Here we go again! As I do each week, I am really enjoying bringing our readers a quick round-up of the blog coverage I didn’t manage to get to during the week prior.
Having just wrapped up our annual fall conference earlier this month, we are now moving ahead full speed into planning mode for 2014. This includes our brand new eight-city tour, which is set to kick off in January, as well as our “Million Mile Tour,” focusing on April 8, 2014 end-of-support deadline(s) for both Windows XP and any Server 2003 SKUs. The tour leverages the Microsoft Community Connections business model of “Lunch and Learn” type Pizza webinars, and will be coming to a city near you this fall and into 2014! To learn more and to register for the tour, click here.
1.) Birch Launches Enterprise Sales and Service Teams: Birch Communications has added a new sales channel called Birch Enterprise Solutions, which focuses exclusively on large organizations with distributed geographic offices. This new sales channel will operate out of our Norcross, Ga. office and will be led by Paul Masters who, prior to the asset purchase by Birch, was the President of Ernest Communications.
In addition, Birch has added new account management teams called Birch Gold Elite Teams which focus exclusively on servicing and managing these large customers. These account management teams are located in both of our Norcross, Ga. and Macon, Ga. Operations Centers. Simultaneous with both of these organizational changes, Birch has also developed and deployed a new web-based customer account portal tool called eConsole.
2.) Datto Wins ‘Best Customer Support,’ ‘Best Partner Involvement’ Awards at ASCII Indianapolis: Datto said that it has won the ASCII Indianapolis Success Summit’s “Best Customer Support” and “Best Partner Involvement” awards. The conference awards are based off of attendee’s votes, and are presented on the final day of the event.
These awards come on the heels of Datto being named a ‘Top Contender’ in the 2013 ASCII Cup and further validate the Company’s commitment to the channel and relationship with ASCII Group members. Datto’s success throughout the 2013 ASCII Success Summit series reaffirms MSP and VAR confidence in the Company. Withthese two most recent awards, Datto has won at least one award at each of the eight ASCII 2013 Success Summits.
3.) Cisco Delivers Enterprise Collaboration Solutions Designed for the Modern Workspace: At its annual Collaboration Summit event, Cisco last week announced the next phase of its vision for collaboration, which focuses on delivering innovations that embrace the modern workspace and enable users to work smarter and more efficiently from virtually anywhere.
Cisco designed the new solutions specifically with the goal of making it easier for teams to instantly connect, communicate and collaborate – so people can respond faster and make decisions more quickly. Tailor-made for the increasingly mobile and distributed workforce, these new innovations are simple to use, are highly intuitive and make collaboration easy to scale across organizations of all sizes.
The modern workspace will integrate tools at work with many of the tools employees use at home; support mobility trends that enable people to access information and communicate from their device of choice in ways not possible just a short time ago, and simplify processes – for workers and IT alike – while maintaining security.
4.) Quadric Software Now Supports Microsoft Hyper-V 2012 R: Quadric Software said that its Alike BDR solution now supports Microsoft Hyper-V 2012 R2, in addition to the 2008 R2 and 2012 versions. Alike works seamlessly with Hyper-V environments.
With the Alike solution, companies can backup, replicate, and restore to and from XenServer or Hyper-V. Quadric Software offers simple, affordable licensing per host and gives companies self-service access to transfer their licensed hosts between hypervisors any time they want within their own version of the software.
5.) Ingram Micro VTN Community Reports Record Year-Over-Year Growth: Ingram Micro Inc. has reported its VentureTech Network (VTN) community is achieving higher revenues, partnering more frequently and outpacing market growth in several key areas including IT infrastructure, networking, security, services and storage.
In addition to celebrating its 15 year anniversary, Ingram Micro also announced its VTN community is expanding into the U.K.
The year-over-year growth of the VTN community in 2013 is tracking at four times the IT industry average growth estimated by Gartner Research and generating greater revenues to date than the year prior. The community’s overall performance, peer-to-peer partnerships and continued leadership have become measures of excellence for the IT channel at large, and serve as an undeniable testimony to the business value Ingram Micro’s communities bring to channel partners as well as technology vendors.
