Telecom Reseller / Technology Reseller News

“AI is no longer just a chatbot. It is becoming a proactive coworker.” In this Technology Reseller News podcast, Hardik Ajmera, Vice President of Product Management at Extreme Networks, discusses the general availability of Extreme Agent One Coworker, a context-aware AI agent designed specifically for enterprise networking. Extreme Networks provides secure connectivity across enterprise environments, including wired and wireless networking, SD-WAN, campus, branch and data center infrastructure. Ajmera says the key limitation of generic AI in networking is context. A general AI model can explain networking concepts or suggest troubleshooting steps, but it does not automatically understand a customer’s topology, historical trends, policies, operating procedures or live network conditions. Extreme Agent One is designed to add that context. Built into Extreme Platform One, the AI continuously monitors the network, analyzes current and historical data and can proactively surface important issues before an engineer asks for help. “If it sees a severity-one issue, it does the legwork first,” Ajmera says. “It gathers the data, understands the impact and comes back with recommended steps.” The system can also help with troubleshooting, configuration guidance, knowledge-base access, evidence collection and support-case creation. For network teams, that means moving from reactive management toward a more proactive operating model. Ajmera says governance remains central to that transition. Extreme Agent One provides visibility into what data it used, how it reasoned through a problem and why it is recommending a particular action. Customers can also determine how much authority they want to give the AI. “Humans are still in control,” Ajmera says. “The key is that customers need a choice.” Extreme sees repetitive, time-consuming tasks such as issue analysis, troubleshooting and case creation as natural early candidates for AI automation, with more autonomous network operations developing over time as customers build trust. Extreme Agent One Coworker became generally available worldwide on August 31 and is available through Extreme Platform One. Visit ExtremeNetworks.com to learn more  

By Doug Green “No physical SIM, no Wi-Fi and no manual step from the end user.” In this Telecom Reseller podcast, I speak with Cédric Jarkowsky, Head of Product at NTT Transatel, about a major step forward for eSIM technology: giving a smartphone connectivity from the moment it is first powered on. NTT Transatel is working with Samsung to provide eSIM Bootstrap Connectivity for Samsung Galaxy Z series devices, initially in the U.S. The technology gives a new device access to 4G and 5G networks before the user has installed a physical SIM, connected to Wi-Fi or completed carrier enrollment. Jarkowsky explains that a bootstrap profile is loaded onto the device’s eSIM at the factory. When the phone is switched on, that profile can provide the connectivity needed for activation, software updates and carrier provisioning. “Bootstrap turns powering on a device into getting online,” Jarkowsky says, effectively collapsing several steps of the activation process into a much simpler experience. For Samsung, the approach can also reduce operational complexity. Instead of maintaining different SIM configurations and device SKUs for individual carriers and regions, a universal bootstrap profile can support devices across markets. The implications extend well beyond the consumer smartphone experience. For large enterprises deploying phones across a distributed workforce, bootstrap connectivity can simplify the process of getting devices into employees’ hands and connecting them to the appropriate corporate carrier profile. IT teams can avoid some of the logistical challenges associated with shipping physical SIM cards or manually provisioning devices. Carriers and service providers can benefit as well. Because the connectivity capability is already embedded in the handset, providers can provision their own services through applications, QR codes or remote profile installation without requiring a physical SIM. Jarkowsky also sees an opportunity for MSPs, MSSPs and channel partners delivering mobility services. Any provider packaging mobile connectivity, devices and related services can potentially benefit from a simpler activation and provisioning experience. The podcast also explores why Samsung selected NTT Transatel. Jarkowsky points to the company’s ability to provide 4G and 5G connectivity across more than 200 countries and territories, its distributed network infrastructure, and its ability to support deployments involving tens of millions of devices. Another important distinction is longevity. Rather than functioning only during the device’s first activation, the bootstrap service can remain available throughout the handset’s lifecycle. That becomes valuable when a phone is factory-reset, transferred to another employee, resold or moved to another country. The result is a technology that may change something users rarely think about until it goes wrong: the first few minutes of a device’s life. In this podcast, we discuss what eSIM Bootstrap Connectivity is, how Samsung is deploying it, what it means for enterprises and service providers, and how embedded global connectivity could reshape device provisioning in smartphones, IoT, connected vehicles and other enterprise applications. Learn more at transatel.com.

“Anything that moves, flies or floats needs to know where it is, stay connected and think for itself locally.” In this Technology Reseller News podcast, Michael Schramm, co-founder and CEO of Nordian, discusses how the company is building infrastructure for physical AI—from autonomous tractors and trucks to drones and other connected machines. Nordian combines three critical capabilities into a single platform: precise positioning, connectivity and edge computing. Schramm says manufacturers can already assemble those capabilities individually, but doing so may require five to ten different suppliers and considerable integration work. Nordian’s goal is to simplify that into a plug-and-play solution. The company provides centimeter-level positioning, cellular and satellite connectivity, and local computing resources that allow equipment to continue performing important functions even when internet access is unavailable. Nordian also works with Starlink in South America, including integrating Starlink Mini connectivity into its Ultralink platform. For trucking and logistics, Schramm says the technology can help eliminate connectivity and visibility gaps that occur when vehicles and trailers travel through rural areas. “About 70 percent of U.S. roads are in rural areas, so connectivity is not a given,” Schramm says. Nordian is already deployed across tens of thousands of autonomous devices and works extensively with agricultural equipment manufacturers in South America. The company is now expanding further into U.S. transportation and logistics. The opportunity also extends to drones, surveying equipment, autonomous machinery and other applications where reliable positioning and communications are mission critical. For MSPs, carriers and channel partners, Nordian presents an opportunity to participate in the growing physical AI ecosystem by helping customers connect and manage machines operating far beyond the traditional office network. Visit Nordian.com to learn more.  

“We empower the channel to transform all that copper that’s being shut down.” In this Technology Reseller News podcast recorded at Alianza Navigate 2026, David Neva and Jake Jacoby of TELCLOUD discuss the continuing POTS replacement opportunity and how the company is helping service providers migrate legacy voice and life-safety systems. TELCLOUD is a white-label service provider focused on converting POTS lines and supporting legacy systems through a modern backend platform. The company sells through the channel rather than directly, giving MSPs and service providers a way to address copper shutdowns without building the entire solution themselves. Neva and Jacoby say the opportunity is becoming more urgent as carriers continue decommissioning copper infrastructure. That can impact elevators, fire alarms, emergency phones, fax lines and other systems that still depend on traditional analog connectivity. “The shutdowns are really pushing this market now,” Neva says. TELCLOUD has expanded its integration with the Alianza ecosystem and is already supporting a number of Alianza partners. The company can help with everything from field services and deployment to ongoing management, support and orchestration. Redundancy is also a major part of the solution. TELCLOUD can support multiple connectivity paths, including cellular, fiber and Starlink, which can be especially valuable in rural locations where traditional wired infrastructure may be limited. For MSPs and channel partners, the company offers a flexible model. Partners can use TELCLOUD primarily for its technology and platform, or they can opt for a more complete managed-service approach that includes deployment, billing and customer support with revenue sharing. The message to the channel is simple: do not wait for a customer’s legacy line to fail. TELCLOUD is encouraging partners to identify vulnerable customers now and move them to replacement services before outages force an emergency migration. Visit TELCLOUD.com to learn more.  

