to more resellers and better support its channel partners.

Peterson’s held a couple of jobs since leaving Tech Data. Read about them here.

At an invitation-only dinner at the Channel Partners Conference & Expo, we recognized 14 channel executives for their leadership in this time of channel convergence — inducting them into our Circle of Excellence.

Who received this prestigious honor? Our image gallery from the event shows you.

In just the latest big acquisition with channel implications, Windstream said it is buying Broadview Networks for $228 million.

Michael Flannery, Windstream’s senior vice president of CLEC SMB, told Channel Partners that the acquisition makes Windstream a stronger competitor in an attractive, high-growth market.

Click here to read what some master agents think of the deal.

A story first published in March cracked our top 12 again in April.

Dealers across the Americas, including Ben Stiegler of Snaptech IT, tell us they were caught off guard by Toshiba’s plans to shut down its business phone division.

In a letter, Brian Metherell, vice president and general manager of Toshiba America Information Systems’ (TAIS) Telecommunication Systems Division (TSD), notified dealers of the pending closure, deeming it “necessary to wind down our Telecommunication Systems Division (TSD) business starting immediately,” he said.

Read more about the uproar here.

The show floor is always the most happenin’ place at the Channel Partners Conference & Expo; hence, it’s typically the image gallery from the show that you are most interested in.

Click here to see some of the biggest booths and most interesting things happening in the expo hall.

No surprise to see our monthly Channel People on the Move feature in the top two, let alone our top 12.

Click here to see who made our April 1 edition.

You’ve been very interested in the ongoing Avaya chapter 11 bankruptcy saga, which was our No. 1 story in 2016. 

In April, the company offered up a reorganization plan and related disclosure statement with the goal of cutting its debt by more than $4 billion.

The plan outlines a path to “significantly reduce” Avaya’s pre-filing debt of about $6.3 billion, which would “strengthen the company’s balance sheet, improve financial flexibility and position it for long-term success,” the company said.

Many more details about Avaya’s plan can be found here.