Eight resellers reveal which vendors have most impressed them during pandemic…
Vendors have stepped up during the pandemic to offer customers and partners free software and extra support. But who has stood out the most? Eight reseller and MSP bosses have their say...
Name: Colin Brown
Role: Managing director, Softcat
VAR 350 ranking: 2
Who has stood out the most? Microsoft
I've actually been impressed with Microsoft from a couple of perspectives. Firstly, the way they very quickly responded to the commercial challenges that COVID-19 had imposed, particularly relating to cash flow, by introducing some flexibility around payment terms. Looking back now I'm convinced that this enabled trading in calendar Q2 (and Microsoft's year-end) to be as close to normal as we could have hoped for, with our customers feeling very supported. At Softcat we really appreciated this flexibility from the Microsoft UK team.
Secondly, I have been impressed with how Microsoft have stepped up to what has become a genuine worldwide reliance on collaboration tools and the irrefutable fact that remote working and thus interactive collaboration from afar is here to stay. They have reacted by fast-tracking development on Teams in response to user feedback. We've already seen the gallery view increased and set to expand even further this month, and new features like the Together mode, chat bubbles and speaker attribution really are taking Teams to a new level. I think we are all finding spending long days on Teams quite exhausting, so every little enhancement helps. Overall Microsoft have stood out for me for their alacrity, focus and ultimately speed in getting new features out to market that are being put to use and welcomed by users. What you'd hope a company does in terms of new product development but very rarely see…
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Eight resellers reveal which vendors have most impressed them during pandemic…
Vendors have stepped up during the pandemic to offer customers and partners free software and extra support. But who has stood out the most? Eight reseller and MSP bosses have their say...
Name: Yolanta Gill
Role: CEO, European Electronique
VAR 350 ranking: 80
Who has stood out the most? HP Aruba
In times of crisis there are always some organisations who go above and beyond, setting an example to us all. I am sure that we have all deliberated as to how to contribute to society and the greater good in times of crisis and Aruba certainly have demonstrated their willingness to do just that. The company has implemented, or been an integral part of, many initiatives during the current situation and a few of them are outlined below:
A prime example would be, Aruba Airheads Volunteer Corps. More than ever, hospitals and first responders require additional engineering resources and expertise to support pop-up clinics, testing facilities, and remote care. In order to address this Aruba created an opt-in-only registry of skilled engineers to help build network infrastructures for medical facilities in this crucial time.
In April this year, the GNV Splendid, a former passenger ferry moored in Genoa, was converted to provide hospital space and medical treatment for COVID-19 patients in Italy. For their part in this conversion Aruba, supplied and installed network infrastructure, consisting of 70 access points and over 4 kilometres of cable, to provide Wi-Fi coverage for the healthcare workers and their patients across the various decks of the ship.
A further example would be the Aruba Healthcare Connectivity Bundle. Aruba have donated $50m of products through their healthcare connectivity bundles which are designed for rapid provisioning and deployment in hospitals, clinics and drive-through test centres.
In another initiative, free VIA licensing has been offered by Aruba to enable customers to scale remote working efforts quickly, this is essentially a soft client VPN that utilises existing investment in ClearPass/Mobility Gateways.
In addition, Aruba brought partner ecosystem solutions to resellers and customers to enable safe return to work/campus with social distancing/contact tracing.
In order to bridge short term funding gaps related to the crisis, Aruba used HPE Financial Services to create financing solutions to address this issue.
From a personal company point of view, we have been supported by Aruba in many different ways, from additional free training for both system and network engineers, ongoing general support with virtual meetings by senior executives, designed to explore how best to support our organisation and our customers during these extraordinary times.
Article continues on next page...
Eight resellers reveal which vendors have most impressed them during pandemic…
Vendors have stepped up during the pandemic to offer customers and partners free software and extra support. But who has stood out the most? Eight reseller and MSP bosses have their say...
