The extension of Martello’s relationship with Mitel around Mitel Performance Analytics to include assets acquired from ShoreTel both strengthens that partnership and positions Martello well for aggressive growth on other fronts.
Envision provides a Partner Dashboard showing all customers, and a QoS Dashboard that drills down into a single customer, with more analytics dashboards on the roadmap.
VisibilityOne provides a cloud-based videoconferencing service, designed to support multi-vendor environments, and be very simple to install and use. It is slated for general release in early summer, and will be sold through UCC-focused partners.
Jim Chirico kicked off Avaya’s Engage event in Austin by updating the company’s progress, and stressing that the company has reoriented its approach to the market and their customers.
The ending of the joint venture between Sennheiser and William Demant, which will see the Sennheiser unified communications business transition to William Demant on January 1 2020, means a much more aggressive growth strategy, and new VP Jim Fairweather said that planning has already begun, which includes a more focused channel strategy.
The new DaaS service differs from the leasing option in that Avaya retains control of the device, which some customers like because it reduces their risk. It also allows them to upgrade to a higher priced device with no penalty.
Avaya believes its solution provider channel will also have some interest in the store, which offers Avaya’s UC and CC as-a-service options. They also confirmed that this online store is not a direct play.
Jabra resellers get access to a wireless earbud headset that has appeal to consumer product users, but at a much higher quality that is certified for Skype for Business, and which can spare them a long series of support issues compared to the kind of products in this form factor that have been available until now.
SherWeb’s first RMM integration, with ConnectWise, is scheduled to go live in Q1 of next year, a major step for the Cloud Services Provider, who previously had no direct integration with ConnectWise.
From a product perspective, Savision’s IT Operation solution that integrates and controls monitoring, cloud, and service management tools data in a single pane of glass will enable Martello’s UC/SD-WAN offering to have this same seamless capability. From a business point of view, it doubles Martello’s sales and marketing resources, strengthens their channel, and turns their European presence from minor into a real strength.
CounterPath has added a VAR channel in the last couple years, although the new service will initially launch only through service provider and retail channels, in case any issues need to be worked out.
Texas-based Tango Networks launched their cloud offering in Europe first, but now brings it to the North American market, and are expanding their channel of enterprise-focused partners to help sell it.
The nature of the MSP business means ADTRAN has had more success there with their ProCloud Subscription Services, and the company is aggressively recruiting there for new partners. ADTRAN is also about to introduce a new service, which they say even most MSPs are not yet selling.
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.
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.
Plantronics moves far beyond headsets by buying Polycom, which brings them into three additional businesses that are synergistic to their headset core.
Ooma’s CEO Eric Stang discusses the implications of the deal with ChannelBuzz, including the likely impact on both the Ooma and Voxter solution provider channels.
Specific details on the new Mitel channel program elements, and the distributors involved, will not be announced until April, but the strategic outline of both elements of the go-to-market strategy was made clear.
Among the changes coming to IGEL’s own hardware and software roadmaps, one of their thin clients about to be refreshed will see a switch from an Intel to an AMD processor.
Mercer Rowe, newly recruited from IBM’s cloud business to put Avaya on a cutting-edge path in the cloud, laid out his plans at the Avaya ENGAGE event this week
