Cloud

Channel Programs

ShoreTel unifies cloud, on-prem programs in major channel program restructuring

September 29, 2015 Mark Cox Comments Off on ShoreTel unifies cloud, on-prem programs in major channel program restructuring
The new program is also much simpler than the old, with the number of tiers cut by almost two thirds. The cloud changes won’t impact Canada though – the cloud product still isn’t available here. Canadian partners will find opportunity registration and training changes interesting however.

Cloud

Sage sees three-way synergies with Salesforce in new Microsoft partnering deal

September 17, 2015 Mark Cox Comments Off on Sage sees three-way synergies with Salesforce in new Microsoft partnering deal
Sage sees the tighter integration with Microsoft platform as good news for Sage partners, and for Microsoft partners looking to benefit from Sage Live’s innovation.

Big Data

Dell steps up channel marketing activities

September 17, 2015 Mark Cox Comments Off on Dell steps up channel marketing activities
At their Canadian partner event on Wednesday, Dell stressed their emphasis on driving more channel marketing activities, sour economy notwithstanding, and emphasized their building of the Future-Ready Enterprise brand with partners.

Data Centre

Nutanix aggressively claiming mantle of ‘only true hyperconverged player’

September 10, 2015 Mark Cox 1
At a customer event in Toronto Wednesday, Nutanix presented the audience with a full-throated positioning of themselves as well ahead of their competition, and also gave an update on their progress in Canada

Storage

Caringo FileFly converges file systems and primary storage with object storage

September 9, 2015 Mark Cox Comments Off on Caringo FileFly converges file systems and primary storage with object storage
The result is a highly scalable file solution with high performance, which Caringo says is a complete packaged solution that will be easy for the channel to sell.

Managed Services

Network management report highlights managed network service opportunity for MSPs

September 3, 2015 Guest Poster Comments Off on Network management report highlights managed network service opportunity for MSPs
Alex Hoff of Auvik Networks explains why there’s an opportunity for MSPs to offer customers managed network service.

Scott Millard, vice president of Americas channels at EMC.
Channel Programs

EMC introduces Federation-wide cloud partner credential

September 3, 2015 Robert Dutt Comments Off on EMC introduces Federation-wide cloud partner credential
The new credential provides partners access to deploy the Federation Enterprise Hybrid Cloud, part of a push to create channel program alignment amongst Federation members.

Shawn Rosemarin, executive director for architecture and professional services at VMware Canada
Virtualization

VMware opens up reference architectures for partners

September 1, 2015 Robert Dutt Comments Off on VMware opens up reference architectures for partners
New Certified Partner Architectures under the VMware Validated Design program provide partners a route to building their own data centre stacks.

Managed Services

Hosted services firm VAR Dynamics to trim pricing to partners

August 26, 2015 Mark Cox Comments Off on Hosted services firm VAR Dynamics to trim pricing to partners
New pricing, which takes effect September 1, is only for the P13 platform, the company’s newest, and is designed in part as an incent to get partners on older platforms to move their customers to the newest one.

Cloud

Canadian small businesses getting more mobile, spending more on software

August 25, 2015 Mark Cox Comments Off on Canadian small businesses getting more mobile, spending more on software
Intuit’s 2015 Small Business App Study also finds Canadians are spending more on software to run their businesses than Americans, and plan to boost this in the future.