In The Channel

In The Channel

Top Down Ventures closes oversubscribed C$38M Founders Fund I, with a 5.3x agentic AI exit already in the books

May 12, 2026 Robert Dutt Comments Off on Top Down Ventures closes oversubscribed C$38M Founders Fund I, with a 5.3x agentic AI exit already in the books
Top Down Ventures has closed Founders Fund I at C$38 million, oversubscribed, as the first institutional VC fund focused exclusively on early-stage MSP software and AI. Managing partner Joel Abramson joined In The Channel on announcement day to unpack the thesis, the zofiQ exit, and the market shift that has the fund bullish on the decade ahead.

In The Channel

On site at ServiceNow Knowledge: What building Canada’s first ServiceNow elite partner teaches you about what’s coming next

May 11, 2026 Robert Dutt Comments Off on On site at ServiceNow Knowledge: What building Canada’s first ServiceNow elite partner teaches you about what’s coming next
In the final episode of our Knowledge 2026 series, we sit down with Steven Kiss of EY Canada – the founder of SuMO IT Solutions, Canada’s first ServiceNow elite partner, now running EY’s national ServiceNow practice – for a practitioner’s view of where the channel is actually headed.

In The Channel

On site at ServiceNow Knowledge: What the agentic business actually looks like from a Canadian vantage point

May 8, 2026 Robert Dutt Comments Off on On site at ServiceNow Knowledge: What the agentic business actually looks like from a Canadian vantage point
Recorded live at Knowledge 2026 in Las Vegas, Robert Dutt sits down with Cristin Gooderham of ServiceNow Canada to unpack what a week of big agentic AI announcements actually means for Canadian enterprises and the partners who serve them.

In The Channel

Third-party risk management: The recurring revenue opportunity hiding in your clients’ vendor stack

May 6, 2026 Robert Dutt Comments Off on Third-party risk management: The recurring revenue opportunity hiding in your clients’ vendor stack
Third-party risk management is emerging as the next major service category for MSPs. The starting point, according to Cynomi Chief Evangelist Tim Coach, isn’t a vendor questionnaire. It’s a conversation about how your client actually makes money.

In The Channel

Sustainability is now a procurement gating factor in Canada: HP’s Frances Edmonds on what that means for MSPs

May 5, 2026 Robert Dutt Comments Off on Sustainability is now a procurement gating factor in Canada: HP’s Frances Edmonds on what that means for MSPs
HP Canada’s Frances Edmonds has spent 30 years making the business case for sustainability. On this episode of In The Channel, she explains why Canadian MSPs and resellers are running out of time to treat it as optional.

In The Channel

On site at SAS Innovate: Deloitte Canada’s Nat D’Ercole on Viya migrations, the data governance gap, and the 80/20 flip AI might finally deliver

May 4, 2026 Robert Dutt Comments Off on On site at SAS Innovate: Deloitte Canada’s Nat D’Ercole on Viya migrations, the data governance gap, and the 80/20 flip AI might finally deliver
What does a Viya migration actually look like from inside a major enterprise engagement? In the final episode of In The Channel’s SAS Innovate 2026 series, Robert Dutt sits down with Nat D’Ercole of Deloitte Canada to talk data governance maturity, the reality of untangling decades of SAS implementation, OSFI E-21 as a catalyst, and why the organizations most ready for AI are the ones that solved their data governance problem years ago.

In The Channel

On site at SAS Innovate: global channel chief John Carey on the shift to indirect, the TD SYNNEX bet, and the case for the transparent box

May 1, 2026 Robert Dutt Comments Off on On site at SAS Innovate: global channel chief John Carey on the shift to indirect, the TD SYNNEX bet, and the case for the transparent box
When John Carey joined SAS Institute four years ago, his mandate was to rethink what partnering looked like for a company with a long advisory and delivery history but limited co-sell and no resell motion. Recorded on site at SAS Innovate 2026, Robert Dutt talks to the senior vice president of global channels about what he found, what he built, and where SAS’s channel goes from here.

In The Channel

On site at SAS Innovate: SAS Canada’s Ryan MacDonald on AI governance, the partner opportunity, and fifty years of trust

April 30, 2026 Robert Dutt Comments Off on On site at SAS Innovate: SAS Canada’s Ryan MacDonald on AI governance, the partner opportunity, and fifty years of trust
What does fifty years of analytics heritage mean in a market that reinvents itself every eighteen months? Recorded on site at SAS Innovate 2026, Robert Dutt sits down with Ryan MacDonald, managing director of SAS Canada, to dig into the week’s major AI governance and agentic AI announcements, the state of Canadian enterprise AI maturity, and why the channel is SAS’s answer to the SMB opportunity.

In The Channel

Do or do not: SonicWall’s Michael Crean on what MSPs keep getting wrong on security

April 29, 2026 Robert Dutt Comments Off on Do or do not: SonicWall’s Michael Crean on what MSPs keep getting wrong on security
SonicWall’s 2026 Cyber Protect Report frames SMB security failures as seven predictable, preventable sins. In The Channel sat down with SVP Michael Crean – who built one of the early SOC-as-a-service MSSPs before SonicWall acquired it – to dig into what the framework actually means for partners.

Channel Programs

Cisco 360, three months in: Canadian partners are responding better than expected

April 24, 2026 Robert Dutt Comments Off on Cisco 360, three months in: Canadian partners are responding better than expected
Cisco Canada’s VP of Partner Organization and SMB Sales takes stock of the first quarter of the new Cisco 360 Partner Program – including the partner feedback that caught her off guard, what “Preferred” means now that Gold is gone, and why Canadian partners should start building their adopt-and-renew practices before the incentive structure forces them to.