Monday Morning Impact – January 4

Avnet Expands Its Hewlett Packard Enterprise Line

Avnet is now stocking select Build-to-Order (BTO) servers from Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE). The recent expansion includes the HP ProLiant DL360, DL380 and BL460c Gen9 servers.

“Avnet’s new full-distribution of these HPE offerings provides our channel partners with a single stop for all their HPE purchasing needs,” said Greg Peterson, vice president of Avnet’s HPE solutions business in the Americas. “With three kinds of purchasing opportunities – fully customized, transactional, and using BTO items for custom opportunities with optional integration, Avnet is the preferred channel choice for speeding time to solution for server-based projects.”

The products can be sourced through Avnet’s Configure-to-Order (CTO) system, designed to provide a single source for all their HPE solutions, and promote ease of doing business.

Avnet’s HPE inventory will be warehoused at and shipped from its Global Solutions Center, a 228,000-square-foot integration and logistics facility located in Chandler, Ariz.

Channel Impact
Extension of the product line, combined with the enhanced logistical capabilities, is likely to be popular with partners who do business with both HP and Avnet.

Aerohive Networks Beefs Up Executive and Sales Staff

Aerohive Networks has named Michael O’Brien as the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company’s first vice president of global channels; a newly created position. O’Brien comes to the table with more than 20 years of channel experience, most recently as executive director of global channels and alliances at Dell. He joined Dell in 2011 through its acquisition of Force 10, where he served as vice president of channels and alliances. Prior to that, he was director of worldwide commercial channels at AMD and held director-level titles at Sun Microsystems.

Aerohive has also appointed Michael Lin to vice president of product management, taking on responsibility for the company’s portfolio of cloud networking solutions. He joins Aerohive from Symantec where he was the vice president of product management for mobility, including mobile device management, mobile application management, Enterprise Secure Synch and Share, and consumer mobile offerings. Prior experience includes leadership positions at SRI Ventures and VeriSign.

In addition, Alan Cuellar Amrod has joined Aerohive as vice president of worldwide systems engineering. Amrod comes to Aerohive from Cisco, where he was senior director of global enterprise networking responsible for the wireless business. Prior to Cisco, Alan was vice president of sales, marketing, and system engineering at Xirrus. He previously worked as vice president of marketing at Ixia, vice president of marketing at Alcatel, and director of sales at Xylan. Alan also held several positions at G.E. Healthcare.

Channel Impact
Aerohive is clearly aiming to expand its leadership team, particularly as relates to indirect sales through the addition of its new global channel position.

New Report Points to Outsourcing of IT Security

A recent report from Webroot says that SMBs lack the resources necessary to protect themselves from malware attacks. Conducted in partnership with a third-party research organization, the study indicates just 37% of IT decision makers surveyed in the US, the UK, and Australia believe their organizations are completely ready to manage IT security and protect against threats.

According to the survey, IT employees at nearly 1 in 3 companies (32%) juggle security along with their other IT responsibilities, thereby limiting time available to address many critical cybersecurity tasks, and leaving such companies in a reactionary posture. Nearly 60% of respondents think their business is more prone to cyberattacks because they have too few resources for maintaining their defenses.

Overall, 81% of respondents plan to increase their annual IT security budget for 2016, by an average of 22%. Respondents are also very open to other strategies for improvement, with an overwhelming 81% also in agreement that outsourcing IT solutions would increase their bandwidth to address other areas of their business.

“SMBs play a pivotal role in helping drive the economies of all the countries polled, but past experiences have taught them they face an uphill battle when it comes to cybersecurity,” said George Anderson, director of product marketing at Webroot. “A viable alternative to the ‘go at it alone’ standard is an outsourced approach in combination with Smarter Cybersecurity solutions that are easy to install and manage remotely, and provide real-time protection against modern threats.”

The research surveyed 300 IT decision-makers in the U.K., 200 IT decision-makers in the U.S., and 200 IT decision-makers in Australia, from SMBs during a two week period during the fall of 2015.

Channel Impact
Although the research was primarily focused on cybersecurity, it also underscores the willingness of SMBs to consider managed service offerings, in general. Partners of all types should consider these findings when developing strategies for 2016.