Top 12 Stories in January: Birch, Telarus, More

Some stories really have legs.

You’ll recognize a couple of these that are making their third straight appearance on our list.

So what was hot in January? A sampling includes AT&T’s new IoT partner program; two well-known channel vets taking new jobs at Telarus and Computex; and our list of predictions for 2017.

As you’ve come to expect, our tally comes from an aggregate of online page views and weekly newsletter results.

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 December.

Follow executive editor @Craig_Galbraith on Twitter.

A survey from Clutch no doubt helped some partners decide which cloud might be the best fit for their customers.

The research ID’d Microsoft Azure as the public cloud that enterprises like the best, while SMBs gravitate most toward Google Cloud Platform (GCP).

Among survey respondents, nearly 40 percent of Azure users identified as enterprises, while 25 percent said they were SMBs and 22 percent called themselves startups/sole proprietorships.

The trends among enterprises and SMBs reflect the strengths of each platform, Clutch said. How? Click here to learn more.

AT&T announced a new partner program to help partners bite off a chunk of the massive IoT pie.

It’s available to technology providers, developers, integrators, solution providers and resellers. Resources include developer programs and network-ready certification programs, as well as the ability for solution providers to connect with IoT professionals from AT&T.

Learn more here.

Our profile of 10 hot startups, first published in November, keeps rolling. It cracked our top 12 for the third consecutive month.

Several are storage providers; others offer cloud migration, analytics, data-center services, security — or a combination of two or more of these hot services.

Want to see who we featured? Click here.

Birch Communications agreed to pay more than $6 million to settle an FCC investigation regarding deceptive billing and marketing.

The Enforcement Bureau investigation specifically focused on whether Birch “slammed” consumers, including both small businesses and law firms, by switching their preferred phone carriers without authorization, “crammed” unauthorized charges on its customers’ bills and engaged in deceptive marketing.

Read more about the trouble Birch found itself in here.

Our collection of case studies dubbed “Security as Business Enabler,” published way back in April, caught your eye last month.

The Report offered up ways that Cryptzone, AlienVault and Effortless were able to overcome customer concerns about security.

Read the case studies here.

No one can predict the future and guarantee being right; nonetheless, we asked a number of industry experts to give it a shot.

Here’s a look at what they point to as imperatives for 2017. (Hint: A successful digital transformation tops the list.)

The wave of M&A in telecom and IT over the past few months has been knee-buckling.

CenturyLink’s proposed purchase of Level 3. Verizon selling its data center to Equinix. Windstream-EarthLink. Zayo-Electric Lightwave/Integra. All were announced in the fourth quarter of last year, and all will have an impact on the channel.

Our recap will take you on a wild ride.

By now, you probably know where Bobby Fabris landed a new job.

That’s because you, your friends and colleagues turned to Channel Partners in droves to read about the former regional channel manager at Level 3 taking up a new home as a senior partner development manager with master agent Telarus. He’ll be based in the southeastern U.S.

One of the few who missed the story? It’s here.

Frank Vitagliano is another longtime channel vet who took on a new position.

Vitagliano spent 33 years at IBM before recent stints at Juniper Networks and Dell. Now he’s agreed to become president and CEO of Computex Technology Solutions, a national IT solutions provider, replacing retiring co-founder and CEO, Jason Haffar.

What will Vitagliano be up to in his new job? Find out more here.

What does it say when a feature of top stories cracks a list of top stories? Don’t think too hard about that.

Many of you wanted to learn what ranked at the top of our Top Stories of 2016, calculated by considering online page views and weekly newsletter results.

And last year’s top story was … what, did you think we were going to spoil it? In case you missed it, find out here!

There it is again, the loyal and sturdy Channel People on the Move.

Cracking our top 12 (and our top five for that matter) every month for as long as we’ve been doing a list of top stories is our recap of who got hired and promoted in the channel.

This edition featured people on the move at Broadvoice, Fusion and TBI.

It was our top story two months in a row: rumors that Avaya was bankruptcy-bound and its call centers might be on the chopping block.

The former became reality in January, as Avaya filed for chapter 11 protection to reduce its debt. That “helped” it remain No. 1 on our list for the third consecutive month.

The company, however, said that is won’t sell its call-center business because doing so “would not maximize value for Avaya’s customers and all of its stakeholders.”

Avaya’s foreign affiliates are not included in the bankruptcy filing and will continue normal operations. It obtained a $725 million loan from a Citibank affiliate to support its continuing business operations.

Avaya is more than $6 billion in debt as it has tried to transition from a legacy hardware business to a software and services company.

Read the full story here.

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