The Buzz: Fleet goes 100 percent channel, Scale Computing revamps partner program, and N-able’s AI advice

Welcome to The Buzz from ChannelBuzz.ca, our brand spanking new daily podcast, giving you the latest headlines for the IT channel community every morning in five minutes or less.

I’m Robert Dutt, today is Monday, April 20, 2026, and here’s what’s happening in the channel today.

Fleet, the open-source device management platform, has officially launched its inaugural partner program, signaling a hard pivot to a 100 percent channel sales model. Founded in 2020 and born out of an open-source project at Facebook, Fleet’s technology enables organizations to manage and secure IT assets across MacOS, Windows, Linux, Android, and ChromeOS. According to CEO Mike McNeil, every sales deal will now flow exclusively through a partner. The new program features two distinct tracks: a reseller track for co-selling, and a services track geared specifically toward partners looking to build recurring revenue streams through implementation and managed services. For Canadian MSPs managing increasingly complex, mixed-device environments, Fleet offers an infrastructure-as-code approach to endpoint management that can help consolidate tool sprawl. The company is actively recruiting new partners and is reportedly offering financial incentives, including enhanced margins and deal protection, for solution providers who migrate customers away from established competitors like Jamf or Microsoft Intune.

Edge computing and virtualization vendor Scale Computing has unveiled its new Velocity Partner Program, shifting decisively away from traditional volume-based tiers to a fully competency-based model. The company says this new structure is engineered to help partners navigate the evolving virtualization market by reducing operational friction and increasing partner autonomy. According to Scale Computing, advancement in the Velocity program is now tied strictly to verified capabilities, ensuring that technical expertise—rather than raw sales volume—drives partner economics. The framework is designed to accelerate quote-to-close cycles and reduce dependency on vendor resources. For Canadian solution providers, this represents a faster path to revenue and far better margin predictability, especially for regional partners who might be penalized by strict volume quotas. The program also focuses heavily on enabling partners to capture more of the total value of each opportunity, specifically by driving professional services revenue around deployments of the company’s SC Platform and edge orchestration solutions.

N-able CEO John Pagliuca is advising the channel to take a highly measured approach to the artificial intelligence boom. In a recent interview, Pagliuca outlined a specific three-step journey for MSP AI adoption: efficiency first, safe deployment next, and monetization last. He noted that while the broader industry is rushing toward AI-driven revenue streams, MSPs must first focus on internal productivity gains and establishing data governance. According to N-able, the monetization opportunity will materialize as small and medium-sized businesses seek third-party help to navigate their own AI implementations and security challenges. For Canadian MSPs, this serves as a pragmatic reminder to prioritize internal automation and secure operational foundations before packaging artificial intelligence as a billable service. It echoes broader industry research suggesting that data governance remains a significant hurdle to AI adoption, reinforcing the need for partners to establish internal standards first.

Later today on In The Channel, I sit down with OutSystems channel chief Benjamin Yerushalmi to talk about defining the channel for three different technology waves over the years, and why AI is moving more partner revenue opportunities earlier in engagements.

And if you haven’t heard it yet, check out our chat with Alex Webb and Leanne Yeatman of F12.net on what they’ve learned from 20 years and 15-plus acquisitions, which dropped on Friday.

That’s how we’re seeing the headlines today. I’m Robert Dutt for ChannelBuzz.ca, thanks for listening. Have a great day.