Technology Reseller - v08

01732 759725 BULLETIN : VENDORS 20 Channel Vision Chris Walsh, Sales Director, Alpha Generation 1 What was your greatest challenge in 2017? Watching my beautiful daughter turn into a monster (she became a teenager!). Seriously, keeping focused on our company goals amid outside distractions, whether that be Brexit, the economy, the day-to-day distractions of running a business or the ever changing landscape of the IT security industry. 2 What was your greatest achievement in 2017? Growing our company despite all the challenges mentioned above. One of our goals was to stay with a small number of core vendors and grow those rather than sign any old vendor. We have stayed true to our goals and hope to see the fruits of our labour next year. 3 What were the key growth areas for you in 2017? We live in a seamless world with no boundaries and, with that, I foresee a different approach to securing endpoints that are still reliant upon the legacy methods of reacting to malicious activity. Our industry has to become proactive and close the 1% gap. 4 Any lessons learned in 2017? Yes, I should have hung up on conference calls or walked out of more meetings as soon as someone used a phrase like ‘Deep Dive’ or ‘Blue Sky Thinking’. Apart from that, don’t have all your eggs in one basket and don’t let one particular entity have too much control over you. 5 What is your main focus for 2018? To bring some of our newer vendors up to the levels we know they can achieve while maintaining focus on our current vendors. We also need to listen to what our partners are saying – they are the feet on the street and speak to end-users daily. 6 Reasons to be optimistic about 2018? The bad guys keep trying to attack the good guys, which means we all still have jobs. Seriously, with mandates such as GDPR coming into effect, organisations will have to put into practice projects they maybe have delayed. This is good news for the proactive security channel. Datto starts Autotask integration Data protection solutions provider Datto has finalised its acquisition by Vista Equity Partners and started its integration with Autotask. The combined business will offer Managed Service Providers a unified platform for Autotask’s IT business management offerings and Datto’s data protection solutions. With a network of more than 13,000 MSPs, working with more than 500,000 SMBs, Datto claims to be the largest MSP-centric tech company in the world. www.datto.com Hampshire Business Computers was named the Datto EMEA Emerging Partner of the Year at DattoCon London 2017; Technology Services Group was named EMEA Breakthrough Partner of the Year; Complete I.T. won the EMEA Best Engagement Partner of the Year award. Spitfire strengthens board Spitfire Network Services Ltd, the ISP Telecoms and IP Engineering Solutions Provider, has strengthened its senior management with two new board appointments. Dominic Norton is promoted to Engineering Solutions Director, managing the direct sales teams, and Nick Goodenough (pictured) has been made Partner Service Director in charge of Spitfire’s Partner Service team. Spitfire has 400 reseller partners and an annual turnover of over £25 million. Quick success for Manchester firm Manchester-based SaaS software provider Pimberly has been named in Forrester’s Product Information Management (PIM) report, Vendor Landscape: Product Information Management (PIM), Q3, 2017 . Backed by leading IT provider Jigsaw24 and private equity firm, NorthEdge Capital, Pimberly helps retail and distribution companies manage all their product information and assets across multiple channels. Since launch less than a year ago, the firm has secured more than £500,000 of annual contracted revenues and taken on 13 clients, including Westcoast Distribution and Ellis Brigham. www.pimberly.com UK partner programme for Duo Security Duo Security has introduced a managed service provider (MSP) and invitation-only security solution provider programme in the UK. Unlike security vendor programmes with tiered levels, Duo offers a bespoke programme for security- centric UK-based solution providers invited to join the programme. Matt Smith, Vice President of Worldwide Channels & Business Development, said: “Duo removes the pricing and implementation complexity of traditional partner models, allowing partners to be more profitable while providing their customers what they need to protect their users, devices and applications.” https://duo.com Haggis promotion NewVoiceMedia, a provider of cloud contact centre and inside sales technology, has promoted Chris Haggis to senior vice president of customer success. Based in the UK, Haggis will have global responsibility for NewVoiceMedia’s customer success and professional services functions. NewVoiceMedia services 650 customers worldwide and reported international bookings growth of 55% in FY 2017. It is included in the Forbes Cloud 100 list of the top 100 private cloud companies in the world. www.newvoicemedia.com Kaseya launches MSP benchmarking tool Kaseya has launched a new portal that enables MSPs to compare service offerings with their peers.  Giving access to Kaseya’s own market analysis, MSP Insights enables MSPs to benchmark their business metrics against other MSPs in their region; analyse new and emerging MSP service offerings; evaluate bundling and pricing strategies; and review detailed technical trends. The new tool has been welcomed by Mick Shah, SVP of technical services at Dataprise. He said: “The ability to look under the covers, so to speak, at what our competitors are offering speaks volumes to our sales team. Kaseya MSP Insights allows us to stay in front of market technology trends and see what new technologies our customers require. This empowers us to continually update the types of technology and services we offer, which directly leads to new business and overall company growth for Dataprise.” www.kaseya.com/resources/msp-insights