We wrote about a video conference competitor to Zoom and several personnel appointments this week.

The channel saw multiple hires in the last five days. Masergy and OneStream Networks both filled executive roles recently. The news also featured an SD-WAN partnership and a complaint about a carrier’s bankruptcy plans.

The seven mini-stories below summarize the top news of the week.

7. Fusion Connect Picks Fortinet as Second SD-WAN Partner

Fortinet joined VMware as a Fusion Connect SD-WAN provider.

Fusion has been partnering with VMware VeloCloud for three years but recently added Fortinet to enhance its portfolio. The addition gives customers flexibility for their networks. Moreover, Fortinet’s offering includes a built-in next-gen firewall.

Check out the story.

6. NetFortris Promotes Telarus, Net2Phone Vet to Lead Channel Sales Team

Shawn Berry will lead the vendor’s U.S. channel.

Berry, who most recently worked as a senior partner development manager at Telarus, joined NetFortris in February before earning his promotion. His team will sell UCaaS, CCaaS, SD-WAN and connectivity.

See the Q&A Berry did with our Edward Gately.

5. OneStream Networks Hires Masergy Vet as Global Channel Chief

Andrew Ramos started his new job as global channel chief. The new hire will work to enhance the company’s strategic partnerships, which include Cisco and Microsoft.

Ramos most recently worked as Masergy’s global director of Cisco Strategic Alliance. He also boasts experience at Verizon and MCI.

Edward Gately has the scoop.

4. Widespread Zoom Outage Temporarily Halts Remote Work, Learning

Zoom, the video conference provider, went down on Monday.

Customers could neither visit the company’s website nor join meetings and webinars. The problem lasted from about 9 a.m.-noon ET.

Executives from Lifesize and SolarWinds spoke to Channel Partners about lessons we can learn from the outage.

Read about the incident.

3. Masergy Channel Vet Returns After Brief Departure

Masergy’s Bill Madison

William Madison came back from Avaya to head up alliances, distributors and international markets at the networking company.

Madison worked at Avaya for several months this year, helping the company launch its Cloud Office UCaaS solution. He said Masergy and its partners are sizing up a “perfect climate” for selling to end users.

Before moving to Avaya, Madison worked as Masergy’s vice president of global channel development.

Learn more about Madison.

2. Microsoft Races to Match Zoom Meeting Capabilities with Teams Advanced Communications

Microsoft is battling to match Zoom in video conference capabilities.

The Redmond, Washington-based vendor announced Teams Advanced Communications. The offering stands alone in the company’s portfolio because it alone can serve up to 1,000 interactive video meeting participants. On the other hand, the default Teams conference can only host 300.

Microsoft made the announcement at Enterprise Connect Virtual.

Jeff Schwartz wrote about Microsoft’s ambitions.

1. Frontier Communications’ ‘Virtual Separation’ Alarms Groups

The Communications Workers of America (CWA) and The Utility Reform Network (TURN) registered their grievances with Frontier Communications’ bankruptcy plan.

The dissenters dislike how the amended plan separates fiber deployment from non-fiber operations. They also expressed concern about workforce reductions.

Frontier filed for bankruptcy back in April. Read about the controversy.