Collaboration

Unified Communications

Sennheiser fills gap in unified collaboration headsets with high-end SDW 5000 Series

June 1, 2018 Mark Cox Comments Off on Sennheiser fills gap in unified collaboration headsets with high-end SDW 5000 Series
Sennheiser is looking to their first unified communication and collaboration headset to further stimulate their Canadian business, which has already been showing strong momentum.

Hardware

Lenovo reboots Smart Office message with ThinkSmart Hub 500 general availability

May 28, 2018 Mark Cox Comments Off on Lenovo reboots Smart Office message with ThinkSmart Hub 500 general availability
Lenovo announces the GA of the Smart Office videoconferencing device, developed in partnership with Microsoft, that was announced last fall at Microsoft’s Ignite event. What they deem more important however, is their message to the market that this product is only the start of an initiative designed to make Lenovo a major player in the Smart Office space.

The partner panel of Sam Barhoumeh (left), Craig Slack (middle), and Herb Hogue (right)
Cloud

IaaS still an untapped channel opportunity, but momentum growing

May 4, 2018 Robert Dutt Comments Off on IaaS still an untapped channel opportunity, but momentum growing
An Ingram Micro Cloud exec calls IaaS the biggest untapped opportunity for partners for the second year running, while partners dish on routes to success.

Channel Programs

Plantronics re-invents partner program, expanding support beyond traditional hardware partners

May 1, 2018 Mark Cox Comments Off on Plantronics re-invents partner program, expanding support beyond traditional hardware partners
Plantronics reworks its channel program to give greater emphasis to implementing their SaaS management solution, and to selling their hardware within broader solutions rather than simply as peripherals.

Rowan Trollope, senior vice president and general manager for applications at Cisco
Communications

Five things partners should know about Cisco’s WebEx transition

April 23, 2018 Robert Dutt Comments Off on Five things partners should know about Cisco’s WebEx transition
Some things for partners to think about in their collaboration business, as Cisco aligns its lineup under the WebEx brand.

Nirav Sheth, vice president of global sales in Cisco’s Global Partner Organization
Communications

Cisco unifies collaboration line under WebEx brand

April 18, 2018 Robert Dutt Comments Off on Cisco unifies collaboration line under WebEx brand
Cisco will bring its collaboration lineup into one package, with a common backend and under the WebEx brand.

Hardware

Plantronics looks to create one-stop shop across UCC with $2 billion Polycom acquisition

March 28, 2018 Mark Cox Comments Off on Plantronics looks to create one-stop shop across UCC with $2 billion Polycom acquisition
Plantronics moves far beyond headsets by buying Polycom, which brings them into three additional businesses that are synergistic to their headset core.

Big Data

Hitachi Vantara improves time-to-value for data scientists with new machine learning model management

March 7, 2018 Mark Cox Comments Off on Hitachi Vantara improves time-to-value for data scientists with new machine learning model management
Pentaho machine learning capabilities have been extended with new model management functionality that reduces the amount of time data scientists need to spend manually rewriting algorithms.

Cloud

New Calabrio VP of Strategic Partnerships reworking channel strategy to expand ecosystem presence

February 5, 2018 Mark Cox Comments Off on New Calabrio VP of Strategic Partnerships reworking channel strategy to expand ecosystem presence
While Calabrio has been expanding its cloud presence with new partnerships with Contact Centre-as-a-Service providers, they are also leveraging their strategic platform and reseller partners and looking to expand into new kinds of platform markets.

Unified Communications

Phones a major highlight in new Avaya product releases at ENGAGE event

February 1, 2018 Mark Cox 1
Avaya also rebooted their chatbot strategy with a significant deepening of their AI focus, and they have some things coming in the near future that will be of interest to partners.