Channel Partner Program Roundup: Brocade, Carousel, M5

Howdy, folks, and welcome to the latest edition of the Channel Partner Program Roundup, our weekly collection of channel partner program news you need to know about. This week we’ve got news from Brocade (NASDAQ: BRCD), Carousel Industries and M5 Networks, so listen up ’cause we’re burning daylight.

Brocade: The networking vendor has a new worldwide channel chief in Regan McGrath, who was formerly vice president of Sales for the Americas region. McGrath will oversee global channel sales and marketing to drive increased volume and efficiencies through differentiated programs, especially for Brocade’s campus LAN business. He takes the position vacated by Barbara Spicek, who will oversee Brocade’s Europe, Middle-East and Africa (EMEA) OEM business unit.

I don’t know too much about Brocade’s new channel chief, except he must be a fine Irishman with a name like Regan McGrath. But we’re scheduled to chat next week, so stay tuned.

Carousel Industries: The networking and video/unified communications integrator has made some strategic hires to highlight areas of opportunity. Patrick Britton joins as vice president of video and A/V integration, responsible for the service and delivery of said solutions, and Michael Fitch has joined as vice president of managed and Premier One services, responsible for Carousel’s services delivery component. Nick Kolintzas, meanwhile, is now vice president of engineering operations, and will be tasked with driving innovation and process improvements across Carousel’s presales engineering teams.

M5 Networks: The Cloud division of ShoreTel (NASDAQ: SHOR) has added IPC Technologies as an Alliance partner, enabling it to offer ShoreTel’s cloud-based voice, unified communications (UC) and contact center offerings. The company already was a certified Gold Champion ShoreTel partner and was recognized as the Fastest-Growing Partner on the Planet at ShoreTel’s 2011 annual partner conference.

“IPC is prouder than ever to be a ShoreTel partner. We believe this partnership puts us in a position to deliver unmatched value to our customers, whether they deploy IP communications on-premise or in the cloud,” said Ken Banks, CEO, IPC Technologies, in a statement.

And that’s it for this week’s Channel Partner Program Roundup. Check back next week for more partner nuggets. Until then, don’t chap your hide.