“When a customer sees a name they recognize, a logo they trust and a call reason that matters, they’re much more likely to answer.” In this Technology Reseller News podcast recorded at Alianza Navigate 2026, Jim Dalton, CEO of TransNexus, discusses branded calling and why he sees it as a new revenue opportunity for service providers. Branded calling allows a business call to display the company name, logo and call reason on the recipient’s device. Dalton says that added identity can make a major difference at a time when many consumers simply ignore calls from numbers they do not recognize. For businesses such as hospitals, alarm companies, auto dealers and other organizations that need customers to answer important calls, the value can be significant. Dalton says service providers can use branded calling both to differentiate their voice services and to create new revenue. “Voice has been stagnant for some providers,” Dalton says. “This gives them something new to take to their enterprise customers.” The opportunity can work on both sides of the call. Businesses may pay a premium to originate branded calls, while terminating service providers can potentially generate revenue for displaying that branding instead of paying for traditional caller-ID dips. TransNexus has been a longtime Metaswitch partner and sees branded calling fitting naturally into the expanding Alianza ecosystem. Dalton says the integration is relatively straightforward, making it easier for Alianza partners to add branded calling without rebuilding their voice platforms. Beyond branded calling, TransNexus also provides services around STIR/SHAKEN, FCC compliance, do-not-originate controls and robocall mitigation. The company is also working on new robocall detection capabilities designed to identify problematic traffic based on who is signing the call. Visit TransNexus.com to learn more.  

“The value is in the conversation, not the call.” In this Technology Reseller News podcast recorded at Alianza Navigate 2026, independent analyst Jon Arnold of J Arnold & Associates discusses the launch of Alianza Crux, the event’s broader AI message and what the platform could mean for service providers trying to move beyond traditional telecom. Arnold describes analysts as the people who step back from individual products and look at the larger market: what is changing, why it matters and where the business opportunity may be heading. At Navigate, much of that discussion centered on Crux, Alianza’s new platform and strategy for helping service providers bridge the gap between legacy voice services and intelligent communications. Arnold says the challenge is significant because many carriers remain closely tied to PSTN-era technologies and business models while their customers are increasingly looking for AI-enabled, integrated communications. “The value is in the conversation, not the call,” Arnold says. Crux is designed to help service providers move in that direction by orchestrating new communications capabilities and bringing in what Alianza calls experience providers—voice AI and conversational AI companies building applications that carriers may not want to integrate themselves. That could allow service providers to offer more turnkey AI-powered services without having to build, test and manage every application independently. Arnold also sees trust as a central part of the strategy. For carriers, adopting AI and new communications models means trusting that the underlying platform can help them modernize without forcing them to abandon the customer relationships and infrastructure they already have. The opportunity, Arnold says, is not simply technological. Providers also need to find new revenue streams. “If you stay status quo, it’s not going to end well,” he says. Arnold says Navigate ultimately presented a model for migration: helping traditional communications providers move toward AI-enabled services while maintaining the reliability, identity and trust that have always been central to telecom. Visit JArnoldAssociates.com to learn more.  

“The hospitality vertical is something Alianza partners absolutely have access to.” In this Technology Reseller News podcast, Jon Dulude, CEO of DuVoice Corporation, discusses how the company helps service providers enter the hospitality market by connecting hotel phone systems with property management and billing platforms. DuVoice provides middleware that enables cloud communications providers to deliver hotel-specific features that are often required by major hospitality brands. Those capabilities include guest-name caller ID at the front desk, automated wake-up calls, guest voicemail and housekeeping status updates sent from room phones back to the property management system. Dulude says those features are important because many standard cloud communications platforms do not provide them natively. For Alianza partners, DuVoice has also deepened its integration with the platform. The company can now operate as an application server within the Metaswitch/Alianza environment, improving how DuVoice works with Alianza-based deployments. “That makes the hospitality opportunity much more straightforward for the reseller,” Dulude says. The opportunity also extends beyond basic compliance and hotel operations. DuVoice can use in-room phones for guest notifications, including restaurant promotions, spa offers, group messages and emergency alerts. Message-waiting indicators can help draw attention to those communications in a way that email or mobile messaging may not. Dulude says many MSPs and service providers have historically avoided hospitality because it appeared too specialized. His message is that the vertical is more accessible than many partners realize. DuVoice sells its software in more than 50 countries and works with service providers worldwide. Visit DuVoice.com to learn more.  

“Let’s solve problems.” In this Technology Reseller News podcast recorded at Alianza Navigate 2026, Darren Knapp of Grandstream discusses his new role with the company, Grandstream’s expanding portfolio and the opportunity for MSPs and channel partners to take a broader look at the vendor’s capabilities. Grandstream provides business communications and networking technology, including IP phones, cordless solutions, routers, switches, Wi-Fi access points and other infrastructure products. Knapp says one of the things that attracted him to Grandstream was the company’s willingness to invest in new areas while allowing him to remain connected to the communications channel. That includes AI. Grandstream is beginning to integrate AI directly into endpoints. Knapp demonstrated the company’s new GRP Pro phone, which includes an AI button on its wireless handset. A user can press the button and use voice commands such as “call Doug Green,” allowing the phone to search the directory and place the call automatically. “It’s simple today, but it’s a taste of what’s coming,” Knapp says. Grandstream is also exploring capabilities such as real-time translation, caller identification and technologies designed to help users distinguish legitimate communications from scams or AI-generated interactions. More than endpoints Knapp says many partners still primarily associate Grandstream with phones and analog telephone adapters, but the company’s portfolio now extends much further. Partners can deploy PoE switches, access points and communications endpoints while managing multiple device types through Grandstream’s GDMS cloud management platform. That combination can simplify deployment and management for service providers that want a more unified approach to customer environments. Grandstream is also continuing to work within the Alianza ecosystem, giving partners additional endpoint choices as they build services for customers. Knapp says the larger message is that Grandstream wants feedback from the channel. Rather than simply presenting a fixed product catalog, the company is looking for specific problems partners need solved and evaluating where new products or features can address them. “There’s a real appetite at Grandstream to solve things,” Knapp says. “Bring us the problem and let’s see what we can do.” Visit Grandstream.com to learn more.  

“These exciting new intelligent systems need to be billed, and they need to be monetized.” In this Technology Reseller News podcast recorded at Alianza Navigate 2026, Mark Loveys, CEO of Datagate, discusses how AI is creating new revenue opportunities for telecom service providers—and how billing needs to evolve with it. Datagate is a telecom billing platform built for MSPs, CSPs and other service providers that resell communications services. The platform integrates with systems including ConnectWise, Halo, Autotask, QuickBooks and Xero, helping providers manage telecom pricing, usage and billing. Loveys says he is seeing service providers around the world move rapidly into AI-powered services, particularly intelligent voice agents and other communications applications. “What’s surprised me is the speed at which this is being adopted,” Loveys says. Many of these services start with voice but quickly move beyond simple call handling. AI agents can learn about the business, interact with customers and make decisions about how calls should be processed. That creates a new challenge: how do service providers price and bill for these services? Datagate is applying its existing usage-based billing expertise to AI, allowing providers to translate AI consumption, time and resources into billable services. Loveys is also enthusiastic about Alianza’s new Crux platform, which is designed to help service providers orchestrate data and deploy AI services more easily. “Products like Crux are making AI accessible and saleable,” Loveys says. Datagate plans to work alongside Alianza to help partners monetize those new services, while also supporting requirements around authentication, trust and data orchestration. For MSPs and channel partners, Loveys says the opportunity is clear: AI is becoming another layer of communications services that can be packaged, billed and sold to customers. Visit Datagate-i.com to learn more.  

