"Organizations are eager to adopt AI — but 71% of leaders say their workforce isn’t ready." — Paul Savill, Global Practice Leader, Network and Edge, Kyndryl

At Cisco Live 2025 in San Diego, Paul Savill, Global Practice Leader for Network and Edge at Kyndryl, joined Doug Green, Publisher of Technology Reseller News, to spotlight a critical — and often overlooked — component of AI transformation: people readiness.

While 95% of enterprise leaders say they’re using AI, Kyndryl’s latest People Readiness Report reveals a stark disconnect: 71% of those same leaders believe their workforce is not prepared to make full use of the technology.

As the world’s largest IT managed services provider, Kyndryl supports global enterprises with full-stack IT solutions — and people remain at the heart of that mission. “Our 80,000 engineers and technicians are on the front lines of IT transformation,” said Savill. “Understanding how ready they are — and helping them become more ready — is essential.”

The report, based on a global survey of CIOs, CTOs, and CEOs, also uncovered tension at the executive level:

43% of CEOs said external hiring is the top strategy for bridging AI skills gaps.

But only 16% of CIOs/CTOs agree, instead prioritizing internal reskilling.

According to Savill, this internal approach includes developing cross-functional expertise, especially as networking, security, and cloud operations rapidly converge. “We’re merging roles, job descriptions, and even operational centers,” he noted. “Networking professionals need to understand security. Security teams need to understand cloud.”

Savill also emphasized the importance of breaking down silos to prevent cloud misconfigurations — a leading cause of security breaches. “Misconfigurations often stem from a lack of collaboration across teams. Training people to work across domains is critical.”

Kyndryl’s work with Cisco, particularly in data center networking and edge services, now extends into AI and even quantum computing readiness. These next-gen technologies, Savill warned, require not just platform adoption but deep workforce transformation to be deployed securely and effectively.

As AI adoption accelerates, data quality becomes the cornerstone of success. “You can’t train an effective AI with bad data,” said Savill. “Foundational work around data integrity, structure, and governance is as important as the AI tools themselves.”

The podcast concluded with a reflection on AI anxiety in the workplace — and a message of optimism. “There are legitimate concerns about job displacement,” Savill acknowledged. “But our research shows that most technical leaders want to reskill their existing teams. And when companies invest in their people, the results will be extraordinary.”

For more information, visit kyndryl.com.

Technology Reseller News Podcast with SmarTrak’s Ted Lee, Live from Cisco Live 2025

“We truly are a revenue machine... Our partners are calling us saying, ‘I need more licenses.’” — Ted Lee, SmarTrak

As competition in the channel ecosystem intensifies, Cisco partners are under pressure to retain and grow customer relationships. In this edition of the Technology Reseller News podcast, publisher Doug Green catches up with Ted Lee of SmarTrak at Cisco Live 2025 in San Diego, where Lee unveils how SmarTrak’s AI-powered application is helping partners do exactly that—with measurable, dramatic results.

Solving the Install Base Challenge

At its core, SmarTrak is a platform designed to help Cisco partners manage the entire lifecycle of a customer’s install base—from subscriptions to Enterprise Agreements (EAs) to lifecycle and incentive programs. What sets it apart, says Lee, is its ability to consolidate Cisco’s data feeds—often spread across dozens of systems—into a unified global view that’s not even available natively within Cisco.

AI-Powered Opportunity Creation

With the launch of SmarTrak v3, the company has enhanced its AI layer to deliver real-time insights into end-of-life, true forward, overconsumption, sustainability swaps, and budget forecasting. “We're helping people predict and budget five years of Cisco spend instantly,” said Lee. “Our partners are winning seven, even eight-figure deals just from a demo.”

Award-Winning Innovation and ROI

SmarTrak’s impact hasn’t gone unnoticed. The company was recently named the DSI Innovation Partner of the Year for the Americas East region, in recognition of how its platform fuels partner-led growth. One SmarTrak partner recently secured a $17 million win from a rival partner based on the insight provided by a demo alone.

