While Check Point has the reputation of being a high end product that serves the high end of the market, they also sell to SMBs as well, and even though the focus this year was on high end strategy, their SMB portfolio got its share of important announcements.
While Check Point’s original Harmony product came from a 2021 acquisition, the technology that specifically became Harmony SaaS came in a September 2023 acquisition, and is now formally available following its integration into the Check Point platform.
Gil Shwed emphasized that going forward, Check Point needs to be focused on its cloud-delivered platform together with an intensified AI strategy.
Sage’s new product portfolio and strategy had attendees saying this was the most exciting transform in their memory.
While sustainability informs several of Sage’s key new product issues announced at Transform, for the first time they also introduced sustainability initiatives for customers, which met with a positive reception and are likely to be expanded going forward.
Following up on last year’s partnership with Major League Baseball, Sage is announcing a different type of sports partnership, with Sportable, a global data collection and analytics platform, which is designed to bring deeper, AI-led insights to major sports.
The new strategic collaboration agreement with AWS to enable AI-powered solutions for SMBs includes a launch of Sage Earth on the AWS Marketplace will kick off in a few weeks in the UK and Ireland, but other geos, including North America, will have a bit of a wait – like 18 months.
Sage emphasized that this year’s Transform is a very important one, because of key changes, particularly around AI, that will greatly improve customers’ lives and productivity.
Sage Copilot is a new AI-based productivity assistant, whose AI has been specifically trained around accounting rules and best practices, and which is designed to help SMBs make better business decisions.
Prosimo’s AI Suite for Multi-Cloud Networking closely resembles their core product that the startup has sold the last few years, Multi-Cloud Networking for AI ,has been beefed up with the addition of Generative AI, while the other suite component, Nebula AIOps for Multi-Cloud Networking, is new with this release.
SecOps Insights extends DNS capability to the InfoBloxThreat Defense platform, a move that InfoBlox says has strong appeal to customers and will make it easier for partners to keep them for life.
The details on what will clearly be massive change from Broadcom’s acquisition of VMware have been gradually being made public, and Nutanix is one of the VMware competitors who see opportunities created by channel disruption.
While Parallels has made a Remote Application Server for years, they have now launched a cloud-based DaaS solution which can complement it, or be used as a separate solution on its own.
Significant increases to Oracle’s Java pricing, including their recent move to employee based pricing, have led to customer concerns, and Azul has been a key beneficiary of this.
ControlUp has also announced that long-time Citrix veteran Julia Scully has come over from Citrix to be Head of Global Channel, where she will oversee multiple other channel program enhancements in the year ahead.
The Service track follows the Sell and Build tracks that went live when Partner Plus was launched last year, and is aimed more at regional GSIs, MSPs and other types of partners that have been doing little or no business with IBM.
Mark Hickman, Managing Director at Sage Canada, reviewed the recent news items of particular significance for the Canadian market, and noted some additional changes coming next year.
Colby Calonica, who had been VP of Sales, is a major channel advocate, and has been promoted to Vice President of Global Sales, Channels and Alliances, to give him responsibility for all the sales efforts.
The cloud giant continues to stress AWS Marketplace as a growing route to market for ISVs and solution providers, adding new features and reducing the cut it takes of Marketplace deals through partners.
The optimism reflects an environment today where businesses that have survived the turmoil of the last several years see new opportunities from the impact of Generative AI within traditional collaboration systems.
