Articles by Mark Cox

Channel Programs

Nexsan enhances partner program, including new support for Transporter appliances

March 21, 2016 Mark Cox Comments Off on Nexsan enhances partner program, including new support for Transporter appliances
Imation, Nexsan’s parent company, has recently undergone a major reorganization, designed to give it greater focus and make it competitive in a tough storage market. A key part of that is integrating the core Nexsan portfolio with Transporter Sync and Share technology. Access to that technology is one element of the enhanced partner program.

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Networking

New Glue Networks Sales VP looks to expand company’s markets

March 21, 2016 Mark Cox Comments Off on New Glue Networks Sales VP looks to expand company’s markets
Alan Grahame looks to strengthen the Glue sales teams, including channel managers, expand their SaaS business, and continue to move their business beyond Cisco.

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Cloud

Customers still in early stages in digital business transformation: EMC-VMware study

March 21, 2016 Mark Cox Comments Off on Customers still in early stages in digital business transformation: EMC-VMware study
A new report from EMC and VMware has data on enterprise digital transformation that, except in virtualization, shows customers are far, far short of where they want to be. The sunny side of the story is that many are taking moves to get there.

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Channel Programs

Equinix adds first partner training programs as company restructures to strengthen channel

March 21, 2016 Mark Cox Comments Off on Equinix adds first partner training programs as company restructures to strengthen channel
Ex-Rackspace channel chief Chris Rajiah also indicated that following a broad recruitment effort last year, which included mainly agents and referral partners, Equinix is focusing on adding key resellers this year, especially top Microsoft partners.

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Digital Signage

ViewSonic, Userful extend partnership into digital signage with inexpensive video walls

March 18, 2016 Mark Cox Comments Off on ViewSonic, Userful extend partnership into digital signage with inexpensive video walls
In addition to a significant extension of their partnership with Calgary’s Userful, ViewSonic also announced an improved version of the “Do-It-Yourself” digital signage software solutions it has been selling with Best Wave, as well as a new 98-inch CDP9800 Ultra HD commercial display.

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Distribution

Tech Data Canada makes play in unlocked smartphone market with Noetic agreement

March 17, 2016 Mark Cox Comments Off on Tech Data Canada makes play in unlocked smartphone market with Noetic agreement
The distributor is expanding its presence in the unlocked smartphone market, to give solution providers more options, and to keep them well positioned in the event of a shift away from major carrier solidarity on the subsidy model and its phone plans.

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Cloud

ShoreTel cloud and hybrid solutions now available in Canada – sans Québec

March 17, 2016 Mark Cox Comments Off on ShoreTel cloud and hybrid solutions now available in Canada – sans Québec
ShoreTel’s Canada country manager talks about the new offerings and what they will mean to partners and customers in the Canadian market.

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Distribution

Gentek broadens solutions portfolio with new 3CX, Patton, VTech partnerships

March 17, 2016 Mark Cox Comments Off on Gentek broadens solutions portfolio with new 3CX, Patton, VTech partnerships
Toronto-based distributor Gentek has announced three new vendor relationships. They now carry 3CX phone systems, Patton SmartNode gateways, and VTech’s SIP-based commercial phone offerings.

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Distribution

PROMISE deal with SYNNEX signals hyper-converged play, distribution reorganization

March 17, 2016 Mark Cox Comments Off on PROMISE deal with SYNNEX signals hyper-converged play, distribution reorganization
PROMISE also expects that working with SYNNEX will significantly strengthen them in Canada, and they will also be adjusting some of their product to make it better suit Canada, where SMBs tend to be smaller than in the U.S.

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Channel Programs

Microsoft launches first part of five part eBook for partners on winning with cloud

March 16, 2016 Mark Cox Comments Off on Microsoft launches first part of five part eBook for partners on winning with cloud
The series, done in collaboration with IDC and available as free downloads, will continue with a new chapter every month until the final one rolls out at WPC in July.

