Five Companies That Came To Win This Week
For the week ending Feb. 7, CRN takes a look at the companies that brought their ‘A’ game to the channel including Dell Technologies, Apple, Rapid7, Sophos and DoiT.
The Week Ending Feb. 7
This week’s Five Companies that Came to Win includes a trifecta of partner program news and two strategic acquisitions.
Topping this week’s Came to Win list is Dell Technologies for launching the 2025 iteration of the Dell Partner Program that includes renewed emphasis on networking products.
Also making the list are Apple for providing a peek at new partner services and incentives coming this fall while cybersecurity company Rapid7 unveiled a major overhaul to its partner program that provides more enablement for MSPs and MSSPs.
Sophos makes the list for completing its $859 million acquisition of Secureworks and its enhanced threat detection and response technology. And cloud channel service provider DoiT, a top Google Cloud and AWS national partner, is here for its acquisition of Kubernetes platform company PerfectScale.
Dell Gives Partners Bigger Incentives On Networking, Storage, PCs – And For Winning New Customers
Dell Technologies wins kudos this week for launching its Dell Partner Program for 2025 that offers bigger margin opportunities on PCs, storage, and networking devices as well as more ways for partners to deliver AI through the channel.
One of the bigger growth areas within this iteration of the partner program is Dell’s networking product portfolio. The company, for example, is offering a 3X multiplier on Dell PowerSwitch Z-Series on top of base incentives.
Demand for Dell products is expected to be high this year as industry analysts expect a PC refresh wave to hit as businesses and consumers upgrade millions of desktop and laptop devices worldwide. That coincides with a growing appetite in the data center for large AI deployments using Dell’s servers, storage and networking systems.
Dell is also introducing a targeted rebate called “compete select” that focuses on large, under-penetrated customer accounts for all metal tier partners. When partners win new business for Dell in storage, data protection, or client devices inside any “compete select” accounts, they earn a 4-percent rebate, which is stackable with other incentives.
The expanded partner program will also provide workshops that help partners improve their competencies so they can stand up and run Dell AI factories for customers.
Apple Set To Launch New Partner Program, Incentives, This Fall
Apple this week offered a preview of its own revamped partner program that will launch this fall, offering the channel new ways to do business with the technology giant and providing the training and tools needed to build a services business in enterprise, SMB and education markets, the company told CRN.
The new Apple Partner Network is organized around four distinct partner categories: Apple Business Partner geared more toward reselling and implementing Apple products; Apple Premium Business Partner for partners that focus on life-cycle services; Apple Premium Education Partners for partners that specialize in providing education-specific solutions for K-12 schools and higher education; and the Apple Consultants Network for partners more focused on technical support and services.
Apple said its revamped program includes the Apple Professional Academy, a new online training and enablement site with self-paced videos and skills training, as well as the tools partners need to become technical advisors on the Apple platform.
To help customers find a solution provider, Apple’s partner discovery tool will feature a rundown of partners and their capabilities as well as reviews and contact information. The goal, Apple said, is for customers to quickly find a partner with the right services and give the partner a place to showcase their organization’s skills.
Apple also will introduce a partner gateway so partners can contact Apple directly and collaborate with their counterparts around business planning tools, sales and marketing collateral.
Rapid7 Revamps Partner Program To Drive Security Services, Specializations
Completing a trifecta of partner program news, a major overhaul to Rapid7’s partner program – announced this week – aims to improve consistency with partners while enabling MSPs and MSSPs in a bigger way than in the past, the company’s channel leaders told CRN.
The updates to the cybersecurity vendor’s PACT Partner Program also come as Rapid7 sees a “resurgence” in its core areas of vulnerability and exposure management, in addition to strong growth in threat detection and response, according to Alex Page, vice president of global channel sales at Rapid7.
While Rapid7’s channel program has historically catered mainly to resellers, the revamped PACT program is now “bringing this wider community of partners that we work with into the program,” said Kelly Hiscoe, director of business operations and strategic partnerships at Rapid7.
This means recognizing and rewarding partners for the “total partnership,” whether it’s resale or services revenue, a move that should be a key improvement for providers of managed services including VARs that have an MSP or MSSP business, according to Hiscoe.
In connection with the new PACT program, Rapid7 also announced two new specializations that aim to further help partners with driving services. The new MSSP Specialization and Service Delivery Specialization come in response to feedback from partners who have been telling Rapid7 that they’re looking for more ways to leverage their technical skills and competencies in selling to customers, Hiscoe said.
Sophos Closes $859M Acquisition Of XDR Specialist Secureworks
Sophos completed its $859 million acquisition of Secureworks this week as part of its push into offering enhanced threat detection and response capabilities.
Sophos, owned by private equity firm Thoma Bravo, acquired Secureworks from its majority owner Dell Technologies. Initially announced in October, the acquisition is targeted at improving security for SMB and midmarket customers, Sophos CEO Joe Levy has told CRN.
Solution providers have applauded Sophos’ move to acquire Secureworks, a specialist in extended detection and response. A fast-growing category in cybersecurity, XDR aims to provide enhanced security covering more than just endpoints through correlating data from across an organization’s environments and devices and then prioritizing the most serious threats for a response.
Levy also pointed to the identity threat detection and response (ITDR) offering from Secureworks, which will augment Sophos’ existing ITDR capabilities in the Microsoft ecosystem.
Cybersecurity provider Arctic Wolf, meanwhile, earns a shoutout this week for completing its $160-million acquisition deal to buy Cylance from BlackBerry, paving the way for the security operations platform provider to begin offering its own endpoint security product.
Cloud Channel Star DoiT Acquires Kubernetes Provider PerfectScale
Speaking of savvy acquisitions, cloud channel standout DoiT, a top Google Cloud and AWS national partner, has acquired Kubernetes platform company PerfectScale in a move to create next-level solutions around FinOps and containerized workloads that run on Kubernetes.
This marks the second acquisition for the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company in 2025 after DoiT purchased cloud visualization and software analysis startup LiveDiagrams just a few weeks ago.
The acquisition of PerfectScale will allow DoiT customers to better manage, secure and optimize containerized workloads that run on Kubernetes at scale.
PerfectScale’s automated Kubernetes optimization and governance platform provides autonomous and proactive resource optimization for Kubernetes workloads. It continuously and autonomously optimizes Kubernetes environments for peak performance and resilience while striving to keep costs as low as possible.
The technology aims to make it easier for DevOps, platform engineering and IT professionals to improve the cost-effectiveness and stability of Kubernetes.
