Telecom Reseller / Technology Reseller News

by Gary Audin

The Alliance Partners www.thealliancepartners.com, originally the Agent Alliance, is a powerful voice in the channel, dedicated to the best business outcomes for the channel and its providers. It is a forum for education, collaboration, and information-sharing, aimed at helping channel partners evolve their practices to remain competitive. The Alliance is more than a master agent.

Bill Power, CEO of The Alliance Partners www.thealliancepartners.com, and Gary Audin recorded this podcast at the Channel Partners conference. Bill stated that the Alliance is a form mutual organization. The partners are all owners. The partners reduce negotiation costs while improving contract efficiency. They share intelligence. The end result is greater negotiation leverage. Membership is by invitation.

The Alliance is a channel partner industry consortium that brings together agents, VARs, managed service providers, IT consultants, and cloud specialists. The Alliance is able to leverage the unique and diverse expertise of its formidable member roster to put knowledge into practice in highly pragmatic ways to create an environment of continuous growth and improvement, which benefits partners, providers, and clients alike. The 17 of Alliance’s member agencies collectively have offices in 30 U.S. and international cities; priority access to 11,000+ subagents, direct sales resources and 450+ direct staff; and more than 250,000 existing clients—all resulting in a collective, mature Alliance sales engine that books in excess of $2 million in new revenue per month.

by Gary Audin

Looking for more revenue? Looking for new partners? Want to meet with you present partners? Get educated on new opportunities? These are the reasons to attend the Channel Partners Evolution conference and show with 150+ candidates for new business relationships.

Rick Reed, SVP of U.S. Sales for Channel Partners www.channelpartnersonline.com and Gary Audin recorded this podcast at the Channel Partners conference. They discuss what Rick calls the “art of the possible.” Attendees learn through five educational tracks and network efficiently during the conference. A mythical IoT apparel company was created and used as the theme to educate the attendees in the possibilities of moving into IoT. The next show/conference is in Las Vegas, April 20-13, 2017.

For more than two decades, Channel Partners has been the leader in providing news and analysis to indirect sales channels serving the information technology and communications industry. It is the resource for resellers, aggregators, agents, brokers, VARs, systems integrators, interconnects, and dealers that provide network-based communications and computing services, associated CPE and applications as well as managed and professional services. Their live events (Channel Partners Conference & Expo and Channel Partners Evolution) are the place to be for innovative MSPs, VARs, agents, systems integrators and other channel pros from around the country. Solutions providers turn to their shows for networking opportunities, education sessions and access to top vendors so they can deliver the IT and telecom solutions their customers are demanding.

Future business and technology historians may well view our times as being defined as a period of a tectonic clash between technology giants Cisco and Microsoft. Cisco's recent offering that promises interoperability between Cisco collaboration solutions and Microsoft’s popular Skype for Business are big stories. But for those who manage and guide enterprise networks, there remains the task of coming up with the best game plan available, to navigate these changes while offering the best of both worlds for their respective network and end users. West Unified Communications sits dead center in all the excitement as both a Cisco and Microsoft partner. In this podcast Mike Nessler, Executive Vice President of Global Product and Marketing at West Unified Communications walks us through the challenges and the opportunities facing UC and UCasS network managers and how West is helping customers make choices that work.

Visit https://www.westuc.com/en-us

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by Gary Audin

You may know CompTIA for its educational resources. CompTIA also has councils: Vendor, Partner, and Distributor. These are for the benefit if the IT and telecom industries. What you may not know is that there is End User Commission the “voice of the client,” business in this industry. The commission is influencing the other councils. One influences the change in branding. A vendor brand name no longer has the client penetration it used to have. Solutions are important, solutions that are usually from a group of partners, not a single vendor. 75% of businesses are looking for solutions find them on line. 25% require the higher touch from a vendor.

Annette Taber, VP for Industry Strategies at CompTIA www.comptia.org and Gary Audin recorded this podcast the Channel Partners conference. Annette discussed the influence of CompTIA and its membership on the IT and telecom industries . She points out that there is a wealth of vendor neutral information on their website. Go to www.comptia.org and sign in as a user for access.

The Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA) www.comptia.org is a non-profit trade association serving as the voice of the information technology industry. With approximately 2,000 member companies, 3,000 academic and training partners, 80,000 registered users and more than two million IT certifications issued, CompTIA is dedicated to advancing industry growth through educational programs, market research, networking events, professional certifications and public policy advocacy.

Patrick Sullivan, COO and Co-Founder of 2600Hz discusses the technology and architecture that has allowed 2600Hz to grow rapidly into one of the leading suppliers of white-label solutions to the hosted telephony industry with Don Witt of The Channel Daily News from Telecom Reseller. Taking advantage of the individual restrictions of the hosted PBX and restrictions on the individual switching technology, 2600Hz delivers a clustered solution called Kazoo that allows for complete redundancy and massive scalability instantly.

Providing a highly reliable network has enabled them to grow behind the scenes. They are now making the move to become more visible to other Resellers, MSPs, and Carriers that are looking for a better way to deliver the quality service needed in today’s race to zero market.

An elegant, powerful way to provide communications services.

Deploy & Scale Instantly

Add unlimited users and devices without worry. Gain peace of mind with a system that automatically protects you from failures and outages.

Provide Feature-Rich Services

Set up an entire office phone system, effortlessly manage users and their services, and provide advanced features—all within one intuitive interface.

Build, Automate, & Integrate with APIs

Utilize KAZOO APIs to build customized communications experiences with the ability to integrate with any other software or service.

