The deal will make Evolve IP’s voice integration between Microsoft Teams and Cisco VoiP available in Canada for the first time. It will also be sold initially through a Master Agent-style commission model, although that’s likely to evolve itself long-term.
Intermedia CEO Mike Gold says that this partnership is different from all their others, in that it’s the biggest they have ever done, with enormous implications for both parties.
The new Poly partner program which brings the two legacy ones together will feature a new partner portal, that will be live on April 10.
While RingCentral maintains its partnership with Zoom, its new browser-based video now comes standard in RingCentral Office. It is also standard in Avaya Cloud Office, although Avaya will continue to sell its own video solutions to their enterprise customers.
Poly continues the overhaul of its headset portfolio that has been ongoing for the past several months with a new model, borrowing the same 3-in1 wearing option from the Savi 8245, and providing a Microsoft Teams option.
The new channel and program are focused on taking Zoom’s video-first UC platform to market, which they believe will fit partner business models better through a referral system rather than doing deals on the partner’s paper.
Synacor has a large channel, for whom the addition of Qumu’s enterprise-grade video will significantly deepen their collaboration offerings.
Poly Lens will eventually unify all the endpoint management solutions from both the Plantronics and Polycom sides of the house.
Avaya is introducing new cloud services through their RingCentral partnership, and is aggressively expanding into the Master Agent channel, but even as a Canadian channel exec moves on, the company still sees its stability in Canada as a major asset.
New Avaya channel chief Jon Brinton lays out Avaya’s channel strategy for the year ahead, which unsurprisingly emphasizes the new Avaya Cloud Office but also focuses on developing new channels.
While Avaya is putting more emphasis on the cloud, Network Telecom, whose customers are mainly in small town southwestern Ontario, won a Midmarket Partner of the Year award by leveraging a very traditional business model.
Avaya kicked off the first day of their big customer event by focusing on their partnership with RingCentral and how it fits into their overall vision. They also announced the Avaya Cloud Office UCaaS solution with RingCentral, which will be available later this quarter.
LumApps, which is aggressively expanding in North America and now sells more here than in Europe, has joined the Microsoft Partner eXperience program and plans to build out a strong Microsoft channel, as they have already done with Google.
These new devices, which support Zoom natively and will support more third-party apps in the future, offer users greater simplicity, and offer channel partners 3x the margins compared to selling a solution around a PC.
The revamped collaboration platform is a key part of LogMeIn’s strategy of unifying and harmonizing its UCC offerings.
Avaya sees the synergy between the two companies and IBM’s consultancy capabilities as important assets in meeting the unexpectedly high demand for ReadyNow as-a-service from larger customers.
Teamline is focused on the Microsoft platform, and MultiJoin won’t change that, but it does give users added flexibility with calls involving different platforms.
The offer to new customers for both Microsoft Teams and Surface Hub 2 is also intended to get some Pexip channel partners from the AV side of the house to work more closely with Microsoft.
Calabrio’s CEO talks with ChannelBuzz about what partners can expect to see from the newly enlarged company, which he says now has the largest channel business in the space.
Steelcase makes Steelcase Roam, a mobile cart and wall mounting system designed specifically for the Microsoft Surface Hub 2, and has launched a new program and new IT distribution relationships to help Microsoft partners sell it.
