Monday Morning Impact – October 17

Samsung and HPE Partner to Accelerate Carriers’ Move to Telco Cloud

Samsung Electronics and Hewlett Packard Enterprise announced a partnership that will provide carriers with integrated network functions virtualization (NFV) infrastructure and virtual network functions (VNF) solutions supporting pre-tested and integrated multi-vendor solutions based on an open architecture.

“HPE and Samsung have already collaborated successfully behind the scenes on NFV projects that are transforming communications service providers and their legacy networks to agile telco cloud environments ready to satisfy the ever increasing demands of their customers while reducing cost,” said Werner Schaefer, vice president and general manager, NFV, HPE. “By formalizing our partnership with Samsung, we further expand our work we’re doing to bring NFV benefits to the CSP ecosystem.”

In making this announcement, Samsung joins the HPE OpenNFV Partnership Program, an ecosystem of NFV technology, application and service partners that have tested on ETSI-compliant HPE OpenNFV infrastructure.

The partnership also includes a joint go-to-market strategy with ready-to-install third party solutions. CSPs can choose from various third party offerings, verified by the HPE OpenNFV Partner Program, such as virtual private-LTE network service, vCPE and SD-WAN.

Channel Impact^®
The new partnership merges Samsung’s carrier network and HPE’s IT telecommunications expertise. Together, the solutions will help carriers accelerate their transformation to cloud-based networks enabled by NFV.

Spectralink Launches New North American Channel Partner Program

Spectralink Corporation, a Boulder, Colorado-based vendor specializing in enterprise mobility solutions for the healthcare, retail, and manufacturing sectors, today launched its new Engage Channel Partner Program for North American resellers and distributors. The company also recently hired Scott Thie as its new vice president of North American sales, and Bill Foster as director of channel sales.

Structured to encourage proactive deal discovery, vertical sales execution and joint partnership, the Engage Channel Partner Program has three main tiers: Platinum, Gold and Silver, as well as the continuation of Spectralink’s Registered Partner designation.

Highlights of the Engage program include incentivized deal registration, MDF, new sales and marketing enablement tools, including a discounted demo equipment purchase program, streamlined training/certification with reduced tuition; and, access to a comprehensive library of marketing assets.

“Spectralink’s goal is to have a closer working relationship with our resellers. The Engage Channel Partner Program rewards partners for their significant value-add selling solutions into our core verticals, while enabling them to target our upgrade ready installed base with state-of-the-art voice and data solutions like PIVOT,” said Doug Werking, CEO of Spectralink. “We’re excited to launch this program, and the timing couldn’t be better with Scott and Bill leading our sales and channel teams.”

Channel Impact^®
The program benefits associated with the new programs are greatly enriched, commensurate with the evolution of the company’s go-to-market strategy.

Arctic Wolf Networks Names New Head of Sales

Arctic Wolf Networks, a Sunnyvale, California-based security operations center (SOC)-as-a-service company, appointed Nick Schneider as the company’s new head of sales, tasked with accelerating growth and partner recruitment.

In Schneider’s previous role, he served as the vice president of North American sales for Code42 Software, an end point data protection company. He previously led salesteams at Compellent Technologies, where he helped the company grow to a successful IPO and eventual acquisition by Dell.

“Small and mid-sized enterprises can now afford a world-class security operations center. It is no longer just for large enterprises with multimillion dollar budgets,” said Schneider. “The response from partners has been tremendously positive, and they are excited to see such a complete security service that fits the needs of their customers.”

Arctic Wolf is also recruiting a small number of partners to join the Apex Partner Program as the company also extends its geographic footprint into Utah, Minnesota, North Carolina, and Massachusetts.

Channel Impact^®
SOC-as-a-service is a sub-sector of security that is poised for growth.