Even in the dead of summer, channel-facing companies are keeping their partners engaged.
In most cases, companies made adjustments to their channel programs. A major personnel change at Verizon Business Markets shifted responsibilities within the unit, and Microsoft laid out a series of new initiatives for its partners at its Inspire conference.
There are also several new partner programs that launched in the last month. AT&T, Intelisys, Sandler Partners and Datto are among the big names featured. Scroll through to learn what's new.
Missed June's big channel changes? Find them here.
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Read about the additions to AT&T Partner Exchange.
Despite the departure of longtime channel leader Janet Schijns, Verizon says its channel program, newly combined with XO Communications – which it recently acquired – under the Verizon Business Markets (VBM) umbrella, is "a continuation of work that she was already doing along the lines of one program," VBM CMO Jake Heinz told us.
Lori Bonenfant, who was doing much of the channel marketing work along with program design and strategy work alongside Schijns, will take on more responsibility.
Read the Q&A with Heinz.
Microsoft expanded how it's bringing its partner-facing roles into one organization to inspire partners to innovate more, go to market faster, and connect with the right customers at the right time. The company laid out some of the plans at its Microsoft Inspire partner conference.
Get the details on Microsoft's approach.
Intelisys unveiled a new financial program that allows its sales partners to leverage their monthly recurring revenue (MRR) through the master agent to buy hardware via ScanSource, its parent company.
The Hardware Purchasing Power Program allows Intelisys sales partners to grow their base and increase their buying power by turning their existing MRR into hardware collateral, the company said. Additionally, the program is available to qualifying ScanSource VARs to help them as they build a monthly recurring cloud and carrier services billing base with Intelisys.
IntelePeer announced that its go-to-market strategy is now 100-percent indirect. The San Mateo, California-based company says the company has experienced 130-percent growth in the indirect sales of its voice services. IntelePeer is building its channel team in light of recent success.
Read about IntelePeer's channel approach.
Jabra launched its new One Partner Program and appointed Cheryle Walline as head of channels, public sector and SME in North America. The program, which will roll out globally this year, establishes two partner levels — authorized and premium. Premium partners benefit from expanded support, customized agreements, dedicated account management and business investment funding as appropriate to grow their business.
Get the details on Jabra's North American partner program.
EventTracker is launching a channel program to help partners sell its security information and event management (SIEM) solutions. The Columbia, Maryland-based company announced the EventTracker Partner Program, which it says will turn managed service providers into MSSPs — managed security service providers.
Learn more about EventTracker's channel program.
Sandler Partners will participate in a pilot within the AT&T Alliance Program. Sandler says its 5,400-plus partners will get new opportunities to sell AT&T services and additional support through the Alliance program.
Learn more about the pilot.
CarrierSales, the Utah-based master agent, reached $1 million in monthly billing with inContact. inContact, which NICE acquired last year, provides cloud-based contact centers and credits CarrierSales for an "intense focus on the contact center." The master agent is the first inContact partner to reach $1 million monthly billing status.
Cloudian announced its Hyperforce Partners program. The enterprise storage vendor is formalizing its relationship with the partner community, one that could be defined as unstructured up until now. The program has been in beta since February.
Learn the details of Cloudian's new program.
Velostrata launched its first global partner program, formalizing the work it has been doing with a growing network of partners during the past year.
Velostrata's program is tier-based, with no annual fees. Partners are eligible for a range of sales, marketing, technical and training benefits to help achieve business goals.
Learn more about Velostrata's partner program.
Partners that work with cloud distributor Pax8 can now sell Datto data-protection solutions. The new team-up includes the whole slate of Datto offerings, from disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS), to managed networking and cloud-to-cloud backup. Ryan Walsh, Pax8's senior vice president of partner solutions, says his company is realigning to give MSPs a "one-stop destination" for Datto services.
Get more on the story here.
LANtelligence, the 17-year-old VAR providing services from ShoreTel, 8x8 and others, launched a new channel program, its first, as a master solution provider.
A master solution provider combines the partnerships and buying power of master agents with the technical expertise and support of an established solutions provider, the company said. It has expanded its business by growing a channel of individual sales agents and MSPs interested in upstreaming their cloud communications sales.