Lee emphasizes that SmarTrak is more than just software—it’s a partner success engine. “We know that channel partners are margin-conscious,” said Lee. “So we focus not only on the application but on adoption—with video training, onboarding, one-on-one support, and forward-looking revenue mapping.”

Built for Channel Adoption

In an industry often plagued by underused tools, SmarTrak is built to be adopted and embraced. Its ease of use, combined with high-touch support, makes it a standout. “People don't just buy SmartTrack,” Lee says. “They use it—and they grow with it.”

Learn More

To discover how SmarTrak is helping Cisco partners increase retention, revenue, and renewal success, visit https://smartrak.ai/. Mention the podcast, and you might even hear back directly from Ted Lee himself.

Podcast Sponsor: SmarTrak proudly sponsored Technology Reseller’s Cisco Live 2025 podcast series, marking over a year of mutual success and growth.

#CiscoLive #ChannelPartners #AIinTech #LifecycleManagement #SmarTrakAI #TechReseller #PartnerSuccess #CiscoEA #RevenueGrowth #DigitalTransformation

“The AI-powered enterprise is here—and it demands a network that can keep up.” — Aruna Ravichandran, SVP, Cisco

In a conversation recorded live at Cisco Live 2025 in San Diego, Doug Green, Publisher of Technology Reseller News, sat down with Aruna Ravichandran, Senior Vice President of Marketing for Cisco’s Enterprise Connectivity and Collaboration division. The discussion centered on Cisco’s major announcements aimed at future-proofing enterprise networks to meet the growing demands of AI, automation, and increasing security threats.

Ravichandran explained that Cisco is preparing for a massive transformation in the global workforce—one where AI agents will soon outnumber human workers. With billions of devices and agents expected to be actively communicating, Cisco predicts massive increases in both east-west and north-south traffic, pushing legacy networks to their limits.

To meet this challenge, Cisco launched a suite of new solutions including:

AI Canvas: A collaborative dashboard powered by a Cisco-trained large language model (LLM), offering cross-domain data visibility, telemetry integration, and AI-driven diagnostics. Integrated with a conversational AI assistant, it enables NetOps teams to resolve complex network issues in seconds instead of days.

Agentic Ops: A new paradigm using AI to simplify network operations, empowering NetOps professionals to do more with shrinking budgets.

Smart Switches and Secure Routers: Featuring dual CPU architecture (one for networking and one for security), these devices are post-quantum ready and built to support Cisco’s Hypershield initiative.

Wi-Fi 7 Access Points: A first in the industry, offering high-performance wireless connectivity for AI-heavy environments.

Live Protect: A breakthrough feature enabling live patching of switches without downtime, reinforcing Cisco’s three-layer security model across infrastructure, connectivity, and applications.

Unified Management: Merging the Meraki and Catalyst dashboards into a single control plane to streamline administration.

Ravichandran emphasized that all new technologies are backward compatible, ensuring customers can modernize without disrupting ongoing operations. However, she strongly encouraged enterprises still relying on aging infrastructure—like CAT 9200 and 6K series—to begin refreshing now to leverage these capabilities.

Finally, Ravichandran reinforced Cisco’s strong commitment to its partner ecosystem, noting that the company has built extensive enablement plans for channel partners to capitalize on this refresh wave.

For more, visit: https://www.cisco.com

#AIinNetworking #CiscoLive2025 #NetworkRefresh #AgenticOps #SecureNetworking #WiFi7 #TechReseller #CiscoAI #SmartInfrastructure #TechnologyResellerNews

"First day, worst day, every day — that’s what we’re built for." — Patrick Quirk, President & GM, Opengear

At Cisco Live 2025 in San Diego, Patrick Quirk, President and General Manager of Opengear, joined Technology Reseller News publisher Doug Green to unveil a major innovation in network resilience: Opengear’s new Foundational Support platform.