Name: David Manners
Role: CEO, Sumillion
Who has stood out the most: Lenovo
I have been particularly impressed with Lenovo during the pandemic. They were one of the only manufacturers to have Chromebook stock available to provide to schools and students in need to ensure remote education was possible. Although China closed factories for a number of weeks, their supply chain managed to keep availability flowing and very quickly managed to refresh quantities of notebooks depleted through the implementation of homeworkers which were made available through distribution.
They also changed processes to proactively come to Sumillion to host a ‘virtual' call out day though Zoom. This drove new business through our sales teams and product engagement, finishing the day with a fun and interactive quiz.
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Eight resellers reveal which vendors have most impressed them during pandemic…
Vendors have stepped up during the pandemic to offer customers and partners free software and extra support. But who has stood out the most? Eight reseller and MSP bosses have their say...
Name: Will Carver
Role: UK alliances and partnerships director, SCC
VAR 350 ranking: 5
Who has stood out the most: AWS, Lenovo, HP Inc
It's been a difficult few months for us all but one of the positives to come out of the pandemic is the countless examples of companies going above and beyond to support each another. We've seen this in spades across the IT channel and it's been great to watch IT providers and technology vendors taking their responsibilities seriously. We often talk about supporting critical national infrastructure and services, like the NHS, but the proof is in the pudding and, if nothing else, COVID-19 has been an opportunity for businesses like ours and our vendor partners to prove our commitment to these types of customer.
For me there are two areas to highlight. Firstly, AWS and the work they've done with us to develop a framework of free services to support the NHS with Oworx. It took just a matter of days from initial request to project launch to help support CUH deploy a website as a resource for the whole of the NHS on the practical aspects of PPE, developed in collaboration with experts in infectious diseases at CUH.
Secondly, I'd like to shout out SCC's end user compute partners - in particular Lenovo and HPI - who had to respond to unprecedented demand for mobile compute capabilities for almost every customer, at a moment when their own supply chains were stretched by Intel shortages and manufacturing shut down in China. They had order prioritisation in place within a few days and ensured a consistent flow of goods to existing orders, whilst also massively increasing the amount of products available to distribution which allowed us to service our key accounts. They communicated clearly and regularly which allowed us to manage expectations with customers, set up our own response processes in conjunction with them, and supply six months' worth of laptops out in about four weeks.
I'd like to thank AWS, Lenovo, HPI and all our vendor partners who have been phenomenal throughout. And also to congratulate our peers (usually referred to as our competitors!) for all of the great we're seeing right across our industry.
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Eight resellers reveal which vendors have most impressed them during pandemic…
Vendors have stepped up during the pandemic to offer customers and partners free software and extra support. But who has stood out the most? Eight reseller and MSP bosses have their say...
Name: Matt Franklin
Role: CEO, Roc Technologies
VAR 350 ranking: 104
Who has stood out the most: Dell, Citrix, Quanergy, Aruba
Many of the vendors have responded quickly with solutions and commercial offers to help organisiations manage in the COVID pandemic. Dell have been very proactive offering free lease periods and interest free deals, whilst Citrix have come up with some creative commercial offers to help customers support remote working.
From an innovation perspective we've worked with US vendor Quanergy to pivot their radar technology from use in Tesla cars to be applied to monitor social distancing in the work place or campus environment.
One stand out vendor has been Aruba who have created a $50m fund for deployment of COVID testing centres and solutions that enable the location of safe work spaces. These solutions form part of the Roc secure return to the work space proposition which is getting a significant amount of interest.
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Eight resellers reveal which vendors have most impressed them during pandemic…
Vendors have stepped up during the pandemic to offer customers and partners free software and extra support. But who has stood out the most? Eight reseller and MSP bosses have their say...
Name: Stefni Oliver
Role: CEO, Daisy Corporate Services
VAR 350 ranking: 6
Who has stood out the most: Mitel, Microsoft, Cisco, HPE, Gamma
We have a wide portfolio, and as such a large spectrum of suppliers and partners. During the global pandemic many of our partners have stepped up to help us assist our customers in such challenging times. Our sister company Digital Wholesale Solutions and Gamma Telecom shone from a telco supplier perspective, with great support packages with initiatives such as allowing us to 'hibernate' customers with hosted voice solutions throughout lockdown. This meant we could help our customers control their costs without having to cease (and re-provide after lockdown) their services.