“We’re living in the agentic age of voice.” In this Technology Reseller News podcast, Jeff Pulver of the vCon Foundation discusses the upcoming fall VON+ events in Atlanta and why he believes voice is entering a new renaissance driven by AI, identity and trusted conversations. The three-day program begins October 13 with two parallel events: the 2026 vCon Summit and Voice AI Live. The vCon Summit will focus on virtualized conversations, implementations and emerging standards, while Voice AI Live will feature demonstrations from voice AI platforms. The following two days will bring together communications veterans, AI startups, network operators and other industry leaders for VON+, focused on the future of voice and conversations. Pulver argues that the industry must move beyond least-cost routing toward what he calls “purple routing”—prioritizing low latency, high-quality audio, security, identity and trusted paths rather than simply choosing the cheapest route. “In the age of AI, what matters is the lowest-latency signal, the most secure known route, high-quality voice and identity,” Pulver says. vCon as the conversation record Pulver also sees vCon becoming a foundational component of AI-era communications. A vCon can capture not only a voice call but also the broader conversation across channels—text, messaging, transcripts, documents and other interactions—and preserve the associated metadata and context. “vCons can turn conversations into an asset,” Pulver says. That capability can support compliance, portability and AI memory while helping organizations avoid locking conversation history into individual communications platforms. Pulver also points to future use cases involving agent-to-agent communications and capturing the reasoning and actions of agentic AI systems. The larger opportunity, he says, is for communications companies to rethink what voice becomes when AI is built into the experience rather than simply layered onto legacy telecom. “We need to be thinking for the future today,” Pulver says. “If we don’t, somebody new is going to come in and take the revenue.” The VON+ fall events take place October 13–15 in Sandy Springs, Atlanta. Visit Pulver.com, VONevolution.com or TheVConFoundation.com to learn more.  

“Software can’t fake physics.” In this Technology Reseller News podcast recorded at Alianza Navigate 2026, James Lee, CEO of Inlayer, discusses how the company is evolving beyond Phonism and building a new trust layer for communications in an era of AI-driven fraud. Inlayer owns Phonism, known for SIP device management and security. Lee says the company is now expanding into compliance automation, helping service providers address requirements such as KYC and E911 while creating new verified communication services. The core idea is simple: prove that a real human is present before a sensitive communication begins. Inlayer is developing patented “tap-to-prove” endpoints that work similarly to tap-to-pay. A user physically taps an unlocked phone against a card, sticker or other assigned endpoint, creating cryptographic proof of presence. “That physical act adds another form of human-factor authentication,” Lee says. “Software can’t fake physics.” The system can also collect identity and, with consent, location information before creating a trust token that can be passed to the communications provider. Lee says the need is growing rapidly as AI makes synthetic voice, deepfake video and automated fraud easier and cheaper to produce at scale. Rather than trying to detect fraud after it occurs, Inlayer wants service providers to block unverified traffic before a call, message or online session begins. That creates a potential new revenue opportunity for UCaaS, CCaaS, CPaaS and voice providers by allowing them to offer premium verified-human communications. The company is also building what Lee calls a broader “trust stack,” combining verified presence, identity, consent and immutable records based on vCon standards. Those records could include verified participants, recordings, transcripts, documents, votes and other elements of a communication that may later need to be audited or defended in court. Inlayer is currently looking for development partners, communications providers and enterprises interested in testing the technology and helping bring verified-human communications to market. Visit Inlayer.com to learn more.

“If it’s certified, we know it works on the platform—and we have the relationships in place to help resolve issues.” In this Technology Reseller News podcast recorded at Alianza Navigate 2026, Korey Kather of Snom discusses the company’s expanding phone portfolio, its work within the Alianza ecosystem and how Snom is helping partners save time with certified products, North American support and advanced replacement warranties. Snom is a business phone manufacturer with a broad portfolio of DECT and desk phones. Kather says one of the company’s biggest differentiators is its North American sales, engineering and support presence. Partners can reach Snom directly for pre-sales assistance, deployment help and troubleshooting. The company also offers a three-year advanced replacement warranty, allowing qualified replacements to be shipped before the original device is returned. At Alianza Navigate, Snom highlighted its M500 Series, including a DECT system that can emulate a traditional key system. Incoming calls can appear on familiar line keys, making the platform particularly useful for restaurants, retail and small-office environments where simplicity and minimal retraining matter. Snom is also expanding its D800 Series. The new D892 combines a full-featured desk phone with a DECT handset, giving users the flexibility to move away from the desk while retaining access to their business phone environment. “It’s a full-functioning desk set, but it gives you more range,” Kather says. Snom has also worked closely with Alianza to certify its devices across the company’s platforms. Kather says certification helps reduce deployment friction for MSPs and channel partners while giving both Snom and Alianza a foundation for faster support when issues arise. For partners outside the Alianza ecosystem, Snom products are available through authorized distribution. Kather says the combination of competitive pricing, a broad product portfolio, strong warranty coverage and accessible North American support gives MSPs another option when building voice solutions for customers. Visit Snom.com to learn more.

“Users don’t need to be SMS experts to be successful with SMS.” In this Technology Reseller News podcast recorded at Alianza Navigate 2026, Alan Tran, Solutions Engineer at Beetexting, discusses how the company helps MSPs, channel partners and businesses simplify SMS compliance while creating new messaging revenue opportunities. Beetexting is a compliance-minded business texting platform designed to help organizations control how users message customers, maintain consent and prevent non-compliant traffic from reaching the network. Tran says one of the biggest challenges for businesses is navigating registration requirements, opt-in rules and campaign drift, where messaging activity begins to move beyond the purpose originally approved. “We like to say we’re a compliance solution out of the box,” Tran says. Beetexting supports businesses through the registration process and offers tools designed to help maintain ongoing compliance. Its AI-powered compliance capabilities can scan messages before they are sent and flag activity that does not match company policy or customer consent. The platform also includes shared inboxes, interactive text reception, consent capture and enforcement, CRM integrations and centralized conversation management. For smaller businesses, the goal is to make sophisticated messaging capabilities as accessible as possible. Beetexting can guide users through setup and recommend features based on their needs, helping organizations deploy SMS without requiring employees to understand every technical or regulatory detail. For MSPs and channel partners, Tran says the opportunity extends beyond compliance. Beetexting reports more than a 90 percent first-submission approval rate for campaigns using its registration assistance, while customers that successfully adopt the platform can significantly increase messaging usage. “The easier it is for customers to get registered and start texting successfully, the more opportunity there is for the partner,” Tran says. Beetexting is expanding its presence across the channel and working with service providers to make compliant business messaging easier to deploy, manage and monetize. Visit Beetexting.com to learn more.

