The VAR Guy

Avaya has confirmed Jeremy Butt, vice president of worldwide channels, is leaving the company at the end of March 2012, after almost four years with the organization.

Partner relationships traditionally have not been one of Siemens Enterprise Communications’ strengths. Despite its reputation as having a strong communications and UC portfolio, its reputation as less-than-friendly toward its partners has held it back from being a real player within the channel.

The VAR Guy is rubbing elbows this week with the folks from ADTRAN at the company’s annual Connect press and analyst event. Day one so far has been a whirlwind of presentations and meetings designed to both illuminate and educate. So what’s on ADTRAN’s mind? The resale channel. Read on for the details …

Brocade’s channel partner program has received its annual program overhaul, with Brocade adding a slew of enhancements designed to further reward its existing partners and entice new partners to the networking vendor.

Recognizing its channel program has had its share of issues — not the least of which include complicated pricing programs and a focus on volume selling — Avaya is working to make changes that both streamline and add value for its channel partners.

Avaya is making moves to shift its partners away from selling product and into selling solutions that address customer needs, citing a maturation of its technology portfolio and changing market demands.

The VAR Guy was ready for a conversation about standards during the 2012 Avaya U.S./Gov Sales Leadership and Partner Conference; specifically, whether SIP is gaining ground as the de facto communications standard. But Avaya SVP Alan Baratz beat our resident blogger to the punch during his presentation by declaring Avaya picked a winner with its decision to build with SIP.

Brocade is releasing a new line of networking technologies aimed at enhancing the enterprise connection between the corporate network and beyond.

Dozens of cloud vendors and potential channel partners gathered in Mountain View, Calif., on November 7 for the inaugural Cloud Channel Summit. The common goal: Connecting the dots between cloud services providers, VARs and resellers to build new revenue opportunities. But guest speakers — including folks from Salesforce.com, CompTIA, GoodData, rPath and more — frequently debated the path forward. Among the key topics discussed: Whether VARs need a vertical focus to succeed in cloud computing.

The VAR Guy is once again headed to Las Vegas, where he’ll be at the 2012 Avaya U.S./Gov Sales Leadership and Partner Conference. This year, Avaya is splitting its partner conferences into two events — one for its U.S. partners and another for its international partners. So what will our resident blogger be on the lookout for at this year’s event? Read on for the info.

Riverbed Technology is parlaying the technology it gained from its July 2011 acquisitions of Zeus Technology and Aptimize into a line of optimization hardware designed to address asymmetric web traffic.

Corporate America has had a love-hate relationship with all-in-one computers – although they love the idea of the small footprint of the all-in-one, they hate the fact that traditionally the machines are more expensive, difficult to service and don’t support additional monitors.