More at https://www.2600hz.com/

by Gary Audin

There are many choices when selecting a UC service. Some are better than others. Some are more responsive than others. This becomes very important if you are an agent, MSP, or reseller. Selecting a service that invests in you is paramount.

Mario DeRiggi, EVP, Chief of Sales for Broadview Networks www.broadviewnet.com and Gary Audin recorded this podcast at the Channel Partners conference. Mario discusses the Broadview investment in their partners. He presents the reasoning behind their partner support. He also discusses the integration of Broadview with Google, Microsoft, and Salesforce.

Broadview Networks www.broadviewnet.com is a cloud-based business communications provider serving SMBs, mid-size enterprises and technology resellers with a portfolio of bundled, hosted IP phone and cloud computing services designed to meet the unique application requirements of diverse workforce groups. Broadview provides local and long-distance voice and data communications, premises-based and patented hosted VoIP systems, data services and a full suite of managed and professional services. Its customers and partners benefit from a web-based account management tool and award-winning customer service.

by Gary Audin

Noise interferes with understanding. Noise is distracting. Noise is annoying and presents a poor image to the customer talking to a contact center agent. Consider noise for truck drivers, noise for first responders. All of these situations require excellent noise cancellation. You also want a headset that is reliable under many conditions.

David Jaques, Director of Product Marketing at VXi www.vxicorp.com and Gary Audin discuss the production and use of high fidelity, reliable headsets in this podcast recorded at the Channel Partners conference. VXi believes they have one of the best noise cancellation headsets on the market. Their website presents some specific metrics comparing VXi’s noise cancellation to other headset vendor’s sound quality.

VXi Corporation's www.vxicorp.com offers best-in-class headset solutions helping customers communicate clearly, consistently and naturally. Designed for all-day comfort in the workplace, VXi headsets meet the highest global standards for reliability, durability, and overall product quality. As a result, VXi is known around the world for delivering value, excellence, and innovation to contact centers, offices, and mobile professionals.

VXi's noise-canceling microphones filter out more background noise than their competitor’s. The corded and wireless headsets sound better, making them the headset of choice at many of the largest professional contact centers and offices. The BlueParrott® brand of wireless Bluetooth® headsets is designed specifically for high-noise environments and has become the #1 headset in the professional trucker market.

by Gary Audin

Whether you are an SMB or enterprise, communications service is an integral part of your business strategy. You want your call flow to integrate with your workflow. You want the mobile and teleworker to have the same features and functions as those in the office. Can a consumer VoIP service transition quickly onto a business service offering UC? It can through judicious acquisitions and business integration.

Ron Ireland Sr. Director, Channel Development, Vonage Business www.vonage.com and Gary Audin discuss the Vonage approach to servicing the business community. This podcast was recorded at the Channel Partners conference. He points out that just providing a service replacement for the aging PBX is not enough. If that is all you want, then look for the lowest price. You want a provider that has the capacity and vision to grow with your business.

Vonage www.vonage.com  is a leading provider of cloud communications services for consumers and businesses. Vonage provides a suite of feature-rich business communication solutions that offer flexibility, portability, and ease-of-use across multiple devices designed to meet the needs of a wide range of customers.

Vonage's portfolio of business products covers the full spectrum of business communications needs, serving single-person companies to those with thousands of employees spread over multiple locations. Vonage provides bring-your-own-broadband (BYOB) cloud products and those that offer carrier-grade reliability and Quality of Service (QoS) across BYOB service options and its private, national MPLS IP network.

In this two part series, we examine the trends impacting one of the biggest technology migrations of our time- the move to Skype for Business. In Part I of this two part podcast Christian Stegh, CTO & VP of Strategy for Enabling Technologies, took a look at the big trends in the enterprise UC and UCaaS markets, including the migration to cloud, adoption of Skype for Business as a full on communication tool, and the way in which many companies are adopting hybrid approaches to a complex scene.

In Part II we will take a more in depth look at the specific solutions Enabling Technologies is rolling out to meet those challenges. Enabling Technologies is a leading Microsoft communication partner, having helped customers bring their communication needs together for a quarter of a century.  Stegh walks us through how Enabling Technologies is helping organizations improve productivity, providing data loss prevention,and we look at other services.

Visit www.enablingtechcorp.com

The President of 5G Americas, Chris Pearson, fills in some of the communication holes with a very good description of the current wireless that supports mobile telephony in use today to Don Witt of The Channel Daily News from Telecom Reseller. Chris explains how the impact of the additional billions of mobile telephony devices and billions of IoT devices will impact the internet. He provides insight into the US market and outlines 5G:

•    Components

•    Standards

•    Timeline

5G Americas, the voice of 5G and LTE for the Americas, will advocate for and foster the advancement and full capabilities of the LTE wireless technology and its evolution beyond to 5G, throughout the ecosystem's networks, services, applications and wirelessly connected devices in the Americas.

To unify the voice of the Americas, 5G Americas

•    Serves as a single, authoritative source of information for the benefit of telecom and financial analysts, the media, government and regulatory officials, operators and competitive stakeholders

•    Supports the 3GPP migration strategy to LTE, LTE-Advanced and LTEAdvanced Pro adopted by operators in the Western Hemisphere

•    Promotes the ability of the 3GPP family of technologies to transform vertical industries and the Internet of Things

•    Serves as the voice of 5G and LTE for the Americas and promotes the global leadership of North America in 5G technology