In this Technology Reseller News podcast, Rakesh Unni and Jessica Campas of SkySwitch make the case that "native" is more than marketing language when it comes to AI agents it's the difference between an add-on and a genuine platform capability and that the way to sell it to small businesses is to talk about money, not technology. Most AI agent tools, they note, are bolted on from the outside: a new phone number, a separate setup, another vendor, and another bill for partners and their customers to manage. SkySwitch built its AI Agent directly into the UCaaS platform its partners already run, and that architecture changes what the tool can actually do. There are no new numbers to provision and no complex integration project, just one bill, one support team, and no-code tools that let partners build FAQs and drag-and-drop call flows without engineering help. Unni's advice for partners selling into the small-business market is to reframe the conversation entirely. "Lead with revenue, not AI," he says, show customers how much more they could be earning by capturing opportunities after hours and automating routine inquiries during the day, rather than pitching the technology for its own sake. The pair are also clear that an AI receptionist is only the starting point. Answering and routing calls is one feature of a broader AI Agent that can qualify leads, handle customer service, and run outbound follow-ups so the revenue story extends well beyond simply not missing a call. For end customers, that means round-the-clock coverage for routine questions, fewer missed calls and lost leads, and lower appointment no-show rates. And because the agent is fully white-label, partners keep their own brand front and center. The takeaway for the channel is simple: AI shouldn't mean one more vendor to wrangle, and it shouldn't be sold as a novelty. Built into the platform partners already trust and pitched as a revenue engine rather than a gadget, it becomes a way to answer every call, automate the routine, and capture more opportunity without adding to the stack. Visit skyswitch.com/ai-agent to learn more.

“If the AI makes a promise, it’s your promise.” In this Technology Reseller News podcast, Jono McKenzie, Principal Product Manager at 8x8, discusses new research examining AI agent failures, accountability and the growing importance of governance. 8x8 is a customer experience platform combining contact center, business phone, video, messaging and AI on a single system. According to the research, 52 percent of respondents said the CIO has primary accountability when an AI agent fails. McKenzie says that creates new pressure on technology leaders to understand how AI systems are deployed, what data they access and what guardrails are in place. “CIOs need to be able to see what happened, when it happened and why it happened,” McKenzie says. The survey also found that 89 percent of technology leaders said data sovereignty has moved higher on their priority list during the past 12 months. For MSPs and channel partners, that creates an opportunity to help customers with AI governance, data residency, security, testing and deployment strategy. McKenzie says enterprises now need to look beyond the impressive AI demo and ask harder questions about accountability, controls and what happens when something goes wrong. Visit 8x8.com to learn more and download the research.

“Digital accountability is here.” In this special Technology Reseller News and Cloud Communications Alliance podcast, Tommy Sheahan, CEO of CompleteSMS, discusses the growing compliance burden around application-to-person messaging—and the opportunity it creates for service providers. CompleteSMS, formerly Red Oxygen, has been in the SMS market for more than 25 years. The company helps businesses, software vendors and channel partners manage messaging compliance, registration, delivery and cost allocation. Sheahan says sending business text messages is no longer as simple as connecting to an API and sending traffic. Organizations increasingly need to document who they are messaging, why they are messaging them, how consent was obtained, what content is being sent and how opt-outs are handled. “We help businesses get compliant, stay compliant and manage the costs associated with that compliance,” Sheahan says. CompleteSMS also monitors messaging activity to help identify cases where approved traffic begins drifting into another use case, potentially creating delivery problems or compliance risk. The company’s services are particularly relevant for smaller organizations that do not have dedicated messaging compliance teams. For MSPs, MSSPs, CPaaS providers and other channel partners, Sheahan says that complexity can become a business opportunity. CompleteSMS can help partners manage registration and ongoing compliance while also allocating campaign, carrier and messaging costs to individual customers. “We can help turn this from a cost center into a profit center,” Sheahan says. The regulatory environment is also becoming more complex globally, with different messaging requirements emerging across countries and individual U.S. states. For enterprises, Sheahan’s message is straightforward: do not assume an internal compliance team understands the rapidly changing rules surrounding business SMS. Visit CompleteSMS.com to learn more and start a free trial.

“The biggest misconception is that SMBs are not using AI or benefiting from it.” In this Technology Reseller News podcast, Sharon Florentine, Manager Research Analyst at GTIA, discusses new research showing that small and midsized businesses are already seeing meaningful benefits from AI—and creating a growing advisory opportunity for MSPs and IT service providers. GTIA, the Global Technology Industry Association, is a nonprofit membership organization serving IT service providers around the world. Its new research, End-User AI Adoption: How ITSP Customers Are Really Using AI, is based on responses from 520 SMB and microbusiness decision-makers. Florentine says the research challenges the idea that AI adoption is primarily an enterprise phenomenon. “The majority of SMBs are using AI, and they are seeing a lot of positive benefits from it,” she says. According to the study, 84 percent of respondents reported positive outcomes from AI. Businesses are using AI to improve productivity, move faster and support areas including marketing, sales, IT and security. Many are starting with tools already embedded in platforms such as Microsoft and Google, along with standalone services such as ChatGPT. Governance becomes the next priority As AI use expands, however, governance and cybersecurity are becoming increasingly important. Florentine says security risks were among the biggest concerns identified by respondents. Attackers are using AI to improve phishing and other threats, while defenders are using it for threat intelligence, vulnerability management and other security functions. “You cannot have AI without governance and cybersecurity,” Florentine says. That creates a significant opportunity for MSPs and ITSPs. Respondents specifically identified AI advisory services as something they would like from their technology providers. Those services could include identifying AI opportunities, evaluating risk, creating acceptable-use policies and helping customers expand successful AI projects. Florentine says the organizations seeing the greatest value tend to take a deliberate approach. They assign responsibility for AI to an executive, team or council, establish guidelines, monitor results and proactively address risks. For MSPs, one of the best places to begin may be their own AI journey. “Take your own experience and use that as an example for guidance,” Florentine says. “Show customers how you have solved problems using AI and help them do the same.” The broader message is that SMBs do not necessarily need to be convinced to use AI. Many are already there. What they increasingly need is trusted guidance on how to use it safely, strategically and at scale. GTIA members can access the full End-User AI Adoption research at GTIA.org.

Chahna Soni, Vice President Corporate Relations at Ecoreco (Eco Recycling Limited), joined Technology Reseller News Publisher Doug Green for a special ITAD Association podcast examining the company’s role in IT asset disposition, electronics recycling, data security, and the circular economy in India. Founded in 2005, Ecoreco provides end-to-end ITAD and electronic waste management services across India. The company manages collection and logistics, asset tracking, data sanitization, refurbishment, resale, and recycling within its own ecosystem. Its capabilities cover a broad range of IT and electronic equipment, from laptops, mobile devices and servers to networking, telecom, medical, laboratory, and other electronic equipment. Soni emphasized that Ecoreco seeks to recover value from equipment whenever possible rather than automatically sending retired technology for recycling. “These assets can be refurbished and resold back in the market, ensuring that we somewhere maintain circular economy,” she said. Equipment that has reached the end of its useful life is processed to recover materials, including critical and precious metals. Data security is another major focus. Ecoreco offers data sanitization as well as on-site physical destruction through its mobile “Recycling on Wheels” technology. Customers can witness media destruction at their own locations, with CCTV footage, audit trails, and certificates documenting the process. Soni said this approach provides organizations with both secure chain of custody and evidence that retired data-bearing equipment has been properly handled. Ecoreco also provides services beyond India through a partner network covering more than 126 countries, allowing multinational organizations to coordinate ITAD programs through a single relationship. As a member of the ITAD Association, formerly ASCDI, the company brings extensive experience in India’s rapidly developing formal electronics recycling and IT asset management market. Learn more about Ecoreco: Ecoreco Learn more about the ITAD Association: ITAD Association / ASCDI