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Managed Services

Intronis dons Barracuda colours with new appliance, branding

March 16, 2016 Mark Cox Comments Off on Intronis dons Barracuda colours with new appliance, branding
Intronis is now Intronis MSP Solutions by Barracuda. They have also leveraged Barracuda’s hardware to provide an appliance option for partners, the Barracuda Backup – Intronis MSP Edition

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Networking

Linksys enhances small business line by adding clustering to all wireless APs

March 15, 2016 Mark Cox 1
Linksys continues a strategy it began by expanding captive portal from its flagship product to its entire wireless line, to beef up the entire portfolio at a time when small business demand for wireless is strong.

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Cloud

Microsoft Canadian customers, partners begin operational preview of Canadian Azure cloud

March 15, 2016 Mark Cox Comments Off on Microsoft Canadian customers, partners begin operational preview of Canadian Azure cloud
Azure is the first Microsoft solution to be available as a preview from Microsoft datacenters in Toronto and Quebec City. General availability is scheduled for Q2, with Office 365 and Dynamics CRM Online to follow shortly after that.

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Data Centre

HPE stresses simplicity with new hyper-converged system for the midmarket

March 15, 2016 Mark Cox Comments Off on HPE stresses simplicity with new hyper-converged system for the midmarket
The new appliance, built on the ProLiant DL 380, brings a new interface to HPE hyper-converged products, which the company says is extremely user-friendly and easy to use.

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Channel Programs

LANDESK CEO Steve Daly discusses what AppSense deal means to companies, partners

March 15, 2016 Mark Cox Comments Off on LANDESK CEO Steve Daly discusses what AppSense deal means to companies, partners
Daly talks about how the deal will change offerings and markets available to both LANDESK and AppSense partners, and how the integration of the two channels is likely to roll out.

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Data Centre

Nutanix displaces need for separate NAS with Acropolis File Services

March 14, 2016 Mark Cox Comments Off on Nutanix displaces need for separate NAS with Acropolis File Services
Nutanix sees its native file serving solution on the Nutanix Distributed File Storage Fabric as opening up a large new market for it displacing NAS servers, and bringing disruption to a NAS market they say has been ready for it for a while.

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Cloud

Pure Storage unveils FlashBlade all-flash platform for petabyte-scale unstructured data

March 14, 2016 Mark Cox Comments Off on Pure Storage unveils FlashBlade all-flash platform for petabyte-scale unstructured data
In addition to the FlashBlade, which becomes Pure’s new high end offering, the company also introduced the FlashArray//m10, a new entry level extension, to its FlashArray//m family, as well as several new FlashStack converged infrastructure solutions.

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Cloud

Appcito adds Nutanix as partner in push beyond the public cloud

March 11, 2016 Mark Cox Comments Off on Appcito adds Nutanix as partner in push beyond the public cloud
The multi-cloud application delivery solutions vendor has been focused mainly on public cloud infrastructure providers, but they are broadening out into the enterprise, and see Nutanix, with its strong presence in private and hybrid clouds, as a key route to market there.

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Software

Oracle rival TmaxSoft looking to expand Canadian channel

March 11, 2016 Mark Cox Comments Off on Oracle rival TmaxSoft looking to expand Canadian channel
TmaxSoft, whose value proposition is feature parity and a better price than database management incumbents, opened a Canadian office in January, and is actively looking to add strong partners in Canada.

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Cloud

Avaya creates new company, Zang, with cloud communication and app-as-a-service platform

March 10, 2016 Mark Cox Comments Off on Avaya creates new company, Zang, with cloud communication and app-as-a-service platform
Mo Nezarati, the founder and CEO of Richmond Hill ON-based Esna, which Avaya acquired last year, has been named the GM of Zang, which was created as a separate company because its business model is radically different from Avaya’s. There will be channel opportunities though, and Zang is developing a channel program.

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