Articles by Kelly Teal
Channel partners are spending on AI faster than they can bill for it
This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback. IT resellers are investing heavily in AI. But they're struggling to turn those investments into substantial revenue, even as North American partners pull ahead of their global counterparts in developing AI capabilities. Tech distributor TD Synnex surveyed 1,500 channel partners for its fifth annual Direction of Technology report, released last week.
Ritual fights for stricter heavy-metal rules across the supplement industry
Ritual is pushing for tougher oversight of the dietary supplement industry. Learn why winning support from fellow supplement makers remains a challenge. schedule4 Min Read The U.S. Food and Drug Administration does not enforce universal numeric limits for heavy metals such as lead, arsenic, cadmium, and mercury in finished dietary supplements. Ritual would like that to change. At a Glance Ritual's regulatory fight shows clean-label brands can shape policy instead of just following it.
Broadcom courts midmarket customers with economy-sized VMware bundle
This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback. Broadcom expanded its VMware portfolio Wednesday, adding a lower-cost virtualization offering for smaller environments with up to 128 cores across all deployments. The subscription-based product includes vMotion, high availability, distributed switching, patch management and TPM security capabilities, the company said in the announcement. The product is available immediately through authorized resellers and distributors.
GoTo gives MSPs AI assistance with the promise of oversight
This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback. AI assistants are moving beyond answering IT questions to performing tasks that once required technicians to swivel-chair between management platforms. The promise of greater productivity comes with concerns for managed service providers that want to use agentic tools without ceding oversight.
Arms Cyber retools managed services program to fuel midmarket expansion
This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback. As midmarket demand for security services surges, Arms Cyber pivoted from an enterprise-focused sales model for a more channel-centric go-to-market strategy in September. The endpoint protection vendor rebuilt its partner program around arming small and midsize businesses with ransomware protection through its managed services provider network.
Oxide gets a $445M funding boost as workloads move on-premises
This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback. Oxide Computer Company raised $445 million in series D funding to expand production of its on-premises cloud systems, the California-based startup said in an Oct. 9 announcement. Venture capital firm Eclipse led the round, which included new investor AMD Ventures. The capital infusion comes as rising hardware prices prompt renewed scrutiny of the cost of renting infrastructure from hyperscalers.
VMware users continue to grapple with cost, licensing headaches
This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback. VMware customers are still weighing their options three years after Broadcom acquired the virtualization software vendor, according to a report published this month by managed services firm Rimini Street.
Broadcom reinforces VMware hypervisor cyberdefenses
This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback. Broadcom bolstered VMware cyberdefense capabilities this week with VMware HyperArmor, a software package that bundles multi-factor authentication with virtual patching and positive host scripting guardrails for the ESX hypervisor. HyperArmor was built to deter AI-accelerated cyberattacks that exploit vulnerabilities faster than organizations can deploy traditional security patches, the company said in a Tuesday announcement.
11:11 Systems buys IBM’s VMware Cloud Service Provider business
This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback. 11:11 Systems bought select enterprise customers from IBM's VMware Cloud Service Provider business, marking its eighth acquisition related to the virtualization software provider and eleventh overall, the company announced Thursday. Financial terms were not disclosed. The transaction extends the global managed infrastructure provider's customer reach across four continents.
Partners could capture nearly $150B in AI services spending
This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback. The rush is on to deploy AI-powered opportunities across the channel ecosystem, and they'll only expand over the next few years. The challenge for partners lies in cultivating the talent, services and expertise needed to deliver on the technology’s promise. Partners in North America will be looking at nearly $150 billion in potential AI services revenue by 2031, according to Omdia, a Channel Dive sister company.
StorMagic, Mako Networks open edge infrastructure play to the channel
This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback. StorMagic and Mako Networks deployed a jointly engineered edge infrastructure offering last week that channel partners can resell to distributed retail accounts. The collaboration pairs highly available local infrastructure with secure, cloud-managed networking. The team-up pairs StorMagic’s SvHCI hyperconverged infrastructure software with Mako’s networking platform.
Ransomware risks rise as enterprise recovery capabilities erode
This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback. Enterprises have spent years investing in the people, processes and technology that reduce the impact and the odds of a ransomware attack. Nevertheless, efforts to bolster defenses have come up short, according to research commissioned by backup storage vendor Object First.
CBTS creates an agent builder for the channel
This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback. CBTS is positioning channel partners to help customers identify where agentic AI can produce measurable results. The technology services company will handle the engineering needed to put the agents into production. The company earlier this month launched an AI agent-building platform activated by plain-language prompts.