Part 3 of the SmarTrak series looks at why useful AI begins with accurate, organized and connected customer data. AI can only be as useful as the data behind it. In Part 3 of our continuing Technology Reseller News podcast series with SmarTrak, Jay Pearce and I focus on one of the most important - and often overlooked - steps in getting ready for artificial intelligence: cleaning up the data first. For Cisco partners, critical customer information can be spread across contracts, subscriptions, renewals, installed assets, adoption records and other systems. When that information is fragmented, incomplete or inconsistent, even sophisticated AI tools may have difficulty producing useful recommendations. The conversation looks at why AI readiness is really a data-readiness issue. Before partners can rely on AI for forecasting, automation or identifying opportunities, they need a reliable foundation that gives the technology a clear picture of the customer relationship. That means bringing information together, improving accuracy and making sure the data reflects what customers own, what is approaching renewal and where activity is taking place across the lifecycle. Clean, connected data can also give partners better visibility before AI is added. It can make it easier to spot gaps, prepare for renewal conversations and understand where additional services or customer engagement may be needed. The larger point of the episode is simple: do not begin an AI strategy by asking what AI can do. Begin by asking whether the underlying data is good enough for AI to work with. As Cisco partners look for practical ways to use AI across customer success, renewals and lifecycle management, getting the data foundation right may be the most important first step. This is Part 3 of the SmarTrak series on helping Cisco partners strengthen lifecycle visibility, improve renewal readiness and uncover new opportunities across the customer relationship. Podcast: Clean Data Before Artificial Intelligence Series: SmarTrak for Cisco Partners

GCH Technologies: Building Trust Into Business-to-Consumer Communications, Podcast, GCH Technologies is focused on enabling trusted business-to-consumer communications across messaging, voice and emerging communications technologies. The company works alongside wireless operators, carriers, aggregators, verification providers and industry organizations rather than competing with those participants By Doug Green “Trust doesn’t happen by accident.” That observation captures the central theme of my conversation with Cliff Holsenbeck, Chief Operating Officer and Co-Founder of GCH Technologies: how the telecom industry can make it easier for legitimate businesses to communicate with consumers while making trusted communications channels increasingly difficult for fraudsters to exploit. GCH Technologies is focused on enabling trusted business-to-consumer communications across messaging, voice and emerging communications technologies. The company works alongside wireless operators, carriers, aggregators, verification providers and industry organizations rather than competing with those participants. GCH is also the operator of the U.S. Short Code Registry, giving the company a unique position within the infrastructure that supports business messaging. During the podcast, Holsenbeck discusses why trust has become such an important issue as consumers increasingly rely on messaging and other digital communications to interact with businesses. The technology itself has evolved rapidly, but many of the administrative processes behind trusted communications remain fragmented, manual and inconsistent. Legitimate businesses can face lengthy onboarding processes, while carriers and service providers must simultaneously prevent bad actors from gaining access to the same trusted channels. The challenge, Holsenbeck explains, is finding the right balance. Businesses need efficient ways to establish their identities and begin communicating with customers. At the same time, the communications ecosystem needs confidence that those businesses are who they claim to be and are using those channels for legitimate purposes. That means trust begins well before a message or call reaches the consumer. Identity verification, consistent onboarding processes and greater transparency across the ecosystem are increasingly important components of trusted communications. GCH is addressing those issues through vendor-neutral platforms designed to modernize administrative and onboarding processes while maintaining rigorous verification standards. Artificial intelligence also has a role. GCH is using AI to provide better information and stronger intelligence during onboarding and verification, helping ecosystem participants make more informed decisions while reducing manual work and improving consistency. But one of the larger messages from the conversation is that no single company can solve the trust problem. Wireless operators, carriers, messaging providers, verification partners, technology companies and industry organizations all have a role in protecting consumers while preserving access for legitimate communications. Looking ahead, Holsenbeck sees business messaging becoming richer and more interactive, with AI, automation and new communications formats creating new opportunities for businesses and consumers. Those advances will also make identity and trust even more important. As communications become increasingly automated and sophisticated, knowing who is communicating — and why — becomes a foundational part of protecting consumers and maintaining confidence in the communications ecosystem. GCH expects the industry to continue moving toward more automated, API-driven processes while increasing collaboration between carriers, brands, verification providers and industry organizations. The goal is straightforward: make trusted communications easier for legitimate businesses and harder for fraudsters. And, as Holsenbeck puts it, that trust doesn’t happen by accident.

Listen in to the podcast between Todd Rychecky, president of Gearlinx, and Don Witt of the Channel Daily News from Telecom Reseller. They discuss how GearLinx helps organizations maintain secure visibility and control of critical infrastructure during network outages, focusing on the "outage readiness gap." Todd explains the company's solutions, including the NR4400 Network Resilience Platform and the Xero cloud management tool. They cover five key questions for assessing a customer's recovery risk, such as whether teams can still access equipment during an outage and the importance of independent recovery paths. Todd Rychecky

“We work for you—the partner.” In this Technology Reseller News podcast, Mark Sher, Senior Vice President of Product Marketing at Intermedia, discusses how the company’s embedded Microsoft Teams solution can help MSPs simplify business communications, strengthen customer relationships and create new recurring revenue. Intermedia is an intelligent communications provider serving small and midsized businesses primarily through the channel. More than 80 percent of the company’s revenue comes through partners, shaping how Intermedia develops, deploys and supports its products. Sher says businesses ultimately need communications technology to accomplish two things: enable employees to collaborate internally and connect the business with customers, vendors and other outside parties. Microsoft Teams has become highly effective at the first. Intermedia’s embedded Teams solution is designed to bring voice and broader external communications into the same environment. “To the extent that someone is already using Microsoft Teams for collaboration, we can bring in that second piece in a really cohesive way,” Sher says. Intermedia embeds its communications capabilities directly inside Teams while running voice on Intermedia’s own network. Customers therefore do not need to purchase a separate Microsoft Teams Voice license. That architecture also provides an additional business continuity option. If Teams becomes unavailable, users can access Intermedia’s communications services through the web and continue working until Teams returns. The offering extends beyond basic voice. Intermedia supports SMS, AI-powered call recap, archiving and broader customer experience capabilities, including omnichannel CX, AI agent assist and AI supervisor assist. Partners can also tailor the communications package at the individual-user level, allowing customers to pay for the capabilities particular employees actually require. For MSPs, Sher says the larger opportunity is economic. Many Intermedia partners operate as true resellers, purchasing services wholesale and reselling them under their own customer relationships. That enables partners to recognize top-line revenue, establish their own pricing and retain the customer relationship rather than functioning simply as agents. “The partner owns the customer relationship,” Sher says. “Our customer is the partner.” That model also allows MSPs to bundle communications with security, desktop support, networking and other managed services, creating a more differentiated offering than simply reselling another Teams license. Visit Intermedia to learn more about its embedded Teams solution and partner program.