Designed to meet the growing demands of increasingly complex, high-density network environments, the SLA-backed solution debuts as part of Opengear’s commitment to full-lifecycle customer support. “It’s not just about selling equipment,” said Quirk. “It’s about walking with the customer through every stage of the network’s lifecycle — from deployment to daily operations to disaster recovery.”

A long-standing Cisco partner, Opengear has evolved from traditional console servers to a critical infrastructure provider, helping companies maintain uptime in an era where milliseconds matter — especially amid today’s AI-driven network traffic spikes. “Outages aren’t just inconvenient,” Quirk noted. “They’re expensive. We’re seeing potential losses of $21,000 per minute during downtime.”

Opengear’s edge? Out-of-band management. Unlike in-band VLAN control planes, which can be compromised during incidents or overloaded by data traffic, out-of-band infrastructure operates on a completely separate path. This architecture allows for immediate network visibility and control during even the worst disruptions, such as fiber cuts or cyberattacks.

Supporting both operational and compliance objectives, Opengear enables organizations to maintain certifications like ISO, SOC 2, and NIST. “We’re the wrapper around your network,” said Quirk, emphasizing the company’s ability to enforce security and governance alongside performance.

The conversation also spotlighted Opengear’s recent AI-focused global research, which found a “lens gap” between network engineers and the C-suite. While both groups recognize AI’s potential, engineers view it as a productivity tool, whereas executives prioritize compliance and customer value. “There’s alignment,” Quirk said. “It just needs more conversation.”

At Cisco Live, Opengear is exhibiting at booth 4324 and hosting sessions on topics like agentic AI and network strategy. More details are available at opengear.com.

“We need to make things easier and secure from the foundation—by design.” — Stephen Marshall, CEO, Moon Equity Holdings Corp.

In a compelling new episode of Technology Reseller News, publisher Doug Green sits down with Stephen Marshall, CEO of Moon Equity Holdings Corp., to discuss a transformative initiative aimed at rebuilding the Internet from the ground up. At the heart of the conversation is Indexr.ai, a new distributed platform designed to restore privacy, curb AI-generated disinformation, and reassert user control in the digital age.

Moon Equity Holdings, a public company on the pink sheets, was repurposed by Marshall as the funding vehicle for Indexr, bypassing traditional Silicon Valley capital to allow everyday people to participate in the Internet's reinvention. As Marshall explains, the current structure of the web—laden with bloated code, vulnerable data pipelines, and AI hallucinations—has reached a breaking point.

“AI is already citing AI,” warns Marshall, describing a dangerous feedback loop where hallucinated content becomes canon. He even recounts a personal experience where a major AI platform mistakenly declared him deceased, combining his bio with an obituary of another individual bearing his name.

Marshall’s solution is not merely a browser—though the term is used for accessibility. Instead, Indexr is a distributed, privacy-centric platform built with hypercloud architecture, modular stacks, and VPN-like node networking. It promises secure, scalable, and customizable experiences for consumers, businesses, and government use alike.

With Indexr, Marshall and his team aim to dismantle the data-leaking, cookie-laden infrastructure of today’s Internet and replace it with something secure by default. This vision extends into the defense sector, with Marshall also co-founding Shieldcom, a private communications company supporting secure military-grade communications.

Green and Marshall conclude by emphasizing the importance of building digital ecosystems that are both usable and trustworthy. The Indexr platform, slated for rollout by year-end, may be just the start of a new chapter in how we connect, search, and share online.

Learn more at: https://indexr.ai

“People think of tariffs and duties as just shipping line items—but they’re reshaping boardroom strategy.” — Noa Sussman, TecEx

In this installment of the TecEx podcast series, Noa Sussman returns to help listeners navigate the rapidly evolving—and often misunderstood—world of tariffs, duties, and VAT. Hosted by Doug Green, Publisher of Technology Reseller News, this session pulls back the curtain on the taxes and trade terms that are quietly impacting IT budgets, deployment timelines, and global expansion strategies.

