Mark Cox

NetBackup 7.7 highlights broad refresh of Veritas portfolio

VMware Canada country manager Sean Forkan

New products include Veritas Information Map, which is built on the company’s new Information Fabric, and Veritas Resiliency Platform, an IT service continuity solution. Veritas InfoScale is an enhancement and rebranding of the old Symantec Storage Foundations.

New Kaseya CEO Voccola pledges new customer commitment initiative

Fred Voccola who has an extensive background in software and IT infrastructure companies, is the new CEO, and he pledges commitment to both customers and channel partners, which will make Kaseya well-loved in the industry.

Scalar Decisions acquires Mainland Information Systems to create Canadian integration giant

Scalar becomes a $300 million dollar company through the deal, strengthens its presence in western Canada, and increases its scalability with the assets acquired. The Mainland brand will remain for the foreseeable future.

SAP makes new partner initiatives in Business ByDesign

With a view to both expanding the number of skilled ByDesign people available to partners, and sharpening partners’ ability to use and extend the solution, SAP has launched several ByDesign initiatives, including a partner enablement portal and collaborative tool, and a certification program through Open SAP.

Canada needs to move beyond traditional IT: Dell

Canadian organizations are not as far along the transition to the new IT as some in other countries, so Dell’s global strategy of forming deep ISV alliances to create Dell Blueprints to help customers make that transition seems particularly relevant here.

TreeHouse rebrands as Impartner, launches new, easier to onboard PRM solution

Impartner believes its new partner relationship management solution will revolutionize PRM the same way Salesforce revolutionized CRM. It is going to market in Europe through a channel sales model, and if that it successful, they will look at doing the same here.

Entry level-focused StorMagic launches first channel program

StorMagic has sold mainly direct since its founding in 2006, but is transitioning to a 100 per cent channels strategy, and to expand its base of quality partners has unveiled its first partner program.

Toronto’s Breqwatr taking appliance to simplify private cloud deployments through the channel

The Toronto startup is going to market through the channel out of the gate, and unusually for a startup, has been picked up by a major distributor. Arrow is handling their North American distribution.

Ricoh Canada buys western Canadian VAR Graycon to accelerate managed IT services business

Ricoh, which is building up its services business to offset a decline in print volumes, sees Graycon as providing new capabilities for them in the west. The company also suggested they would be interested in a similar acquisition in the east.

Quick Heal introduces loyalty program for enlisting successful channel partners

The Quick Rewards program, which begins in Q3, gives partners who refer other partners to Quick Heal a reward of six per cent of their sales for the first year and four per cent for the second – giving Quick Heal a cost-effective way of enlarging their channel.

ScanSource beefs up mobile POS portfolio with new Star Micronics partnership

Star’s strength in mobile printing in particular will enhance ScanSource’s ability to provide total POS and retail solutions to their reseller partners.

Condusiv V-locity 6.0 DRAM read caching enhancements triple performance

Condusiv engineers redid the DRAM read caching algorithm so that DRAM, which is small but very fast, focuses only the smallest, random I/O that causes the most problems.

Intronis stresses better user experience with Summer Release ‘15

A new dashboard provides a macro-level view that did not exist before, and a new Executive Summary report generator provides customers with brandable and customizable snapshots which demonstrate the MSP’s value.

Veritas Canadian leadership team for post-Symantec divorce now in place

VMware Canada country manager Sean Forkan

Symantec’s Canadian GM, Sean Forkan, moves over to run Veritas in Canada – as well as the central U.S. Two other Symantec Canada execs join him in the move. All three are currently in their new roles, even though the two companies are still one. The new post-split leadership for Symantec in Canada has also been announced.

Paragon Software reworks tech license tool as multi-purpose utility for end users

The new IT Essentials Toolkit, which handles virtualization, disk management and system optimization for servers and workstations, is a product many Paragon partners use themselves, but now it is also packaged in a SKU they can sell to their own customers.

SAP Canada channel chief Rob Stevens lays out Canadian channel plans

Stevens talked with ChannelBuzz about how both SAP and its partners can work smarter, emphasized the importance of the cloud to SAP going forward, and indicated that they will wait to see if partners are on the same page with SAP before they start recruiting new ones.