MSPs needed to shore up school security
This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback. As the school year began, cybersecurity vendor Barracuda Networks highlighted an opportunity for managed services providers in education, where security management remains a major challenge for IT teams. Schools, colleges and universities are particularly susceptible to ransomware delivered via email, according to Barracuda research published this month.
5 takeaways from Ulta Beauty's wellness strategy
Find out what Ulta Beauty's Vice President of Wellness, Laura Beres, says wellness and supplement brands need to know about the ever changing market. Laura Beres, Ulta Beauty's vice president of wellness, spoke at Newtopia Now about the company's expansion into the wellness space. At a Glance Menopause and women's health at all stages are here to stay and highly appealing to wellness customers.
TPx butts heads with Arista over post-bankruptcy VeloCloud support
This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback. Managed service provider TPx Communications entered court-sanction mediation with Arista Networks earlier this month after filing a lawsuit to retain VeloCloud support services.
Time for brands to move past the mycelium debate in functional mushrooms
As research expands, so too must products. Find out why brands should move beyond arguments over fungal parts and start formulating for specific benefits. Brands should focus on functional mushrooms' benefits—not parts—when formulating their products, Functional Mushroom Council Co-founder Julie Daoust says. At a Glance Fungal biology isn't split into the roots and fruiting body as it is in typical plant biology.
Kyndryl, Broadcom bet on VMware skills as private cloud demand returns
This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback. Kyndryl and Broadcom expanded their VMware Cloud Foundation alliance last month as enterprises seek more control over where their data, technology and operations reside. The augmented deal comes as AI increases the speed and potential impact of security threats while sovereignty demands complicate decisions about where workloads should run.
Kyndryl, Broadcom bet on VMware skills as private cloud demand returns
Kyndryl and Broadcom expanded their VMware Cloud Foundation alliance last month as enterprises seek more control over where their data, technology and operations reside. The augmented deal comes as AI increases the speed and potential impact of security threats while sovereignty demands complicate decisions about where workloads should run. To manage those challenges, Kyndryl now brings consulting, managed services and agentic AI capabilities to VCF environments.
Impartner takes a crack at streamlining channel transactions
This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback. Impartner is tackling a common channel bottleneck: manual processes that slow down resales, distribution deals and other vendor-dependent partner transactions. The company added configure, price and quote tools to its partner revenue management platform earlier this month. Partners can now build and advance quotes without handing routine transactions back to the vendor.
Managed service providers risk customer churn
This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback. As AI adoption eclipses other important business technology goals, the IT services industry is reaching an inflection point. Even customers with an existing provider relationship may be tempted to look elsewhere if they’re not getting the deployment help they need.
Network security hardware is growing, but the margins are not in the box
Network security hardware is growing, but channel partners should not mistake the rebound for a return to once-lucrative box-first security. In its July 2026 five-year forecast, Dell’Oro Group said it expects worldwide network security hardware spending to exceed $90 billion from 2025 through 2030, with revenue growing at a 7% compound annual rate. That’s nearly twice the 3.8% CAGR recorded from 2020 through 2025.
DataStrike doubles down on Snowflake data management services
This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback. DataStrike expanded its Snowflake managed services practice to give midmarket customers around-the-clock oversight of platform costs, data pipelines and query performance. The service offering includes architectural support, as production workloads and the AI applications they support, move onto Snowflake’s data cloud, the Pittsburgh-based MSP said in the announcement.
Managed security services redraw channel lines
Enterprises are projected to spend around $310 billion on cybersecurity this year, and Omdia expects more than 90% of it to move through partners. That money is pulling every kind of channel firm into the same business. Technology advisors have launched cybersecurity consulting units. Managed service providers are pushing deeper into managed security services and vendors are folding point products into unified platforms. The big consulting firms are also building midmarket security practices.
Farmented Foods turns ugly produce into an opportunity at Newtopia Now
Learn how Farmented Foods' model of fermenting imperfect vegetables led to the brand representing Naturally Minnesota at Newtopia Now. Farmented Foods won the Naturally Minnesota Pitch Contest and will exhibit at Newtopia Now with other Naturally Network member brands. At a Glance The company was founded by two students of Montana State University as part of a class project. Farmers have long struggled to sell imperfect and excess produce, but Farmented Foods provides a sustainable market.
