Peter : On Rad's Radar?
Peter
| Peter Radizeski of RAD-INFO, Inc. talking telecom, Cloud, VoIP, CLEC, and The Channel.

VAR

Presidio, Best Buy Make Acquisitions

November 7, 2011

Big day at Best But as they buy out the stake in Carphone UK and pick up an MSP.

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Bloomberg reports, "Best Buy Co., the world's largest consumer-electronics retailer, agreed to buy Carphone Warehouse Group Plc (CPW)'s stake in their U.S. mobile-phone joint venture for 838 million pounds ($1.34 billion) and close the U.K. stores it opened less than two years ago."

So Best Buy goes deeper into mobile retailing (well, not sharing profits on its Best Buy Mobile stores).

EarthLink Buys Some Synergy

November 1, 2011

EarthLink is buying two divisions from Synergy Global Solutions: its IT Solution Center, a 24-7 help desk and network operations center, and its cloud-hosted application business, according to Buffalo News.

EarthLink gets relationships with about 120 VAR's that laready sell the Solution Center and hosted application services. That's probably as valuable as the NOC itself.

"In addition to the Solution Center, EarthLink is acquiring Synergy's cloud-based application service which provides end-to-end hosted IT capabilities for the environmental services vertical market.

Agents Need Training

November 1, 2011

According to David Byrd of Broadvox, agents and VAR's need more training when it comes to SIP. As he wrote in his Wild Mushroom post, "Too often we encounter a situation where an agent sells a SIP Trunk with no understanding of the difference between it and a PRI. This can lead to a disastrous situation. First, an agent needs to understand that the bandwidth require per phone call is more with G.711 not less than a PRI.

Tech Data Becomes a Master

September 19, 2011

Tech Data announced a joint venture with Brightstar called ActivateIT, branded as TDMobility. In this case, TD will become a master agent for its VARs to offer not just cellular service from the likes of Sprint, ATT and T-Mobile, but M2M, devices and the works.

It will be interesting to see how TD transforms from hardware distributor, which has a very different financial model, to a cloud provider and a master agent.

The Master Agent has to deal with telcos. Cellcos are notorious for commission issues, moreso than other carriers.



3 Weatherman and an Agent

August 26, 2011

At the CPExpo last night I was a panelist for the CPZ, an experiment in doing a talk show at the expo. It was 100 invitees, an open bar and 5 panelists in front of the camera - Khali Henderson, Dave Stewart of Simple Signal, Larry Walsh of the 2112 Group, John Siefert (CEO of Virgo), and me. It turns out that Siefert is a VAR (?) or works with VARs, so it was 3 cloud guys and me.

We started with the theme of the show: Is this the end of Transactional Agents?  The truth is that while the runway may appear to be running out, telecom is mainly an arbitrage business made up of me-too providers, who will extend that runway for a while longer.

Take the case that Bells no longer pay commissions on POTS lines.



Does HP Have it Right?

August 18, 2011

So HP made some, what I might call crazy, moves today. Reports are in that HP is going to spin off its PC business. Other reports are in about them killing off webOS products like Palm phones and tablets (here and here).

HP just bought Palm last year for $1.2B -- but it may license the software or put it in other products.

3 Reasons VAR's Should be in Austin

August 14, 2011

Maybe you didn't go to ASCII Summit or Everything Channel, then Austin is the place for you as a VAR. There are at least three reasons VAR's should be in Austin:

1) MSP World where value-added resellers can hear about how to transition into a managed service provider.

2) Telecom Reseller Week which will teach VAR's how to effectively sell communications equipment and services, with proven tips and best practices for addressing the challenges faced in today's economy.



A Strange Way to Start Monday

August 1, 2011

The party might be over at the PAETEC, as they announced today an $891M stock only sale to WINDSTREAM. USLEC, AllWorx, CavTel, McLeodUSA, Quagga, Xeta, US Energy Partners - all acquired by PAETEC to create a billion dollar CLEC. As if hitting the billion dollar mark was meaningful. Intermedia was the first billion dollar CLEC and HAD to sell itslef to MCI, as short-term debt became due.

InterNAP Sweeps the Legs of Agents

July 20, 2011

In March, InterNAP notified agents that it would be making changes to the Agent program. It was going Master-centric.  According to the phone call I just received, 400+ agents that have agreements with InterNAP were given the boot. With 30 days notice, most carrier agreements allow for cancellation.

Dimension Data Makes a Move

June 30, 2011

I learned about Dimension Data a VoiceCon event. They had an interesting booth. They are a South African company doing more than $4B in revenue as a global VAR for Cisco, Microsoft, McAfee, TEM, HP, EMC, VMWare, Blue Coat and more. I didn't know that NTT bought the company outright in 2010 for GBP 2.1B.
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