“We’ve reached a point where the C-suite needs to understand the difference between a tariff and a duty,” says Sussman. “These aren’t just accounting line items anymore. They’re strategic levers that can affect profitability, market timing, and compliance risk.”

TecEx provides not just shipping services, but end-to-end strategic support for global IT deployments, acting as the “importer of record” in over 200 jurisdictions. In this episode, Sussman breaks down:

What VAT really is and how it’s recoverable along the supply chain—but a major cash flow issue at customs if unplanned.

How duties differ from VAT and why they are used to protect domestic industries from foreign competition.

Why tariffs are political tools, not just trade policies—and how they're weaponized in global disputes.

Why compliance isn’t optional and how recent export control failures have landed executives in legal trouble.

Using real-world examples, Sussman shows how companies can lose margin—or worse, face legal issues—simply by failing to plan early. “We’re not just problem solvers after things go wrong,” he emphasizes. “We’re strategic partners who can help you avoid the problem in the first place.”

Key takeaway: Don't wait until a shipment is stuck at customs. Engage with experts like TecEx before contracts are signed and pricing is set. Taxes, duties, tariffs, and compliance must now be factored into the earliest stages of international planning.

Learn more at https://www.tecex.com

“We’re part of the governance mechanism telcos need for AI to be safe, secure, and performant,” said Stephen Douglas, Head of Market Strategy at Spirent.

In this Technology Reseller News podcast, Publisher Doug Green interviews Stephen Douglas of Spirent, one of the world’s leading test, measurement, and assurance providers for the ICT sector. The conversation takes a deep dive into how telecom service providers are uniquely positioned to lead in the era of sovereign AI — and why rigorous testing and assurance will be critical to their success.

As AI moves from training clusters into live consumer and enterprise applications, the demands on network infrastructure are shifting dramatically. From unpredictable traffic bursts to strict data sovereignty regulations, Douglas explains how these changes represent both a threat and an opportunity for telcos.

Central to the discussion is the concept of Sovereign AI — the idea that governments and mission-critical industries will require localized, compliant, and secure AI infrastructures. Far from being a constraint, Douglas argues this trend offers telcos a new chance to move beyond the “fat dumb pipe” role and become national AI enablers.

By leveraging their deep, distributed infrastructure, trusted relationships, and regulatory experience, service providers can offer GPU-as-a-service, AI model orchestration, and privacy-compliant platforms. But as Douglas warns, with opportunity comes accountability. Telcos will need to validate AI model behavior, prevent hallucinations, ensure security doesn’t degrade performance, and continuously test compliance.

Spirent, Douglas notes, plays a crucial role in enabling this transformation: “From performance validation to continuous compliance audits, we’re helping service providers become the trusted AI platforms of the future.”

To learn more about Spirent: https://www.spirent.com

In a special episode leading up to the CCA European Summit, Doug Green, Publisher of Technology Reseller News, interviews Mattias Ohde, Investor and Advisor at Meetric, a conversational intelligence platform purpose-built for service providers.

At the Brussels event, Ohde will join a panel on “The Power of an Open Best-of-Breed Ecosystem Approach,” where he’ll explore how providers can stay competitive in an AI-driven world without being locked into monolithic tech stacks.

“There is no longer time to build everything yourself,” says Ohde. “The pace of innovation is too fast. To keep up, you need an open infrastructure where best-of-breed technologies can be added, replaced, and evolved.”

Meetric’s white-label platform goes beyond basic call transcription by ingesting data across telephony, meetings, chat, and contact centers to deliver actionable insights, AI coaching, and workflow automation — all integrated into the service provider’s backend.

Built for telecom operators and UCaaS providers, Meetric’s offering includes full portals for onboarding, billing, and provisioning — allowing service providers to package cutting-edge conversational AI as their own branded solution.

Ohde argues this modular, flexible approach is essential in today’s market:

“You don’t win by trying to do everything in-house. You win by assembling the best and letting your platform evolve with the needs of your customers.”

