Channel Partners’ Top 12 Stories in July

July was another hot month for categories like M&A, new hires and conversations with channel chiefs from some of the biggest names in the business.

Channel Partners’ top 12 stories from July include happenings at CenturyLink, Verizon, XO Communications, Salesforce, ShoreTel, Microsoft and more. As always, our top posts are determined by you! We’ve combined online page views and interest from our weekly newsletter audience.

Click through our gallery to see which story was No. 1.

Looking for more? Click here to see our most-read posts in June.

Follow executive editor Craig Galbraith on Twitter.

While both of the major candidates might have a lot to lose from a security breach, it was Donald Trump and the GOP convention that had analysts making forecasts about a cyberattack.

Stealthcare CEO Jeremy Samide said that an attack wouldn’t likely come from “hacktivists who are indignant over Donald Trump’s confrontational manner and offensive positions,” noting that the recent attack against the DNC that compromised donor lists and other info pointed directly to state-sponsored hackers.

Read our full story here.

A lot of you were interested to learn that Kevin Lozeau was taking the reins in channel marketing for Kaspersky Lab North America.

Formerly of Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Lozeau will be responsible for finding new partners and executing marketing for current Kaspersky partners.

Click here to learn more about Lozeau and his new role at Kaspersky.

Verizon’s pending $1.8 billion purchase of XO Communications’ fiber-optic network business is the talk of the channel.

In late July, approval of the deal hit a snag; the FCC paused its 180-day review of the deal on day 86 of the process.

The agency issued information requests to XO Holdings and Verizon with a return date of July 7. As of July 20, “neither applicant has completed their production of responsive material. Further, with respect to certain information requests, no anticipated production date has been offered.

Late spring and early summer were busy times for companies that do business in the channel to wheel and deal.

Our bimonthly M&A gallery drew your eyes, particularly considering the names involved: Verizon-XO. Charter-Time Warner Cable. Mitel-Polycom, just to name a few.

This is where to read about the biggest M&A news from May and June.

Master agency Sandler Partners is getting a whole lot bigger, expanding its national footprint by acquiring X4 Solutions, the Midwest-based master.

Sandler Partners said the acquisition positions it as the nation’s second-largest telecom and cloud services master agency. Together, the companies serve more than 4,000 sales partners in the West, Northwest, Southwest and Midwest.

Alan Sandler, Sandler Partners’ founder and managing partner, tells Channel Partners the “most important thing to us is not to disrupt the employee and partner relationships at X4, so there will be no immediate changes.”

Get the full scoop on this big channel acquisition here.

Salesforce, the cloud computing giant, is experiencing rapid growth through both acquisitions and expanding its range of capabilities.

With all of that expansion comes growing pains as Salesforce adds partners and works to maintain an infrastructure that improves profit margins as the amount of sales increases.

In this Q&A with Channel Partners, Neeracha Taychakhoonavudh, Salesforce’s SVP of partner programs and marketing, talked about what the company’s growth means for partners and how enablement is a top priority.

Baseball lovers have a visit to Fenway Park on their bucket list.

One night last month, ShoreTel – along with partner Harbor Networks, which installed the system – and CIOs from the Red Sox and San Francisco Giants hosted press and analysts to celebrate the companies’ successful launch as the team’s official communications providers.

Our photos, Green Monster and all, are here.

Thousands of Microsoft partners descended on Toronto last month and Channel Partners was there.

At WPC 2016, we introduced you to newly appointed Judson Althoff, executive vice president for Microsoft’s worldwide commercial business, who on stage laid out the company’s six FY17 priorities: Drive digital transformation with customers; accelerate cloud adoption; propel Windows 10 enterprise deployment; generate SQL Server 2016 growth; drive ISV and SI momentum; and, make the experience come to life through hardware solutions.

New channel chief Gavriella Schuster also addressed the crowd for the first time in that role.

All of our Microsoft WPC highlights are here.

Might big changes be ahead for Level 3 Communications? Analysts were buzzing about possible M&A, including an acquisition by Comcast.

Comcast was rumored to be a suitor, but Oppenheimer & Co. analyst Tim Horan said the cable giant is unlikely to acquire Level 3 over the next few years because it is focused on its consumer offerings, and is more likely to focus on its wireless strategy before it would consider making a major acquisition in the enterprise space.

Colt and Zayo are potential targets if Level 3 chooses to be the buyer, the analyst said.

The rest of the Level 3 M&A speculation can be found here.

No surprise: Our Channel People on the Move image gallery, highlighting movers and shakers in June, cracked our top 12 … again. You love to see who’s getting hired and promoted.

CenturyLink told the FCC that it is replacing copper-based wireline facilities in cities in eight states.

The retirements are necessary to “respond to various factors in the outside plant, including road construction, maintenance problems and growth accommodation,” the telco said. Replacement cables may be either copper or fiber, all expected to happen by December.

Learn more about these changes here.

In quite the rare feat, this article from guest authors Michael Goodenough and Jo Peterson, published in April, was our most-read story for the second month in a row.

BCM One’s VP of cloud solutions and Clarify360’s VP for cloud offered up the top 10 cloud certifications for partners – both vendor-specific and vendor-independent – designed to equip you with the tools to help customers succeed.