Fortinet taps Exclusive Networks, TD Synnex to untangle cross-border security deals
Fortinet is taking aim at the operational slog that can hamper multinational cybersecurity deployments with a new global distribution model. It’s meant to ease cross-border execution for eligible partners and their customers. In mid-July, the vendor unveiled its global distribution framework, naming Exclusive Networks and TD Synnex as the only two distributors operating under the new tier.
The agentic AI scaling gap is a partner opportunity
Most organizations now view agentic AI as essential to managing cloud environments, but few have figured out how to run it across the business. Recent research from global IT provider Unisys shows that 75% of organizations see agentic AI as essential to managing their growing number of cloud applications. However, only 23% have started scaling it across functions. The rest are experimenting or remain in the early stages of adoption.
AI risks boost demand across channel services
This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback. Security is becoming the deciding factor in how much autonomy companies give AI systems, according to new reports. Nearly half of organizations experienced a cybersecurity breach in the past year, up from 17% during the prior year, Unisys found in research published Tuesday. The IT services firm surveyed 1,000 senior executives in March and April.
Shadow AI starts at the top
This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback. As organizations raced to deploy AI, the technology outran oversight capabilities. Many are now grappling with basic governance issues that track all the way to the top, where organizational leaders have become prime suspects in the hunt for shadow AI, according to a two-part TrustedTech report. The Microsoft cloud solutions provider analyzed responses from 2,001 UK and U.S. employees surveyed by Censuswide in March.
Farmented Foods turns ugly produce into national pitch contender
Learn how Farmented Foods' model of fermenting imperfect vegetables won the company a spot at the national Naturally Rising pitch contest at Newtopia Now. Farmented Foods won the Naturally Minnesota Pitch Contest and moves on to join the Naturally Rising Pitch Contest hosted at Newtopia Now. At a Glance The company was founded by two students of Montana State University as part of a class project. Farmers struggle to sell imperfect and excess produce.
BaBa Yogurt tests retail appetite for Vietnamese yogurt at Newtopia Now
Long Nguyen did not set out to build a yogurt company. He and his wife, Vi, were just trying to feed their young son. Michael, now a teen, was a difficult eater as a child. Doctors suggested yogurt as a food worth trying, both for its cultures and its potential to support overall wellness. So, Vi began experimenting at home with a Vietnamese yogurt recipe.
Engineering blind spots abound as AI code speeds into production
This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback. Organizations are pushing AI-generated code into production faster than teams can police the results, according to a Flux survey of more than 300 engineering leaders conducted by Dimensional Research. The findings uncover fertile ground for Flux, an engineering-intelligence startup that received $5 million in venture funding last month, and for partners that can help businesses address security lapses.
AppViewX launches global partner program
This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback. AppViewX launched a revamped global partner program Tuesday, formalizing a channel strategy built around enterprise demand for machine identity, agent identity security and cryptographic resilience. The security platform vendor outlined new partner collaboration, co-selling and accountability guidelines and made a pre-sales enablement curriculum available to channel firms.
AI pushes campus, branch networks to the breaking point: report
This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback. DIVE BRIEF: AI adoption is quickly becoming a campus and branch networking problem, according to a study published by Cisco and market research firm Foundry. The report, based on a survey of nearly 3,500 CIOs and IT leaders, revealed that 73% of organizations already face, or expect to face, capacity limitations in their campus and branch networks within the next 24 months. Pressure is mounting.
AI coding exposes security gaps, partner opportunities
This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback. As AI coding becomes part of the developer toolkit, application security is taking a major hit, according to software testing platform Checkmarx. The vendor surveyed 2,350 CISO, AppSec managers and developers for an annual report and found a growing disconnect between AI usage and security governance among developers.
Vulnerability exploits push channel to fortify credential defenses
This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback. Vulnerability exploitation has overtaken credential abuse as the top initial access vector for breaches, according to Verizon’s 19th annual data breach investigations report. The telecom giant analyzed more than 31,000 real-world security incidents, including more than 22,000 confirmed breaches across 145 countries. Exploitation of vulnerabilities rose to 31% in this year’s reporting dataset, while credential abuse fell to 13%.
Co-selling sweeps through the channel
This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback. As IT buyers look to partners for specialized, end-to-end technology outcomes, co-selling is moving from an occasional strategy to the new go-to-market standard. Deals involving two or more channel firms collaborating to deliver customer projects have become commonplace, according to Omdia, a Channel Dive sister company. In 2026, 37% of partners said they “almost always” co-partner, up from 10% in 2022.