Ohde also praises the CCA event itself:

“What’s unique about this summit is that it isn’t just a showcase — it’s a gathering of forward-looking thinkers focused on real innovation. Even competitors are collaborating to raise the industry standard.”

With an expanding toolkit and a partner-first mindset, Meetric represents the type of ecosystem thinking that’s redefining the future of cloud communications.

Learn more: https://www.meetric.com

Event details: CCA European Summit – Brussels, June 16–17, 2025

In this special preview of the CCA European Summit, Doug Green, Publisher of Technology Reseller News, interviews Jeff Korn, CEO and Chairman of Crexendo, a leading telecom platform provider and active member of the Cloud Communications Alliance (CCA).

Set to speak on a key panel at the Brussels event, Korn outlines Crexendo’s bold vision for open, best-of-breed ecosystems in telecom. “We recently surpassed 6 million users, making us the third largest platform in the U.S. serving third parties,” Korn reports. “That growth is driven by our open APIs, flexible deployment options, and a commitment to giving customers full control of their platforms.”

Crexendo’s NetSapiens platform enables providers to shape telecom solutions to fit their own business needs — not someone else’s template. “We don’t believe in one-size-fits-all,” says Korn. “With our open APIs and customizable interfaces, our licensees can create exactly what they need — or integrate tools from any vendor they choose.”

One of the platform’s most disruptive features is its pricing model: Crexendo charges by sessions, not seats. “Why should schools or hotels pay for phones that aren’t in use? You only pay for the sessions you need,” says Korn. This usage-based pricing creates massive cost-efficiency for verticals with seasonality or compliance-based phone requirements.

Looking beyond North America, Korn discussed Crexendo’s expansion across EMEA, highlighting a strategic partnership with Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) that allows the company to rapidly deploy localized services in countries with strict data sovereignty laws. “We can now spin up a compliant, country-specific instance in days,” notes Korn. “That’s a game-changer for growth across Europe, Africa, and Asia.”

As Crexendo continues its global ascent, Korn will join other industry leaders in Brussels, sharing how openness, flexibility, and customer-first design can power innovation across borders.

Learn more about Crexendo: https://www.crexendo.com

Event details: CCA European Summit – Brussels, June 16–17, 2025

“The impact is now,” says Damon Finaldi, President of TeleCloud. “In under a year, this will become more commonplace in the telecom business.”

In this episode of Technology Reseller News, Publisher Doug Green welcomes back Damon Finaldi of TeleCloud, a Cloud Communications Alliance (CCA) member, for a live demonstration and deep dive into one of telecom’s most talked-about innovations: vCons (Virtual Conversations).

TeleCloud, a New Jersey-based cloud service provider, has deep roots in direct client interaction across industries like healthcare, auto, legal, and service trades. That close engagement has led to a key insight: data, not just service, is the most valuable business asset—and vCons are the vehicle to unlock it.

Powered by conversational AI, vCons capture and enrich business communications (calls, emails, texts), then deliver actionable insights through TeleCloud’s dashboard interface. Finaldi explains how this real-time analysis reveals call trends, sentiment, tone, and key phrases, offering triggers and alerts to preempt issues before they escalate.

“We’re not just recording calls—we’re making the data useful,” Finaldi says. Through integration with vertical-specific applications, such as appointment systems for urgent care clinics, TeleCloud is enabling real-time business intelligence across customer interactions.

Key takeaways from the podcast:

vCons turn voice and text data into actionable insight with AI

TeleCloud’s platform now delivers real-time sentiment and trend analysis

Insights dashboards trigger alerts and stitch together multi-channel data

Service providers must adopt this or risk losing relevance—and valuation

The vCon format is being approved by the IETF as a global standard

As AI adoption accelerates, TeleCloud is positioning itself not just as a cloud provider—but as a business intelligence partner. The future of telecom, Finaldi argues, lies in offering clients more than connectivity—it’s about delivering clarity.

Learn more at: https://telecloud.net