Are carriers on-board with the channel selling wireless?

COONS: Carriers have been trying forever, and we would even consult with the carriers who were scratching their heads. We would tell them, “Here's the problem, you're paying partners a spiff on wireless and they want residuals, and carriers would just struggle with that model. Even though these carriers were paying out residuals for their wireline [offerings], they couldn’t change that model for wireless. They still won't. The only carrier that has residual revenue for wireless for the channel is T-Mobile. But on the carrier side, they want net new activations because that's what they have to report to Wall Street and they won't get enough interest until they change that [one-time payment on wireless] to a residual model.

Are you seeing partners taking another look at wireless?

COONS: Absolutely. And that’s been so refreshing because for a while, it felt like [wireless] was dead to the channel. And then at a certain point, it was either you were in the wireless camp or wireline camp. But now, there's been a turning point in the past year or two. I think the lightbulb went off in the channel; our solution was refined enough to the point where we could roll it out, and partners started listening. There was a very palpable shift.

But even still, it hasn't really taken off yet – it's just the very beginning. Right now, I'd say solution providers are either not selling wireless, or it's accounting for a very small percentage of their sales – I'd say a few points. But I would really hope we could get that to 25-30 percent.

What kinds of value-added services could partners potentially wrap around wireless? 

COONS: A managed service that's really big right now is MDM [mobile device management], so this is where a provider installs an app that sits on each mobile device to control the device so you can do things like remote wiping, or putting caps on data for things like Netflix. There are a lot of businesses moving toward MDM now, and that could lead partners down the path of managed services. Something partners could also consider is selling a 4G wireless backup solution for customers. There are pretty cool ways to leverage wireless technology, and there's a lot that partners can sell.