Best Partnering

Polycom Channel Chief On New Partner Program

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The video and unified communications vendor Polycom launched its revamped global partner program earlier this month focused on rewarding its top performing channel partners.

Polycom Channel Chief and Vice President of Worldwide Channel Sales Mark Arman talked to IT Best of Breed about the revamped program and shared his thoughts on how vendors should shape a channel.

MSPs: Expand Portfolio, Understand Clients, Avoid Commoditization

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Managed service providers are feeling the squeeze. Overlapping products and services have have whittled away at individuality and have ushered in commoditization.

Alex Rogers, CEO of the Bakersfield, Calif.-based IT business training provider CharTec, said MSP margin erosion has occurred over the past two or three years as more break-fix companies transitioned into managed services, offering the same array of help desk and network operations center (NOC) services.

Polatis CEO Talks SDN-Enabled Optical Switching

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Gerald Wesel

Optical switching that enables software-define networking is becoming a strategic solution in the marketplace when designing high-speed network architectures to meet increasing bandwidth demand.

The optical switch maker Polatis and World Wide Technology, No. 12 on the CRN SP 500, formed a partnership in March, which will see WWT integrating Polatis' SDN-enabled optical switching systems into their solutions. 

How MSPs Can Master The Evolution Of The Cloud

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When cloud computing came into play, channel resellers quickly realized they needed to offer cloud services in order to stay relevant and remain profitable. 

Many of these channel players added cloud services to their portfolio of offerings by creating and running their own clouds. Due to the major up-front and ongoing cost incurred by creating and managing cloud environments, the clouds that these resellers created have been generally small, offering limited services and a local footprint. 

Q&A: 8x8 CMO Talks On-Premise To Cloud Shift

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2015 is the year solution providers and VARs need to start shifting their on-premises unified communications and VoIP solutions to the cloud or risk falling behind.

On-premises private branch exchange (PBX) systems have been stagnant in the market, with low-single-digit growth rates over the past few years, compared with hosted services growing in the double digits, according to an Infonetics Research report. Infonetics expects cloud PBX and UC services to be about a $12 billion market by 2018.

Trace3 Makes Startups A Specialty

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Tim Coats

Solution providers looking to solve customers' issues can choose from a variety of traditional and not-so-traditional solutions. For many, that means exploring potential partnerships with startups.

Working with startups carries the potential payout that comes with being the first to market with a new innovative solution. On the other hand, finding the wrong startup could at a minimum mean a waste of resources bringing the wrong solution to market, with other possible risks including ruined customer relationships.

Cloud Success Depends On The Right Partners, Network

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Corey Eng

Many enterprises are trying to increase productivity, operate more efficiently and reduce costs by re-locating their applications and services to the cloud.

However, placing their applications and services in the cloud is not enough to achieve these objectives. Enterprises also need network connectivity that gives employees at every location flexible, reliable and secure access to those cloud-based applications and services.

Got Big Data? Go Hybrid

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Emil Sayegh

Big data is big business in 2015. A rapid increase in data technologies and computing power has led to more and more enterprises and small businesses around the world accumulating massive amounts of data.

Every day, we create 2.5 quintillion bytes of data from sensors gathering climate information, social media posts, digital media, purchase transactions, cell phone GPS signals… the list goes on and on.

ScanSource Execs: VARs Must Evolve To MSP Model

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ScanSource CTO Greg Dixon

Any IT expert will tell you it's important to be able adapt to today’s ever-changing market, and the most critical transitions resellers need to make tend to be the toughest.

Discussing the biggest opportunities for resellers, ScanSource executives insist that switching from the traditional reseller model to a managed services model is the most important move for partners to make. The Greenville, South Carolina-based distributor has put significant time and resources into helping its partners kick-start this evolution.

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