When home working kicked in, we were really impressed with the speed partners such as Microsoft and Mitel bought in home worker solutions and introductory offers for collaboration and communication tools. Microsoft even ran a series of COVID-19 webinars where the World Health Organisation shared their insight of the situation with us, which we found particularly useful given the unprecedented times.
Recently, both Cisco and HPE have set aside large sums of money to help stimulate the market. This will be useful to our customers who wish to continue in their transformative projects but now need to operate in a different way. Many of our partners have worked very hard to maintain supply. Clearly having manufacturing facilities in Asia was a challenge, however we have managed to source everything needed to meet our customer's requirements - even in March and April when the demand for HPI and Lenovo devices was very high. This is testament to our suppliers ingenuity and resilience.
In a shameless plug for DCS, we were very quickly able to allocate our business continuity centres to customers, which allowed some of the largest financial institutions to keep trading throughout lockdown while maintaining a safe working environment for all.
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Eight resellers reveal which vendors have most impressed them during pandemic…
Vendors have stepped up during the pandemic to offer customers and partners free software and extra support. But who has stood out the most? Eight reseller and MSP bosses have their say...
Name: Carl Henriksen
Role: CEO, OryxAlign
Who has stood out the most: OPSWAT
On the whole we've found that all our vendors, specifically our core vendors, have stepped up their services and have gone the extra mile during the COVID-19 crisis.
One such vendor which most impressed me and stood out from the rest was OPSWAT, a global leader in critical infrastructure cybersecurity and advanced malware prevention.
OPSWAT were extremely quick off the mark to offer front line workers vital cybersecurity by offering their MetaAccess platform at no charge with unlimited licences, full implementation and support. The MetaAccess platform secures home and remote workers by validating and compliance checking end-points to ensure they comply with security policies before accessing corporate applications. This would enable NHS doctors/nurses, government personnel and police to securely access their confidential systems and information from home, on personal devices.
This was not just a free licence trial licence offer, it was considered a gesture of goodwill and support. OPSWAT immediately recognised and responded to the risk. Looking to address what has become the new reality of increased cybercrime due to the rapid expansion of the attack surface, combined with IT teams who may have prioritised home/remote user productivity over that of cyber security.
OryxAlign are the largest OPSWAT partner in the UK and we are proud to be working closely with such an agile and forward-thinking cybersecurity vendor who have the best interest of our community at heart.
Article continues on next page...
Eight resellers reveal which vendors have most impressed them during pandemic…
Vendors have stepped up during the pandemic to offer customers and partners free software and extra support. But who has stood out the most? Eight reseller and MSP bosses have their say...
Name: Rickie Seghal
Role: Chairman, Transputec
VAR 350 ranking: 239
Who has stood out the most: Tech Data
The scale of employees currently working from home is unprecedented. Many people have never worked from home before for any length of time, and most companies have never experienced significant proportions of their workforce working remotely. Whilst many businesses plan to continue with a remote workforce for the foreseeable future, there is one part of their business that will face new and evolving challenges every day - your IT department.
During the past three months Transputec has seen a new and more engaging relationship with our friends in distribution. They too are adapting to the same challenges and most have been extremely supportive. However, the distributor and vendor partner that has been most outreaching and engaging, since lock down, is TechData.
During this period, they have helped us drive our AWS and Microsoft Azure offerings alongside supporting our key infrastructure vendor partnerships , including:
• Support and relevant training for both sales and tech staff.
• Help with certifications and partnership level attainments
• Great communication and flexibility
• Good subject matter experts always available
• Understanding of our business and working closely with us to achieve our goals to be one of the most innovative Managed Service provider.
Working from home expose the company to new data security threats. Now's a great time to get that extra security training in to help our team protect themselves and their entire company from cyber-attack. Effective training helps people understand how to stay safe, how to identify scams, which applications they should use (and why it is imperative they stick with company mandated applications) and remind them of the actions they should undertake as soon as they see something suspicious.
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