The content team at the MSP Summit site tracks stories of interest to the managed services provider community. Anyone selling managed services or partnering with MSPs will want to know about these developing stories or catch up on stories they have missed. All links are current as of May 11.
Supply Chain Anxiety Drives CDW Sales
CDW customers deprioritized spending on IT services in the first quarter as they rushed to buy hardware amid a global memory pricing shortage, CDW executives said in their earnings call. Hardware net sales grew 10% in the quarter, buoyed by infrastructure equipment. Networking, servers and enterprise storage hardware each grew by more than 20%. Meanwhile, CDW’s topline services revenue was flat as customer priorities shifted. Read the Channel Dive story.
The AI Factory Model: What CIOs Need to Know
Enterprises are facing mounting pressure to deliver value with AI. Experimentation is giving way to scale and hard ROI metrics. Could an AI factory be the model enterprises need to deploy at scale? Many enterprises are betting on it. Deloitte surveyed 515 leaders of U.S. companies with more than $500 million in annual revenue and found that 70% plan to operate AI factories at scale by 2028. Read the TechTarget story.
Report: Anthropic Signs $1.8B Cloud Contract with Akamai
AI lab Anthropic is reportedly behind a massive cloud contract secured by Akamai. The contract is valued at $1.8 billion and will run for seven years, according to Bloomberg, and citing a person with direct knowledge of the matter. Akamai disclosed that it had signed "the largest customer deal in Akamai history" during its earnings call last week. CEO Frank Thomson Leighton described it only as "a landmark seven-year $1.8 billion commitment for our cloud infrastructure services by a leading frontier model company." Read the SDxCentral story.
Technology Innovations Should Improve Life for Partners
Vendors are rolling out more artificial intelligence (AI) tools and tech innovation to support their channel in a bid to let the technology improve life for partners. Innovations coming from WatchGuard, Inforcer and CrowdStrike indicate a growing trend among the vendor community to use the latest tools to work with their channel bases. Read the Microscope story.
Pax8, NinjaOne Partner to Expand MSP IT Operations and Security Services
Pax8’s lobal partnership with NinjaOne helps MSPs expand their IT operations and cybersecurity offerings for small and midsize businesses. The partnership will allow Pax8 partners to adopt additional unified IT operations tools, including remote monitoring and management, through NinjaOne. Pax8 will identify partner opportunities and provide guidance, while NinjaOne will work directly with referred partners and manage the customer lifecycle. Read the ChannelE2E story.
SUSE Gives MSPs a Bigger Role in Its Partner Program
As a partner-first Linux and open source vendor, SUSE is focused on making its channel and business partner relationships stronger, easier to manage, and more profitable. At the company's annual SUSECON conference held in April, ChannelE2E sat down with two SUSE executives, Hayley Wienszczak, head of global partner programs and success, and Christine Puccio, partner strategy and business development, to talk about the company's partner-first approach. Read about it on ChannelE2E.
Meter Launches $100M Partner Fund to Battle Traditional Networking Vendors
Meter has launched a $100 million partner growth fund to help channel partners build networking practices around its managed infrastructure platform. The Meter Partner Growth Fund will be distributed through a mix of backend rebates, sales spiffs, migration incentives, training and marketing development funds (MDFs) for qualifying partner-led opportunities. The launch comes as networking vendors compete for partner attention amid rising demand for cloud-managed infrastructure, simplified operations and networks capable of supporting growing AI workloads. Read the Channel Dive story.