Industry & Carriers
Carrier strategy, infrastructure investment, and the industry landscape.
AT&T OneConnect Is a Consumer Product. The Channel Implication Is Anything But.
AT&T's new fiber-plus-wireless bundle looks like a retention play against cable. It's also a window into where AT&T is positioning itself as a converged provider — and what that means for the partners selling around them.
Verizon Just Put Its Entire Channel Under One Roof. Here's Why That Matters.
Channel chief Mark Tina now controls all of Verizon's indirect sales — wireline, wireless, enterprise, SMB — reporting directly to the CEO. For partners, this is the structural shift they've been asking for.
RSAC 2026 Sold the Channel an AI Agent Gold Rush. The Real Opportunity Is Quieter.
Every vendor at RSAC pitched agentic AI as the channel's next growth engine. They're not wrong. But the SonicWall data says 85% of breaches still start with a stolen password. The partners who win will sell both.
Servers Are Doubling in Price. Here's How to Talk to Your Clients About It.
AI is consuming 70% of global memory production, Dell and Lenovo have hiked hardware 15-20%, and a sysadmin just watched a $15K server quote become $40K. MSPs caught in the middle need a conversation framework, not apologies.
HPE + Juniper Eight Months In: The Cisco Challenger You Might Have Underestimated
HPE's Juniper acquisition closed in July 2025. Eight months later, the networking unit is generating $1.3B in quarterly revenue and CEO Antonio Neri is calling out Cisco and Huawei by name. Channel partners should pay attention.
Microsoft's Org Chart Just Told You Where Copilot Is Headed
Rajesh Jha's retirement and seven executive promotions at Microsoft reveal more about the Copilot strategy than any product announcement — if you know how to read an org chart.
400 MSPs just told us which vendors they actually trust. The results should worry half the industry.
ChannelPro's 2026 Brand Preference Guide surveyed 400 MSPs across six in-person conferences. Pax8 won partner programs. Microsoft won reliability. And the gap between the top 10 and everyone else is a canyon.
The Lumen you sold is gone. Here's what channel partners need to do about it.
Lumen's $5.75B sale of Quantum Fiber to AT&T closed February 2. The company that remains is smaller, cleaner, and entirely enterprise-focused. Channel partners who built books on Lumen's residential and legacy products need a plan.
Carrier Partner Programs Explained: What You Need to Know
How carrier partner programs work, what tiers mean, and what to look for when evaluating AT&T, Lumen, Comcast, and T-Mobile channel programs.
Mitel just made the strongest case for on-premises in years. I didn't see that coming.
Mitel Edge delivers a modern hybrid architecture for regulated enterprises. For partners with legacy Mitel accounts, this changes the conversation.
Salesforce just launched a contact center. Every CCaaS partner should be nervous.
Agentforce for Contact Center is a CRM-native CCaaS solution that eliminates the integration argument every channel partner has been selling for years.
AT&T Bought Lumen's Fiber Customers and Reorganized Around Them
AT&T closed the Lumen Mass Markets fiber deal, is restructuring into three segments, and the convergence math will reshape partner comp plans.
Verizon and T-Mobile both replaced their CEOs. The channel shrugged
Simultaneous CEO changes at two of the Big Three carriers. The channel barely flinched. That tells you everything.
Lumen bet $8.5 billion on becoming the AI network. It might actually work
Five years ago I would've bet against Lumen. Then Kate Johnson showed up and started rewriting the story.
T-Mobile wants 50% more channel revenue. I've seen this movie before
When T-Mobile announced a 50% channel revenue target, every agent perked up. Not so fast.
Deloitte says telecoms must become platforms or die. They're probably right
Deloitte's 2026 Telecommunications Outlook reads like a eulogy for the traditional carrier model.
Every carrier changes their comp plan in February. That's not a coincidence
They wait until you're too deep in Q1 to walk away. Then they change the math.
Your phone system and your contact center are merging. Get used to it
The line between UC and contact center is gone. Partners still selling them separately are losing deals.
The PE roll-up machine: why every MSP owner got a call in 2025
Deal volume over $100M grew 11%. PE firms raised dedicated funds for tech services.
Data sovereignty is about to reshape every cloud deal you sell
Every enterprise customer is asking where their data lives. If you can't answer the residency question, you're losing the deal.