5 Companies That Came To Win This Week
For the week ending July 23, CRN takes a look at the companies that brought their ‘A’ game to the channel.
The Week Ending July 23
Topping this week’s Came to Win list is cybersecurity tech vendor Rapid7 for a strategic acquisition in the threat detection space.
Also making the list this week are Morpheus Data for its ambitious channel acceleration plans, IBM for its timely ransomware protection offering, Masergy for its technology breakthrough to improve work-from-home connectivity for customers, and Amazon Web Services for simplifying how partners provide training content and services to customers.
Rapid7 Buys Threat Intelligence Startup IntSights For $335 Million
Cybersecurity vendor Rapid7 made a savvy strategic acquisition this week when it bought IntSights, a startup developer of threat intelligence software, for $335 million.
IntSights’ technology provides continuous coverage for external security threats, including threat identification, mitigation and remediation, while reducing security team workloads.
While Rapid7 will continue to offer IntSights’ software as a standalone threat intelligence system, the company also will use IntSights’ technology to enhance its own extended detection and response (XDR) system. The addition will add alerts to Rapid7’s system that provide earlier threat detection and accelerated response times as well as ensure efficient security operations.
IBM Brings Ransomware Protection To Storage, Launches Storage-As-A-Service
With malware and ransomware attacks making headlines, IBM wins kudos this week for introducing new security protection for the IBM FlashSystem all-flash storage arrays to help business prevent and recover from ransomware and other cybersecurity attacks.
The new IBM Safeguarded Copy technology helps customers protect copies of data on IBM FlashSystem all-flash storage. Safeguarded Copy, based on technology that IBM already offers in its DS8000 line of mainframe storage arrays, keeps the primary copy of data disconnected from other copies by “airgapping” it to a local storage system, to the cloud or to tape storage.
IBM is including Safeguarded Copy with its IBM Spectrum Virtualize software, part of the IBM FlashSystem, at no additional charge.
IBM also unveiled plans to roll out an IBM storage-as-a-service offering aimed at bringing hybrid cloud storage into the data center without the need for upfront capital expenditures.
Masergy Launches ‘Game-Changing’ Feature To Boost Broadband Performance
Speaking of technology breakthroughs, Masergy showed off its technology chops this week when it launched Performance Edge, a new service capability the company says makes public broadband connections perform with nearly the same reliability and service quality as a private Ethernet circuit.
The new offering comes at a time when people are still working from home offices or returning to branch offices. Masergy says Performance Edge solves reliability problems that users who rely on broadband for work often experience, hindering their productivity.
Performance Edge uses proprietary network architecture developed by Masergy, as well as industry standard and compatible routing algorithms, to give business users interruption-free productivity, according to the company. The patent-pending capability is an add-on to Masergy’s popular SD-WAN Secure and SASE offerings.
Morpheus Data Ramps Up Partner Program With $2M Investment
Morpheus Data, a developer of cloud application management and orchestration tools, wins applause this week for its plans to spend about $2 million in new channel investment with the goal of accelerating indirect channel revenue through this year.
The money will go toward increased market development funds for partners, additional back-end rebates for specific partners, and incentives for partner sales training, among other benefits. The company also is promising new joint go-to-market programs for systems integrators and managed service providers.
Chief marketing officer Brad Parks told CRN that more than 95 percent of Morpheus’ revenue comes from relationships with local, regional and global partners. The new investments are designed to expand revenue opportunities for partners, enhance their service delivery capabilities and accelerate growth for both partners and the company through 2021.
AWS Simplifies Partner Training Program
Sticking with the topic of partner program improvements, Amazon Web Services is ramping up its AWS Partner Training Program to make it easier for customers to engage with one partner for all their training needs.
AWS Partner Network Training Partners (ATPs) are now able to offer, deliver and/or resell both AWS Classroom Training and AWS Digital Training, the cloud giant said this week.
Under AWS’s previous training program structure, three pieces operated separately: ATPs were authorized to deliver in-classroom and virtual classroom training leveraging AWS training courses via AWS Authorized Instructors. Digital training partners such as Pluralsight leveraged AWS content that they offered on their training platform. And resellers resold training to their customers that was delivered by other AWS trainers.
In response to customer feedback about how they want to engage partners to receiving training, AWS Training and Certification has simplified the program by combining the three offerings into one.
Because customers can choose multiple delivery options to meet their training needs, they need solution providers who understand their unique purchasing requirements. The revamped program will give ATPs choice and flexibility for direct and indirect training content delivery and the formats of AWS customer training. It also will help partners grow their AWS business around training and certifications, according to AWS channel chief Doug Yeum.