Comcast Business Modifies Compensation, Support Structure Amid Masergy Channel Integration

… walked past some of those smaller opportunities in the past,” he said. “We’re not walking past them anymore. Whatever the size is, we’re going to be able to focus on it.

Telarus CEO Adam Edwards said Masergy will allow partners to “sell more aggressively” into the mid-market using Comcast’s network.

Telarus’ Adam Edwards

“Mid-enterprise opportunities are significantly different than SMB access transactions and this requires a different approach,” said Edwards, who called Comcast a “best-in-class” channel model. “We’re confident the Comcast channel team will be able to manage both sales and channel motions as a best-in-class supplier.”

Gary Jacobs, vice president of operations and sales programs for Bridgepointe Technologies, agreed.

“The combination of the two companies is a good thing. Both benefit from what the other had to offer which will make them much stronger together. Masergy opens up the international market and a host of solid security and NAS offerings while Comcast offers Masergy the ability to reduce access costs for the delivery of their services. Plus, this will help Masergy further fund the growth of their product set. Customers ultimately benefit because together the companies will offer services that will meet most customer’s needs.”

Bridgepointe’s Gary Jacobs

Long-Term Vision

For now Comcast Business is branding itself at channel events as Comcast Business and Masergy. Schlagbaum said the Masergy brand will eventually sunset into the Comcast Business brand, but that will come later down the road.

“We’re going to combine those two programs and make a best-of-breed, combined program. For now we’re just going to continue it as it was and then merge them together and give you the best of both worlds.”

Comcast is positioning itself as key rival to the largest U.S. ILECs. Schlagbaum said the case could be made that Comcast’s combined channel efforts exceed its service provider peers in terms of revenue and sales. He suggested that the agent landscape will undergo an evolution the VAR community underwent in picking key vendor partners. Whereas resellers aligned themselves with suppliers like Microsoft, Cisco or HP, Schlagbaum said agents may make the same decisions about service providers.

“I think they’re going to have to make some choices in the coming years of who to play with, and we’re obviously setting ourselves up to be one of the key ones,” he said.