In addition to the many storage announcements, Dell EMC also addressed the issues with the Partner Academy, and will be waiving training requirements for the second half of the year.
SonicWall CEO Bill Conner discusses the company’s improved metrics since independence from Dell, including some significant ones on the channel front.
With its acqusition of Avnet Technology Solution, Tech Data will expand its on-prem and virtual training business via Ottawa’s ExitCertified.
SonicWall University content is designed to be ongoing, beyond the granting of a certification, and to reach a broader range of roles than SonicWall has in the past.
Significant enhancements to Tigerpaw’s software in Version 16.1 will also require some major upgrades to content.
ERP vendor Exact Macola has been aggressively ramping up its channel presence over the last three years. This move to an online self-paced training system was in response to partner requests.
Dell’s channel business did very well in the first quarter of their new year. At this stage though, there is still no definite clarity on the channel implications of assets entering Dell – and exiting it, with the SonicWALL divestiture.
The IT Solution Provider Standard is the first of five scheduled to roll out this year. The Channel Standards differ from the Trustmarks in their emphasis on imparting best practices to make the business better, rather than earning a badge to use in your marketing.
Some new incent programs have gone live, and other partner offerings announced at Dell World last October are now available.
The acquisition expands Avnet’s line card, adding training authorization for some vendors who they already carried. It also will strengthen them in new solution areas, and in the government space.
With the new Avnet Knowledge Network, the distributor is aiming to bring all of its support and training offerings under the same roof.
Because BitTitan does not have a professional services arm, it has opted to provide high level professional services help to its partners on complex installs by certifying the BitTitan Cloud Rangers, Microsoft MVPs who are also fully certified on BitTitan products.
Nutanix aims to create the equivalent of a Cisco CCIE certification for the hyperconverged world, that will establish its thought leadership, with a demanding certification program that tests the ability to design solutions on multiple hypervisors.
Fortinet will retire its existing certifications in a year in favor of a new, modular and more robust certification that partners had requested
IBM has enhanced the Social Media Boot Camps it created two years ago, and has taken the Selling with Social Insights tool on its Partnerworld website live.
IBM has introduced Ingram Micro as its fifth global training partner as it continues its quest to hand over education to partners.
IBM will do 300 to 400 one-on-one training sessions this year, looking at concrete steps to help its partners adapt to the cloud and other changes.
Partners need to attack emerging market opportunities quickly to gain competitive advantage, but their sales forces often aren’t up to the task.
NetSuite says certification program for consultants implementing cloud-based ERP will provide partners differentiation and customers clarity.
The shift toward line-of-business technology sales is the impetus behind new series of certifications from Cisco Systems.
