Monday Morning Impact – August 10

Gartner: Public Cloud Revenue to Post Limited Gains in 2020

Gartner forecasts the worldwide public cloud services market is forecast to grow 6.3% in 2020 to a total $257.9 billion, up from $242.7 billion in 2019.

Desktop as a service (DaaS) is expected to have the most significant growth in 2020, increasing 95.4% to $1.2 billion. DaaS offers an inexpensive option for enterprises that are supporting the surge of remote workers and their need to securely access enterprise applications from multiple devices and locations.

“When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, there were a few initial hiccups but cloud ultimately delivered exactly what it was supposed to,” said Sid Nag, research vice president at Gartner. “It responded to increased demand and catered to customers’ preference of elastic, pay-as-you-go consumption models.”

Software as a service (SaaS) remains the largest market segment and is forecast to grow to $104.7 billion in 2020. The second-largest market segment is cloud system infrastructure services, or infrastructure as a service (IaaS), which is forecast to grow 13.4% to $50.4 billion in 2020.

Cloud spending in many regions is expected to grow rapidly as economies reopen and more normal economic activity resumes, with regions such as North America expecting to return to higher spending levels as early as 2022.

Channel Impact^®
Key advantages of public cloud services include the enhanced ability to link costs with actual usage rates, along with the ability to defer spending while also using an opex model. The market researcher says that, for the remainder of 2020, organizations that expand remote work functionality will prioritize collaboration software, mobile device management, distance learning educational solutions and security, as well as the infrastructure to scale to support increased capacity.

8×8 Upgrades Marketing Resources in New Channel Program

8×8, a Campbell, Calif.-based cloud communications vendor, has announced the global expansion of its channel program for master agents, sub-agents and VARs, selling the 8×8 Open Communications Platform.

The platform represents a comprehensive portfolio of enterprise communications, including voice, team chat, meetings, and contact center solutions backed by fueled by AI-driven expert routing and predictive analytics.

The newly named, “8×8 Open Channel Program” unites all of the company channel efforts under a single program across North America, Europe and the Asia Pacific region. It offers new performance-based tiers correlating to benefits that include enhanced marketing benefits, such as account-based marketing campaigns, intent data marketing, webinar content, etc., plus expanded account tools and resources.

“The shift to operate-from-anywhere enterprise communications has been elevated to a board-level and c-suite imperative, and is a major opportunity globally for the channel,” said John DeLozier, Global Channel Chief at 8×8. “We are investing in the 8×8 Open Channel Program to provide all of the benefits, tools, resources and support required so both our partners and their customers can succeed.”

The program also includes activities such as blitz days (8×8’s channel pipeline generation initiative), account planning, product demos and custom co-branded prospect events.

Channel Impact^®
Today’s channel programs need to meet the needs of a wide variety of channel partners, which can often be a challenging task.

Aryaka Announces Managed Security Partnership with Check Point

Aryaka, a San Mateo, California-based SD-WAN provider, has announced a partnership with Check Point Software Technologies that leverages Aryaka’s Cloud-First managed SD-WAN solution and Check Point CloudGuard Connect and CloudGuard Edge.

The combined solution provides tight integration of Aryaka’s WAN capabilities and points-of-presence (POPs) with Check Point’s security solutions while establishing the foundation for an upgrade to Secure Access Service Edge (SASE).

“Connecting branch offices directly to the cloud using SD-WAN significantly increases security risks,” said Aviv Abramovich, head of security services management at Check Point Software Technologies. “With Aryaka’s cloud-first SD-WAN, combined with CloudGuard Connect and CloudGuard Edge, enterprises now have the flexibility to deploy Check Point’s top-rated threat prevention and intelligence to protect their branch offices against the latest Zero Day and Gen V security threats.”

Aryaka SmartConnect and SmartSecure are delivered as a fully managed service, which eliminates the process of implementing, operating and trouble-shooting complex network and security features.

Channel Impact^®
The partnership is intended to deliver a unified threat and access management platform that can substantially reduce operational expenses.