“Hybrid used to be a transition strategy. It shouldn’t be anymore. It should be the strategy.” In this Technology Reseller News podcast, Tim Mandell of Leaseweb continues an ongoing discussion about infrastructure strategy and why MSPs should think workload-first rather than defaulting every application to the cloud. Leaseweb is a private and sovereign infrastructure-as-a-service provider offering colocation, public cloud, private cloud, bare metal and other infrastructure options. Mandell says the company’s technology-agnostic model makes it a natural fit for MSPs because Leaseweb can provide the underlying infrastructure without competing for the MSP’s customer relationship. The key shift, Mandell says, is moving from a cloud-first mindset to a workload-first strategy. Different workloads have different requirements. A predictable, repetitive workload may be more cost-effective on dedicated infrastructure. Applications that need to scale rapidly may belong in public cloud. Sensitive workloads may be better suited to private cloud, while latency-sensitive applications may require edge infrastructure. “Not everything is optimized from a performance or cost standpoint in a cloud environment,” Mandell says. That makes hybrid infrastructure more than a temporary stop on the way to public cloud. MSPs should instead treat public cloud, private cloud, bare metal, dedicated servers and edge infrastructure as tools that can be combined according to the customer’s actual business needs. Choice can also become a competitive advantage. Mandell warns against placing every customer into the same stack simply because it is familiar. “If you start looking under the hood, you may find opportunities to improve performance and significantly reduce cost,” he says. “That creates better margins and better value for the customer.” Start with the workload Mandell recommends that MSPs begin with a workload assessment rather than a technology discussion. Ask what the workload does, what success looks like, what performance is required, and what business outcome the customer is trying to achieve. MSPs should then document why each workload is placed where it is, establish measurable financial and performance benchmarks, and revisit those decisions regularly. Quarterly business reviews can provide a natural opportunity to determine whether the original placement still makes sense. Regulatory changes, data sovereignty requirements, AI workloads and new customer demands may all require workloads to move over time. The larger goal is to become a long-term trusted adviser rather than simply selling a particular infrastructure stack. “Ask better questions, listen more and understand what the customer is actually trying to accomplish,” Mandell says. Visit Leaseweb.com to learn more.

“We built CueTime to make stage timing cleaner, faster and more efficient—for both the production team and the presenter.” In this Technology Reseller News podcast, Eyal Simko, founder of CueTime, discusses how the company is modernizing stage timing and presenter communication for live events, corporate environments, education, government and AV integration. CueTime combines a confidence monitor with an integrated stage timer, giving presenters a single line of sight for notes, timing and messages from the production team. The system can display count-up and countdown timers along with discreet instructions such as “speak louder” or “roam the stage,” allowing offstage teams to communicate with presenters without interrupting the audience experience. Simko says the platform was developed from more than two decades of experience in event production, where traditional timer systems can create unnecessary cabling, setup time and stage clutter. CueTime can be deployed in as little as 26 seconds from its flight case to an operational system. “It’s about streamlining the process for the people behind the scenes while enhancing the experience for the presenter,” Simko says. The company offers several configurations, including its Elite, Elite LP low-profile model and standalone Pro timer. Devices support touchscreen operation, Power over Ethernet, HDMI output and over-the-air firmware updates. CueTime can also integrate with platforms including Crestron, Q-SYS and Bitfocus Companion, opening opportunities beyond traditional event production. Universities can use the system for classroom timing and examinations. Government organizations can deploy it for meetings and voting sessions, while enterprises can use CueTime in conference rooms, auditoriums and executive presentation spaces. The platform can operate over wired networks, Wi-Fi or its own internal hotspot, enabling use even where internet connectivity is unavailable. Simko says that flexibility also makes CueTime an opportunity for AV integrators, MSPs and other channel partners looking to expand into collaboration and presentation environments. “Any space being used for meetings or presentations needs some way to stay on track,” Simko says. Visit CueTime.io to learn more and try the platform.

“We’re helping businesses answer a simple question: why is somebody calling me, and was it because of my ad?” In this Technology Reseller News podcast, Todd Fisher of CTM returns for a hands-on look at how the platform connects marketing attribution with contact center activity—and how AI can help businesses understand what actually happens after a prospect picks up the phone. CTM brings together inbound and outbound calling, web chat, web forms and integrations with platforms including Salesforce, HubSpot, Clio and Google Ads. The goal is to give marketing and sales teams a shared view of customer activity rather than leaving those functions in separate silos. Fisher demonstrates how CTM can analyze a completed call once the transcript is available. Businesses can create AI-driven workflows that ask specific questions about each conversation, including whether the caller was a qualified lead, what product or service they wanted, their sentiment, the outcome of the call and other details important to the business. “You can ask any number of questions about the outcome of a phone call,” Fisher says. Those insights can then be analyzed across hundreds or thousands of conversations. An insurance company, for example, could determine whether calls originated from a specific advertising campaign, why prospects called, what price points generated interest and whether customers were responding to the brand or another factor. Healthcare organizations can examine insurance coverage, treatments being sought or other characteristics of incoming inquiries. Automotive businesses can automatically identify the year, make and model discussed during calls. For marketers, that creates a much clearer connection between advertising spend and actual customer intent. For sales and contact center leaders, the same data can provide visibility into agent performance and why qualified prospects did—or did not—convert. Fisher says this level of intelligence is no longer limited to large enterprises. For MSPs, CTM represents an opportunity to bring sophisticated call tracking, attribution and AI analysis to smaller businesses that may not have dedicated marketing analytics or contact center teams. The platform includes prebuilt AI prompts for functions such as lead scoring, call summaries, referral sources, outcomes and agent performance, helping partners and customers get started without building everything from scratch. CTM can also provide the underlying phone platform, allowing organizations to manage agents, inbound and outbound calling, campaign tracking and integrations from the same environment. “The use case of the business drives how we set it up,” Fisher says. Visit CTM.com to learn more.

“Create your value and your wealth as a strategic consultant instead of being a technology vendor.” In this Technology Reseller News podcast, Tim Mandell of Leaseweb launches an ongoing infrastructure series focused on how MSPs can build successful AI practices—and why AI infrastructure can no longer be treated as a one-size-fits-all proposition. Leaseweb is a 29-year-old, private and sovereign-by-design infrastructure-as-a-service provider. The company works with MSPs by supplying the underlying infrastructure while allowing the service provider to own the customer relationship and deliver the higher-value solution. Mandell says one of the biggest mistakes organizations make is starting with the hardware. The AI conversation is often dominated by GPUs, including the latest high-performance systems, but the most powerful hardware is not automatically the right infrastructure for every workload. “You have to understand what problem you’re trying to solve before assuming the technology is going to solve it,” Mandell says. AI training, inference and production workloads can have very different requirements. For many MSP customers, inference is particularly important because performance depends heavily on latency, data location, storage and connectivity. Mandell points to an MSP that was losing customers because infrastructure had been placed in the wrong geographic location, creating latency problems that degraded the customer experience. GPUs may get most of the attention, but Mandell says storage can sometimes become the larger and more complicated infrastructure challenge. Organizations can underestimate both the amount of data required and how quickly that data must be retrieved. The same problem applies to sizing. MSPs can overengineer an environment and spend unnecessarily, or build something that lacks the flexibility required as customer demand grows. “There really is no such thing as one AI infrastructure,” Mandell says. “Different applications require different compute, bandwidth, storage and placement.” For MSPs, that creates an opportunity to move away from simply selling infrastructure and toward becoming strategic advisers. Leading with a particular server, GPU or technology stack turns infrastructure into a commodity where price becomes the primary differentiator. Instead, Mandell recommends beginning with the customer’s business objective, asking where the organization is headed over the next several years and then designing the infrastructure around those outcomes. “The infrastructure is going to be what it needs to be based on the business outcome,” Mandell says. “But if you lead with infrastructure, that becomes the foundation of the relationship.” His takeaway for MSPs is straightforward: ask more questions, understand the workload and build value around the customer journey rather than the technology itself. Visit Leaseweb.com to learn more.

“Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast.” In this Technology Reseller News podcast, Ben Prescott, Head of AI Solutions at Trace3, discusses why successful AI adoption depends on getting both the “first mile” and the “last mile” right. Trace3 is a technology and consulting organization that helps enterprises adopt new technologies and transform business operations. Prescott works within the company’s digital consulting group, focusing specifically on AI strategy and implementation. The “first mile,” Prescott explains, is about definition: understanding what the organization is actually trying to accomplish with AI, where the opportunities are, and which business problems are worth solving. The “last mile” is about adoption. Once an organization has selected or built an AI solution, it still has to change workflows, educate users, drive adoption and demonstrate that the investment is creating value. “The first mile is about where and when AI can provide value,” Prescott says. “The last mile is about influencing change and actually squeezing the juice out of the investment.” Between those two points sits the technology itself—software, infrastructure, cloud services and increasingly AI-focused hardware. Prescott says infrastructure matters, but it should be connected to a clearly defined business objective. That discipline is becoming increasingly important as enterprises struggle with AI sprawl. Employees may already be experimenting with unsanctioned tools, while organizations are simultaneously evaluating multiple platforms, infrastructure investments and governance policies. Trace3 recommends that organizations identify core AI platforms, establish acceptable-use policies and create a structured process for evaluating employee and business demand. Prescott says the market has also shifted from experimentation toward measurable value. Organizations that rushed into AI investments are now asking harder questions about duplication, cost and return. “We’re getting to the stage where value matters more than it did over the last couple of years,” he says. The approach applies across commercial enterprises, government, defense and other sectors. While security and regulatory requirements may vary, Prescott says the underlying discipline remains the same: define the problem, choose the right technology, drive adoption and measure the outcome. His advice to organizations beginning or expanding their AI programs is to resist the pressure to move too quickly. “Take a more methodical approach,” Prescott says. “Build the process, develop the muscle memory, and then you can move faster.” Visit Trace3.com to learn more.

“Better AI and better meetings start with better inputs.” In this Technology Reseller News podcast, Vanessa Jensen, Senior Account Executive at Shure, discusses how the company is expanding its IntelliMix collaboration portfolio for Microsoft Teams Rooms and Zoom Rooms. Shure’s IntelliMix Room Kits are designed for spaces ranging from small rooms to larger, more complex deployments. The company has also introduced the IntelliMix Bar Pro, an all-in-one solution certified for medium to large Microsoft Teams Rooms. Jensen says customers increasingly want a consistent meeting experience across different room sizes, locations and collaboration platforms. “They need solutions that are easy to deploy, easy to standardize on and easy to manage at scale,” Jensen says. The IntelliMix Bar Pro combines Shure audio, intelligent video, built-in compute and enterprise management in a single system. It includes AI-assisted audio processing, stereo loudspeakers and a four-camera system with intelligent framing to help ensure that participants are clearly heard and accurately seen. That quality is becoming more important as AI increasingly uses meeting audio and video to generate transcripts, summaries, action items and follow-up workflows. “If someone is not heard clearly or represented accurately, the AI may be working from incomplete information,” Jensen says. Shure is also bringing features such as AI denoising and de-reverberation into its collaboration products to improve audio in challenging environments. The goal is for the technology to fade into the background so meeting participants can focus on the conversation rather than the equipment. The portfolio can scale from simple meeting rooms to larger environments using ceiling array microphones, camera tracking and other advanced capabilities. Shure Cloud also enables IT teams to remotely monitor and manage rooms and receive alerts when attention is required. For Zoom environments, Shure offers IntelliMix Room Kits for small through extra-large Zoom Rooms, combining Shure audio and control with video technology from Huddly. More customized systems are also available for complex spaces. Jensen says the products are designed for straightforward deployment and everyday use, with many configurations operating as plug-and-play systems once the appropriate Teams or Zoom licensing is in place. MSPs and channel partners can also work with Shure to add its collaboration solutions to their portfolios. Visit Shure.com to learn more.

By Doug Green “A renewal should not just be a look in the rear-view mirror.” In Part Two of the Technology Reseller News SmarTrak series, I talk with Jay Pierce of SmarTrak.ai about how Cisco partners can turn renewal and lifecycle data into longer-term customer strategies. Pierce describes the approach as a “windshield view” — looking ahead at what a customer may need over the next three to five years instead of simply reviewing what they bought last time. That means considering hardware, software, services, Cisco buying programs and the customer’s broader business plans as part of the renewal conversation. The discussion also looks at how AI can help partners identify transformation opportunities, while recognizing that raw data alone is not enough. Pierce points to data protection, Cisco program knowledge and context as important factors in turning information into useful partner intelligence. For Cisco partners, the opportunity is to move beyond a transaction-based renewal process and use lifecycle information to build a more complete account strategy — one that expands the customer conversation and helps partners plan for what comes next. This is Part Two of the SmarTrak series: Turning Cisco Renewals into Five-Year Plans. Next in the series: Clean Data Before Artificial Intelligence.

By Doug Green “You can access these devices at the BIOS level, regardless of the state of the system.” In this Technology Reseller News podcast, Dawn Siskowski, Technical Product Manager at Legrand’s Raritan division, discusses the newly launched Dominion KX III G2, the company’s next-generation enterprise KVM-over-IP switch. Raritan has been developing KVM and intelligent power solutions for more than 40 years. Siskowski says the new Dominion KX III G2 builds on that history while addressing the requirements of modern, distributed IT environments. The platform provides secure BIOS-level remote access to servers and other devices, allowing IT teams to manage systems even when operating systems have crashed or machines are turned off. “You don’t have to have someone onsite,” Siskowski says. “You can access the hardware at the lowest possible level.” The Dominion KX III G2 scales from smaller environments to large enterprise deployments and can support up to 96 servers from a single switch. Raritan has also improved video performance, delivering up to 60 frames per second for use cases ranging from traditional IT administration to broadcast, AV and other environments where image quality is critical. The platform is device agnostic and designed to operate over existing network infrastructure without requiring a separate management network. For service providers and enterprise IT teams, remote access can also reduce recovery times during major outages. Siskowski points to incidents where technicians have been forced to travel to individual locations simply to restore or patch inaccessible systems. “With KVM in place, you can do that work remotely,” she says. “You save travel costs and improve response time.” As organizations operate leaner IT teams and increasingly manage infrastructure across multiple locations, Siskowski says secure remote management becomes even more important. Visit Raritan.com to learn more about the Dominion KX III G2 and Raritan’s KVM portfolio.

