Monday Morning Impact – June 6

Westcon-Comstor Names Ken Bast EVP, Global Partner Management

Westcon-Comstor has appointed Ken Bast as the company’s new executive vice president of global partner management, responsible for Tarrytown, NY-based distributor’s top global vendor and customer relationships. In his new role, Bast is responsible for driving growth globally across the company’s solutions in security, collaboration, networking, data center, cloud and services.

Bast joined Westcon-Comstor last year to lead Comstor’s global relationship with Cisco. Prior to joining Westcon-Comstor, he led his own IT channel consulting business and also spent 15 years at Ingram Micro, most recently as vice president and general manager of the Advanced Technology Division.

“I am very pleased to attract the talent that Ken represents,” said Dolph Westerbos, CEO of Westcon-Comstor. “As we are building the IT distribution company of the future, investing significantly in our tools and creating new capabilities in cloud and services, Westcon-Comstor, and our partners, will benefit greatly from Ken’s experience and leadership to help complete that journey.”

Channel Impact^®
Bast is an accomplished professional in the distribution sector, and his knowledge of the industry and channel dynamics are well suited to his promotion.

LightCyber Rolls out Alliance Program Enables Channel Partners

LightCyber, a company based in Israel and Los Altos, Calif. that develops Behavioral Attack Detection solutions, has announced availability of its new LightCyber Technology Alliance Program (LTAP).

The program enables the company’s LightCyber Magna platform to be more easily integrated with with other security products, such as the HPE ArcSight ESM Security Information and Event Management (SIEM), the Check Point Next Generation Threat Prevention Solutions, Palo Alto Networks’ Next Generation Firewalls and Gigamom GigaSECURE Security Delivery Platform.

The primary emphasis is to facilitate interoperability with other products or technologies; to create or utilize APIs enabling necessary communication and functionality; to educate about joint solutions and capabilities; and to promote best practices and streamline implementation.

The API and associated documentation and examples are available immediately. LightCyber will introduce other APIs as necessary to meet customer needs. Magna also supports some existing public and vendor APIs for integration with SIEMs, next generation firewalls and authentication systems.

Channel Impact^®
This move is clearly designed to help channel partners more easily leverage the technologies of other vendors into a more complete solution that better meets the needs of the customer. A formalized program, supported by the availability of APIs, can go a long way towards reaching that objective.

Synnex Expands Offerings in its ConvergSolv Secure Networking Group

Synnex has added several new offerings including managed security solutions, to its distribution lineup available through the company’s ConvergSol Secure Networking Group.

“As the magnitude of security threats continues to escalate, it’s critical for IT resellers to be proactive when managing and securing their customers’ networks,” said Reyna Thompson, Vice President, Integrated Communications, Synnex Corporation. “By making significant new investments with leading OEMs and vendors in the security space and internally at Synnex, we are well positioned to meet the demands of a growing number of resellers during a time when security has become an integral part of business planning and long-term success for the end-customer.”

New additions include managed firewall services from Fortinet and WatchGuard, respectively, managed security services from Dell SonicWall, a new cybersecurity partner care team, professional services for targeted verticals, and complementary network and security assessments.

Channel Impact^®
Given the ongoing increases in cyberattacks, distributors are well advised to specialize in this technology sector, in order to better benefit their allied partners and to realize economies of scale.