5 Companies That Came To Win This Week Oct 14

For the week ending Oct. 14, CRN takes a look at the companies that brought their ‘A’ game to the channel.

The Week Ending Oct. 14

Topping this week’s Came to Win list is Google Cloud for launching new channel initiatives to boost partner incentives for recruiting net-new customers and provide more resources for major customer projects.

Also making this week’s list are printer maker Brother for its new channel-only print-as-a-service offering, VMware for launching a research initiative to begin 6G wireless development, and NTT Data for a savvy acquisition in the data and analytics services arena.

And congratulations to the 42 solution providers who made the prestigious CRN Triple Crown list for 2022.

Google Cloud Offers New Logo Incentives, Project Delivery Program For Partners

Google Cloud launched a new incentive program this week in a bid to push its channel partners to recruit more net-new customers from Google’s cloud and on-premises rivals.

The new program, unveiled at this week’s Google Next event, will reward partners who bring in new customers, including those looking to move to the cloud from on-premises platforms or move to Google Cloud from cloud platforms operated by rivals Amazon Web Services and Microsoft.

Google Cloud also debuted its new Delivery Readiness Index program aimed at granting partners more resources and training for specific customer projects. Under the program Google Cloud will offer partners tools and expertise for a specific customer project – helping a customer migrate SAP applications to GCP, for example – that might not be covered by Google Cloud certifications.

Brother Launches Print-As-A-Service Program Available Only Through Partners

Speaking of working with partners, Brother USA this week wins applause for debuting a new subscription service program for channel partners through which customers can choose from a variety of printers on a print-as-a-service basis.

The new Value Subscription Plan or VSP is available only through Brother USA’s channel partners, creating recurring revenue opportunities for them.

Brother is also offering flexibility with the VSP contracts, allowing customers to scale up or down according to their needs after selecting a service plan. Customers can select from nine printer models and structure their plan by page volume and length of time, between 12 and 36 months.

The company is also emphasizing the benefit to customers of a steady supply of products, parts and supplies – an attractive incentive during these times of supply chain disruptions.

VMware To Explore 6G Tech With New Canadian Research Center

While many IT vendors and solution providers are focused on rolling out 5G wireless networks, VMware is already taking steps to develop the kinds of technologies needed to advance the industry to 6G wireless.

This week VMware opened the new VMware Next G-AI Research and Innovation Center in Montreal to help lay the groundwork for developing enhanced 5G and 6G wireless technology.

The center aims to combine VMware’s multi-cloud infrastructure, networking and modern application development capabilities with modern cloud-native development, AI and machine learning technologies to target emerging 5G and 6G applications.

VMware is collaborating with Mitacs, a Toronto-based national research organization, the IEEE and Centech, a Montreal-based non-profit organization that supports high-tech companies. The center is located within Centech and the Ecole de Technologie Superieure (or ETS) of the University of Quebec.

NTT Data Looks To Expand Data Analytics Offerings With Acquisition

IT services provider NTT Data Inc. disclosed a deal this week to acquire Aspirent, an Atlanta-based consulting firm focused on data and analytics, digital product development and digital enablement.

The Aspirent acquisition will bring more than 230 data advisors and technologists to NTT Data’s digital transformation business and bolster its data engineering capabilities around such platforms as Azure, AWS, Snowflake and Databricks.

The companies expect to complete the deal within 30 days. The move follows other recent NTT Data acquisitions including Chainalytics, a supply chain analysis and consulting firm, and Hashmap, a provider of cloud and data solutions and services.

Solution Providers Named To The CRN Triple Crown List

Kudos to the 42 solution providers and strategic service providers who made the 2022 CRN Triple Crown list. The annual list recognizes solution providers who scored a trifecta by making the CRN Solution Provider 500, Tech Elite 250 and Fast Growth 150 lists during the year.

Some companies on this year’s Triple Crown are making the list for the first time including Converge Technology Solutions and GreenPages Technology Solutions. For others, such as EVOTEK and Ntiva, 2022 is the latest of multiple appearances on the list