ChannelCon

Channel Programs

EFSS vendor FileCloud reaches out to MSPs at ChannelCon event

August 7, 2018 Mark Cox 2
FileCloud has been selling their Enterprise File Sync and Sharing Solution mainly direct, and through larger MSPs who do their own hosting. However, they just launched a partner program for smaller MSPs looking to resell a service that FileCloud hosts, and are looking – selectively – for additional partners.

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Managed Services

ID Agent seeing strong MSP response to Dark Web monitoring offering

August 6, 2018 Mark Cox Comments Off on ID Agent seeing strong MSP response to Dark Web monitoring offering
ID Agent offers a service that terrifies prospects by showing them their corporate data in circulation on the Dark Web, as well as a monitoring service to guard against it. They have Canadian MSP partners, and are in Toronto this week at a Datto show looking for more.

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Managed Services

Soft launch of Managed Phishline builds on Barracuda MSP Momentum

August 6, 2018 Mark Cox Comments Off on Soft launch of Managed Phishline builds on Barracuda MSP Momentum
Barracuda made Managed Phishline, an MSP-focused version of the technology they acquired from Phishline this year, available to MSPs in July.

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Channel Programs

SAP partners seeing strong success with partner-packaged solutions initiative

August 3, 2018 Mark Cox Comments Off on SAP partners seeing strong success with partner-packaged solutions initiative
SAP launched this new component in their cloud strategy this March, and have already had 450 partner solutions qualified – with between 700 and 800 more in the pipeline.

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Cloud

Intermedia growing channel business with new UCaaS offering and stronger partner enablement

August 3, 2018 Mark Cox Comments Off on Intermedia growing channel business with new UCaaS offering and stronger partner enablement
The Intermedia messaging to the channel at this year’s CompTIA ChannelCon event emphasized the UCaaS opportunity around their Unite offering which came out in February.

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Software

Agiloft touts agility of business process software requiring no coding to channel

August 3, 2018 Mark Cox Comments Off on Agiloft touts agility of business process software requiring no coding to channel
Agiloft sold direct for two decades, but they have committed to building out a channel, and made their third straight appearance at CompTIA’s ChannelCon event, this year emphasizing the value of their no-code technology.

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Artificial Intelligence

CrushBank seeing good results in early post-launch days of IT Help-Desk application built on IBM Watson

August 2, 2018 Mark Cox Comments Off on CrushBank seeing good results in early post-launch days of IT Help-Desk application built on IBM Watson
CrushBank, which came to ChannelCon a year ago to evangelize their product before it came to market, is finding the job easier this year, with customer references in tow and AI hotter than ever. Interestingly, Canadian MSPs have been particularly receptive.

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Printing and Imaging

Brother channel development shifts from recruitment to engagement

August 2, 2018 Mark Cox Comments Off on Brother channel development shifts from recruitment to engagement
Brother has completed its transformation from a purely direct dealing vendor to a 100 per cent focused channel player targeting SMBs, and has built up its channel to the point where they don’t have to pound the pavement for more partners. The perception that they are a consumer brand? Well, they continue to work hard to change that.

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Channel Programs

Panasonic reshapes product portfolio and channel enablement to push deeper into new rugged device markets

August 1, 2018 Mark Cox Comments Off on Panasonic reshapes product portfolio and channel enablement to push deeper into new rugged device markets
Panasonic has made major changes to its product set and its channel go-to-market mechanisms in order to better expand in enterprise markets outside their rugged PC stronghold.

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Managed Services

ESET gears up in Managed Service Provider market

August 1, 2018 Mark Cox Comments Off on ESET gears up in Managed Service Provider market
ESET has been in the MSP space for a while, but is now making a push to increase their presence there. They also indicated that they will shortly be releasing their first offering specifically built for the cloud.

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Managed Services

SOCSoter adds Breach Detection service for SMBs to their Vulnerability Monitoring Service

August 1, 2018 Mark Cox Comments Off on SOCSoter adds Breach Detection service for SMBs to their Vulnerability Monitoring Service
SOCSoter, which has over a hundred channel partners reselling their offering, doesn’t yet have any partners in Canada, but will be at the ASCII show in Toronto later this month looking to change that.

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Randy Churchill, director of marketing and business development for D&H Canada
Digital Signage

D&H Canada expanding focus on digital signage space

July 31, 2018 Mark Cox Comments Off on D&H Canada expanding focus on digital signage space
Digital signage is now a mature IT market, but for D&H Canada, it is hotter than ever. They expect recent momentum in the space to be increased by a new relationship with Atlona, which just signed with D&H in the U.S., and will be in Canada before the end of the year.

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Cloud

German cloud security firm Hornetsecurity looks to expand North American operations with ChannelCon presence

July 30, 2018 Mark Cox Comments Off on German cloud security firm Hornetsecurity looks to expand North American operations with ChannelCon presence
Hornetsecurity is targeting the SMB space in North America, emphasizing their ability to build and maintain strong relationships with these smaller customers. They have signed Contronex to handle their distribution in both the U.S. and Canada.

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Channel Communities

AV vendor Atlona looks to listen and learn with IT channel at CompTIA ChannelCon

July 26, 2018 Mark Cox Comments Off on AV vendor Atlona looks to listen and learn with IT channel at CompTIA ChannelCon
Atlona, which has been moving into the IT side of the AV space because of the convergence trends in the industry, is attending their first CompTIA ChannelCon event to talk with IT channel partners, get their take on convergence, and learn what the IT channel wants in an AV solution.

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Channel Communities

TSANet introducing new solution support framework in bid to increase channel involvement

August 11, 2017 Mark Cox Comments Off on TSANet introducing new solution support framework in bid to increase channel involvement
TSANet has successfully facilitated IT vendor interoperability for almost a quarter-century. Getting channel partners to join has been a challenge, however. The new initiative is designed to encourage their vendor members to bring their channel partners in.

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Managed Services

Beachhead seeing growing MSP interest in encryption-based compliance-as-a-service

August 8, 2017 Mark Cox Comments Off on Beachhead seeing growing MSP interest in encryption-based compliance-as-a-service
While the growth of punitive regulations has led some MSPs to back off clients with ample regulated data, others are responding by establishing compliance-as-a-service using encryption.

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Security

ESET continues brand-building efforts with new cybersecurity awareness certification

August 4, 2017 Mark Cox Comments Off on ESET continues brand-building efforts with new cybersecurity awareness certification
The new ESET CyberSecurity Awareness Training is provided free, and ESET partners are encouraged to have their customers make use of it.

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Backup

Study shows startlingly slim penetration rates in security and backup managed services

August 4, 2017 Mark Cox Comments Off on Study shows startlingly slim penetration rates in security and backup managed services
A new study that looks at managed services business by the channel generally – not just self identified MSPs – finds quite low rates of adoption. A significant number to plan to move into security however.

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Managed Services

MyDigitalShield looks to educate MSPs about SD-WAN with their OmniWAN offering

August 4, 2017 Mark Cox Comments Off on MyDigitalShield looks to educate MSPs about SD-WAN with their OmniWAN offering
UTM cloud provider MyDigitalShield just introduced a complementary SD-WAN-as-a-service offering, and are finding most MSPs know little about SD-WAN despite its potential for their businesses.

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Managed Services

RapidFire Tools strengthens PCI Compliance module with partnering to provide ASV scans

August 4, 2017 Mark Cox Comments Off on RapidFire Tools strengthens PCI Compliance module with partnering to provide ASV scans
While a low price will create a minor margin opportunity for the MSP, the main MSP benefit will be the better use of their time that will come from having the ASV scan capability integrated directly in the compliance module.

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