TBI Partnerships, AT&T Labor Contract Among the Week’s Top Stories

Zoom hired an influential RingCentral alumnus and TeraGo Networks formed alliances with two American master agents this week.

It’s crunch time at Channel Partners and Channel Futures as our staff prepare for the Channel Partners Evolution conference in Washington, D.C., next month, but our editorial team continues to churn out news.

We cover channel events, hires, partnerships and program changes (not to mention regulatory and labor-related telecommunications drama). We publish a weekly wrap-up of stories that generate the most web traffic on our site. Check out the seven stories below to see the channel’s top happenings.

7. Kaspersky Vet to Lead Ground Labs’ North American Channel

The sensory data discovery tools provider tapped a new head of North American channel and partnerships.

Jason Stein, Kaspersky’s former head of channel for North America, said he’ll work to evolve Ground Labs into a “channel-committed, channel-driven company.” Ground Labs is a 12-year-old company that recently launched its North American headquarters in Austin, Texas.

Edward Gately has the scoop.

6. Coffee with Craig and Kevin Episode No. 62: Alliance Makers, Nova Soluções

Our boys are back at it again.

Podcast extraordinaires Craig Galbraith and Kevin Morris previewed Channel Partners Evolution in their 62nd episode. They teased our “Shark Stage” event and interviewed Brazilian network provider Nova Soluções. And Janet Schijns joined the show to discuss her role at our upcoming conference.

Check out our heralded podcast.

5. TBI, CNSG Sign Canada-Based TeraGo

Canadian 5G pioneer TeraGo Networks teamed up with a couple of U.S. master agents.

The company is CNSG’s first Canadian gold supplier and one of TBI’s select group of Canadian suppliers. The new partnerships represent TeraGo’s increasing commitment to the agent channel.

“The combination looks to break new ground in opening up an agent market that has not historically been experienced in Canada,” TeraGo’s chief revenue officer said.

TeraGo has been running 5G fixed wireless trials on the 24GHz spectrum band it holds.

Read about TeraGo’s new partnerships.

4. TBI, Synnex, Microsoft, BCN Roll Out Important Channel Program Updates

Honeywell made a surprise appearance in our monthly channel recap.

The manufacturer joined a diverse list of vendors, distributors and master agents that announced new partner initiatives and incentives. Commvault laid out a particularly juicy set of new incentives for partners.

Check out the gallery.

3. Southeast AT&T Workers Stay on the Job After Contract Expires

AT&T and the Communications Workers of America (CWA) temporarily extended their contract for an extra week.

The deal affecting wireline workers in nine states expired Aug. 3, but now ends tomorrow, Aug. 10, at midnight. The union is pushing for “quality health care coverage, higher wages, job security and investment in local communities,” and has voted to authorize a possible strike if negotiations go awry.

Read the latest developments.

2. Telarus: UC, Contact Center, Cloud Sales Bring Home the Bacon

Telarus executives encouraged subagents to sell more advanced services.

Telarus’ senior vice president of sales encouraged Telarus Partner Summit attendees to break their reliance on legacy network services. The master agent is seeing plenteous growth in unified communications, contact center and cloud services.

Great supplier panel at #TelarusPartnerSummit features convo about UCaaS, CCaaS, #cybersecurity and more. ⁦@telarus⁩ ⁦@inContact⁩ ⁦@Mitel⁩ ⁦@8×8⁩ ⁦@AireSpring⁩ ⁦@RingCentral⁩ ⁦@Rackspace⁩ pic.twitter.com/UtwJmHfA4t

— Craig Galbraith (@Craig_Galbraith) August 8, 2019

Our own Craig Galbraith flew to Denver to cover the conference.

Check out the Day One recap.

1. Zoom Selects RingCentral Alum as New CRO

Ryan Azus joined Zoom Video Communications to oversee its direct sales force and channel.

The nine-year RingCentral veteran also will oversee sales engineering and customer success teams. Azus brings expertise in creating enterprise go-to-market programs.

RingCentral developed “multiproduct, multichannel field sales and channel organizations” during his tenure.

Edward Gately penned our top new story of the week.