Don't miss tomorrow's technology industry news
This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback. Sherweb connected its cloud marketplace to HaloPSA’s professional services automation platform last week, expanding its back-office support for IT service providers. The integration replaces manual account reconciliations and daily syncs with real-time data, the companies said in an announcement.
Don't miss tomorrow's technology industry news
This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback. The managed services business is evolving as providers automate processes, beef up on security offerings and grapple with growing IT complexity. Top MSP vendors have supported the shift by integrating AI and cybersecurity into professional services automation and remote monitoring and management platforms that are raising the industry standards. .
Don't miss tomorrow's tech industry news
This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback. The technology sector is navigating a stark corporate paradox. Even as the industry's largest vendors break growth records and rake in unprecedented profits, they are slashing headcounts to fund staggering capital infrastructure investments. Aggregated revenue for 18 of the world’s largest tech providers jumped 28.3% year-over-year to $694 billion, according to Omdia, a Channel Dive sister company.
Vertical integration gives Pure Synergy control, competitive advantages
Because the brand has been self-funded for more than 30 years, it controls everything from sourcing to manufacturing its USDA Organic supplements. Find out why that matters. A portion of USDA Organic Vital Ocean Magnesium sales is donated to Maine Seaweed Exchange, which supports regenerative seaweed farming. At a Glance Pure Synergy spends years developing its formulas, drawing from traditional knowledge, scientific validation and testing.
Don't miss tomorrow's technology industry news
This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback. The technology sector is navigating a stark corporate paradox. Even as the industry's largest vendors break growth records and rake in unprecedented profits, they are slashing headcounts to fund staggering capital infrastructure investments. Aggregated revenue for 18 of the world’s largest tech providers jumped 28.3% year-over-year to $694 billion, according to Omdia, a Channel Dive sister company.
Make Time Wellness fills market gap with women’s brain health supplement
Make Time Wellness brings cognition and energy support to a supplement category that has barely spoken to women. Find out why this is more than a business venture. Make Time Wellness' Make time for Brain, Body & Beauty supplement—available as a beverage or a powder—reached a national retailer's shelves without using venture capital or private equity funding. At a Glance With mass market placement, Make Time Wellness’ brain health supplements bring cognitive wellness to everyday shoppers.
Don't miss tomorrow's technology industry news
This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback. As AI moves deeper into production, channel partners may need to shift the customer conversation from which model to use to where inference should actually run. That’s according to a new Akamai report, which ties AI inference performance directly to business results — including customer satisfaction, cost to serve and revenue per visitor.
Don't miss tomorrow's Cybersecurity industry news
Even as AI accelerates cyberattacks against small and midsize businesses, attackers continue to exploit familiar weaknesses, according to a Guardz research report. The cybersecurity platform provider analyzed telemetry across MSP-managed SMB environments from September 2025 through February 2026.
Don't miss tomorrow's technology industry news
This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback. Enterprises continue to grapple with persistent gaps between AI ambitions and execution, creating an opening for partners to expand their services. Despite growing confidence, most organizations lack the operational discipline to deliver measurable returns on AI investments, according to ERP vendor Infor. The company surveyed 1,000 business decision-makers across the U.S., UK, Germany and France.
Don't miss tomorrow's technology industry news
Even as AI accelerates cyberattacks against small and midsize businesses, attackers continue to exploit familiar weaknesses, according to a Guardz research report. The cybersecurity platform provider analyzed telemetry across MSP-managed SMB environments from September 2025 through February 2026.
Don't miss tomorrow's technology industry news
While IT budgets are expected to remain in line with 2025 levels this year, spending on technology services will see a modest increase as customers seek security and AI support, according to a recent Bain & Company report. The consulting firm surveyed 280 North American and European company leaders in January. Three in 4 respondents expected up to 10% of their company’s tech spending to focus on AI and machine learning.
Don't miss tomorrow's technology industry news
Neolclouds have yet to build networking strong enough to handle AI workloads, according to recent research by Omdia, a Channel Dive sister company. As soaring compute demand hits connectivity constraints, partners have an opportunity to help these GPU-specialists build out their networks. AI performance depends on the ability to process and move data securely across distributed environments and geographies.
Don't miss tomorrow's technology industry news
Cloudflare joined forces with Wiz to stymie the rapid spread of shadow AI across enterprise environments, the two companies said in a Tuesday announcement. The strategic partnership aims to bring real-time oversight to edge environments and comes close on the heels of Google Cloud’s $32 billion acquisition of Wiz, which closed last month.
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