Sprint, Ingram Micro One, Cyberattacks Lead the Weekly Wrap

What’s a stronger motivation: opportunity or fear? Politicians have mulled the question for years as they attempt to lure voters.

Political theory aside, you might be able to see where I’m going with this. Customers come to partners for different reasons. One might come to you asking for the ole “digital transformation” service in hopes of improving operational efficiency and their bottom line. But another group comes to you because they need to handle a negative. They read about Facebook getting breached and had a come-to-Jesus moment about investing in security, or they need you to get them through compliance because otherwise, the government will make them pay a fine. It’s sort of obligatory — you know, like Marshawn Lynch.

You get the point. The customer approaches you because they want to earn more money or because they don’t want to lose money. But the point is, people like money. People like money a lot. Yeah, that probably should have been my lead-in to this story. Oh well.

Just as the demand for money connects customers to partners, it’s, in part, the demand for money that leads readers to our website. We see in our most viewed stories of the week that readers want to learn about things that can help them and their clients earn more green. That’s the main reason why cybersecurity seems to strike such a nerve. People are terrified of losing money, but you, the partner, can move your customer from fear to seeing opportunity.

We’ve been compiling our top articles at the end of each week and presenting them to you so that you –  our esteemed Channel Partners reader – can go straight to the heart of the matter.

With that soapbox speech out of the way, here are our most-read stories from the week of Oct. 28.

7. AlienVault: Exploits Targeting IoT, Info Sharing on the Rise

There’s nothing cheerier than reading about all the ways cybercriminals could ruin your business.

AlienVault‘s Open Threat Exchange (OTX) Trends Report found that IoT remains the most numerous target for exploits — not a terribly surprising factoid if you’ve been reading about the vast cornucopia of unprotected targets IoT devices offer to the bad guys.

But there were a few surprises in the study. AlienVault’s “security advocate” told Channel Partners that although attacks on Microsoft systems remain prevalent, they decreased from the previous year. Somewhere, someplace, my high school classmate Kiffer is beaming. That guy hated Apple products before it was cool.

Check out our story to see more findings from the report.

6. Proposed Sprint-T-Mobile Merger Blasted by CWA, Advocacy Groups

Not a day goes by when the Communications Workers of America (CWA) isn’t raising red flags about the major carriers. While the union spent much of 2018 lambasting AT&T, its negative sentiments have expanded to include Sprint. The chief gripe is Sprint’s April announcement that it will merge with T-Mobile.

You can go to the link above to learn more about the transaction’s channel impact, but our industry obviously isn’t factoring much into the CWA’s rage. The union has warned of job cuts resulting from the $26 million acquisition.

Edward Gately was on the case to cover the controversy.

5. Sprint SD-WAN Goes Global

Negativity aside, the carrier announced that its SD-WAN solution is available on multiple new continents.

Sprint launched the platform a year-and-a-half ago, and it seems to have functioned as a bridge, as Sprint has invested in numerous IT projects in 2018 in addition to its traditional telecommunication services.

As I wrote Wednesday, the expansion matches a trend of SD-WAN providers showcasing their …