Our weekly round-up of the IT news you don’t want to miss.
Symantec fires CEO
The turmoil at Internet security giant Symantec is continuing with the termination of CEO Steve Bennett. Long-time board member Michael Brown has been appointed President and Chief Executive Officer on an interim basis. The company will begin searching for a permanent replacement immediately. Trading of Symantec stock was temporarily halted following the announcement late Thursday. It dropped as much as 10 percent in after-hours trading. Bennett was in the second year of a transition that was supposed to help the company recover from several years of mediocre performance. Bennett was working on delivering a more integrated product portfolio but the company has failed to explain what that would look like. He had focussed on overhauling the company’s go-to-market strategy, laying off hundreds of employees and refocusing sales efforts on an elite group of about 100 US partners, however the process seemed to be taking longer than expected and he recently said that the coming year would see the process continue. The company announced another quarter of declining revenue with its third-quarter performance numbers, released in January, reporting $1.71 billion, down from $1.79 billion a year earlier.
Xerox launches push for managed services, recurring revenue with new partner program
Xerox introduced a new unified, global partner program last week, and is making a push to promote recurring revenue models that will help partners make more money from print products. According to Toni Clayton-Hine, Vice President of Channel and Global Marketing at Xerox, there is still a huge opportunity in the channel for managed print services, which go beyond simply selling a printing device and making sure it’s online and functional to include the ongoing sourcing of consumable supplies like toner and paper. This kind of ongoing work can be extremely lucrative, with margins in the 60 to 70 point range on consumables. Xerox has prioritized recruiting MPS channel partners and will provide them with new tools, education and training around engaging customers in recurring revenue models, and with opportunities to connect with each other.
Verdasys names new CEO, unveils plans for channel push
It was a big week for Verdasys. The Waltham, Mass.-based data loss prevention vendor announced a $12 million investment round, named a new CEO and unveiled plans for a major channel push. Former McAfee exec Kenneth Levine has taken the organization’s reins and announced that the new investment – which brings the total venture capital investments in the company since it was founded in 2003 to $65 million – will be used to boost the reach of its partner program into new markets through improved channel outreach and to enhance the capabilities of its agent-based data loss prevention platform, Digital Guardian. According to Levine, there is an opportunity for Verdasys to expand the product beyond data loss protection to address a broader security footprint, and include such features as malware detection.
AppDynamics boosts partner margins with updated partner program
AppDynamics has made moves to protect partner margins by rolling out a new compensation model for its channel program. The San Francisco-based company sells application performance management software that provides clients with visibility into their application stacks and the ability to identify patterns and diagnose problems. Since launching in 2008, AppDynamics has seen year-on-year growth rates in the 175 percent range, something the company credits largely to the growth of its channel business – which has growth to represent 10 to 15 percent of the company’s revenue. Going forward, AppDynamics partners will get 20 percent margins on the first $500,000 of business, 25 percent up to $1 million, and 30 percent on anything topping $1 million. Renewals, which have been in the 96 percent range, will be worth 10 percent margins, 20 percent with support.
Acuative acquires consulting capabilities with Thrupoint purchase
Acuative, formerly known as TelSource, has added consulting capabilities to its portfolio and expanded its geographic reach with the acquisition of the U.S. division of Thrupoint. However, the value of the deal was not disclosed in this week’s announcement. Traditionally, the Fairfield, N.J.-based solution provider was particularly skilled in services implementation and technology operation and maintenance. This move adds consulting services expertise that makes it possible for the company to deliver a credible end-to-end technology service that begins at the earliest consultative phase and continues through delivery to operation. The deal closes a competitive weakness and the company expects to address other weaknesses in like manner as the year progresses.
Intermedia focuses on the channel with increased cloud service commissions and new integrations
Cloud services provider Intermedia has made moves to increase its indirect sales by raising partner commissions and adding a set of new integrations – with Salesforce, ConnectWise and QuickBooks – that will help solution providers simplify their workflows and processes. Going forward, the three platforms will be integrated with Intermedia’s Partner Portal, providing 350,000 users with the ability to synchronise customer account data with the platforms. This works by allowing customers to create new accounts within the applications and then connect their billing systems. According to the company, this move will make it more attractive to potential partners. Adding further gloss to prospective relationships, the company is raising commissions. For example, partners will receive 10 percent commission on Intermedia's hosted PBX, a 66 percent increase over previous commissions, and eight percent on hosted Exchange, Lync, SharePoint and SecuriSync – a 33 percent increase.
Mitel launches white-label partner program for UCaaS
Ottawa, Canada-based Mitel has launched a new white-label program that will allow partners to resell its MiCloud Enterprise Unified Communications-as-a-Service (UCaaS) offering under their own brands. Mitel will continue to host MiCloud UCaaS in its own data centers, although there will be an option for partners that have their own infrastructure to host it within their own environments in the future. MiCloud Enterprise UCaaS delivers a suite of hosted UC applications, including voice, chat, telepresence, and audio and videoconferencing that can be delivered through as subscriptions either through recurring or up front billing. Mitel, which announced the $400 million acquisition of Aastra Technologies earlier this year, has been gradually pushing its partners to adopt cloud models. Over the last year the company introduced a new sales unit dedicated to driving sales of MiCloud and also unveiled AnyWare Cloud Contact Center, a hosted contact-center-management suite aimed at SMBs.
Huawei Enterprise USA appoints new channel boss, offers major discounts to raise brand awareness
Huawei Enterprise has appointed channel veteran Glen Ziegler – who previously held senior channel positions with Hewlett-Packard and 3Com – as its new Senior Director of Channel Sales. Ziegler’s first move since taking the reins is an aggressive play to raise the company’s brand recognition in the channel and take market share away from Huawei’s chief competitors, Cisco, Juniper Networks and Extreme Networks. The company, which currently has more than 100 North American channel partners, is offering a 30 percent discount off competitive quotes from those vendors. The next move is a channel recruiting process for its data center offering.