By Doug Green “If you can’t see something, you can’t secure it.” AI security discussions often focus on models, applications and data. But Chris Hosking, GTM Advisor at Stealthium, says organizations may be overlooking a critical layer: the accelerated computing infrastructure where AI actually runs. In this Telecom Reseller podcast, Hosking discusses Stealthium’s partnership with Tenstorrent and a broader emerging challenge for enterprises, cloud providers and operators — securing GPUs and other AI accelerators that traditional security tools often cannot fully observe. Stealthium describes itself as a runtime observability and security company for AI infrastructure. Its goal is to give organizations visibility directly into accelerated compute environments, below the point where many conventional security tools stop. “There’s an architectural gap here when it comes to controls,” Hosking says. Existing security instrumentation may provide extensive visibility at the endpoint, CPU and driver layers, but organizations increasingly need to understand what is happening inside the accelerator runtime itself. That becomes especially important as GPUs move from specialized computing resources to critical enterprise infrastructure. Hosking describes GPUs as environments that increasingly contain an organization’s “crown jewels” — including sensitive model weights, proprietary AI workloads and potentially valuable customer or corporate data. And GPUs are not simply black boxes performing calculations. They are programmable compute environments with memory, network access and the potential for persistence. That means they also create new attack surfaces. Stealthium’s recently announced partnership with Tenstorrent is designed to address that challenge by bringing runtime observability and security controls deeper into Tenstorrent’s AI infrastructure. Hosking points to Tenstorrent’s open, full-stack architecture as particularly important because it enables security and observability to be incorporated into the infrastructure rather than added later. The discussion also explores the security risks associated with shared GPU infrastructure. Hosking cites vulnerabilities such as Januscape as an example of how weaknesses involving virtualization and isolation can become particularly serious when multiple customers share physical accelerated-compute infrastructure. Customers need more than an architecture diagram saying workloads are isolated, he argues — they increasingly need evidence that the isolation is actually working. That leads to several basic questions AI infrastructure operators should be able to answer: What actually ran on the infrastructure? Was my workload isolated? Am I receiving all the compute capacity I paid for? Is another workload consuming resources? Is something behaving abnormally? Can I prove that the infrastructure is operating securely? Runtime visibility can therefore become more than a cybersecurity tool. It can also help organizations identify resource hijacking, inefficient GPU utilization and expensive compute capacity being consumed without operators realizing it. The issue takes on additional importance as enterprises pursue private and sovereign AI strategies. Organizations may own or control their infrastructure, but Hosking argues that sovereignty ultimately requires the ability to verify what is happening inside that infrastructure. Over the next six to twelve months, he expects security attention to move increasingly toward AI hardware and accelerated computing. As GPU adoption grows, vulnerabilities and attacks targeting these environments are likely to receive far greater scrutiny. For enterprises, service providers and cloud operators, the takeaway is straightforward: AI infrastructure is becoming too important — and too privileged — to remain a security blind spot. “If you can’t see something, you can’t secure it,” Hosking says. Learn more at Stealthium.io.

By Doug Green "It's really touched so much of what we do and how we think about our practice and how we communicate. It's been amazing for us." In this follow-up to our earlier conversation with Weave CTO Abhi Sharma, we move from the technology strategy to the experience of an actual healthcare practice. Dr. Jeffrey Ellis, co-founder of Belaray Dermatology on Long Island, joins us to discuss how Weave has changed patient communication, front-office workflow and the way his practice is beginning to use AI. Ellis says the practice had reached a point where staff were juggling multiple systems at once. At one stage, employees had "seven different windows open" as they tried to manage calls, scheduling and other patient communications. At the same time, phones were constantly ringing, front-desk employees were serving patients in person while answering calls, and multiple callers could be waiting on hold. "It just wasn't good for anyone, for my staff or for patients," Ellis says. Weave helped consolidate those communications and move more routine interaction to text. Patients can text the office 24/7, with staff monitoring messages seven days a week. The platform is also used for appointment reminders, visit-specific instructions and post-visit outreach. Ellis says that shift has reduced pressure on the front desk while making it easier for patients to communicate with the practice. The impact can go beyond convenience. Ellis gives the example of a patient coming in for a full-body skin check while wearing nail polish. Because skin cancer can sometimes occur beneath fingernails or toenails, the practice wants patients to arrive prepared so those areas can be examined. Better reminders and pre-visit communication can therefore support a more complete exam and, ultimately, better patient care. AI is adding another layer. Ellis explains that an AI tool can review a very large number of conversations and surface the few that may need his attention. "That AI tool might listen to a thousand conversations and pull out three of them for me to review. I can review three conversations. I can't go through all of them." For a smaller independent practice, that can provide a level of quality oversight that would otherwise be difficult to achieve. The larger takeaway is that AI and better communications do not have to make healthcare less personal. In Ellis's experience, they can reduce administrative friction, give staff more time to focus on patients and help an independent practice deliver a more consistent patient experience.

Julie Thiel, Founder of TTS Company, was interviewed by Doug Green, Publisher of TR Publications, in a podcast recorded August 11, 2026, about why traditional leadership training often fails to create lasting change—and how companies can give managers practical help when real-world leadership challenges arise. “Training as an event is not effective. It’s just not effective. It doesn’t work,” Thiel says, pointing out that leaders often leave a conference or training session energized, only to fall back into old habits once they return to the pressures of daily work. Thiel argues that leadership happens “one conversation at a time.” Managers may need to address an employee performance problem, mediate a conflict, discuss a promotion, coach a talented employee or manage their own emotional reaction—all while dealing with customers, deadlines and other pressures. The challenge is especially significant for growing technology companies, where strong technical employees are often promoted into management roles and suddenly expected to have advanced skills in coaching, feedback, conflict resolution, recognition and communication. Thiel discusses The Vault, TTS Company’s leadership development community designed to move beyond one-time training. Available on desktop and as an app, The Vault provides short weekly leadership challenges, practical resources and ongoing coaching designed to help managers develop new habits and find guidance when they actually need it. Rather than waiting for the next conference or searching through an old training binder, a manager preparing for an interview, difficult conversation or coaching session can access relevant resources immediately. The conversation also explores TTS Company’s broader fractional HR model. The company works with growing businesses that need ongoing HR expertise but may not require a full internal HR department, helping with employee issues, manager coaching, HR best practices, acquisitions and the added complexity that comes with growth. Learn more about TTS Company and The Vault at thettscompany.com.

By Doug Green Nearly 85% of healthcare organizations experience network or security disruptions that can affect patient care and privacy, while two-thirds of healthcare IT teams say they are strained or constantly firefighting, according to new research released by Nile. The findings are part of Nile’s new report, “The State of Networking, Security & AI in Healthcare,” based on responses from more than 300 IT leaders, C-level executives, and network and security practitioners worldwide. In a Technology Reseller News podcast, I spoke with Shashi Kiran, CMO of Nile, about what the findings reveal about healthcare networking and why the problem goes beyond cybersecurity tools to the underlying architecture. Healthcare networks now connect hospitals, outpatient facilities, imaging centers, remote locations and large numbers of medical and IoT devices. Many of those devices cannot simply be patched or equipped with traditional security agents, yet they may operate alongside critical systems such as electronic health records. That complexity has consequences. According to Nile, 38% of healthcare organizations experience network or security disruptions at least weekly. Cybersecurity threats and ransomware ranked as the top network challenge at 27%, ahead of staffing shortages and lack of expertise at 23%. Kiran argues that adding more staff alone will not solve the problem. About 66% of healthcare IT teams described themselves as strained or firefighting, while only 18% said they were comfortably managing network operations. “Most often people think that it’s throw more resources at the problem,” Kiran says. “More often than not, that’s not the case.” Zero Trust and the Containment Gap Only 38% of organizations surveyed report partial or full Zero Trust implementation, while 26% are aware of Zero Trust but have no concrete plans to implement it. The research also found that only 20% of respondents are confident their networks can contain a cyber incident across medical, IoT, clinician and guest devices. Sixty-one percent are not confident or only slightly confident. Kiran says the challenge is creating a consistent security posture across environments that may include conventional IT, operational technology and medical devices managed by different teams. “Zero Trust is not a protocol or a feature,” he says. “It’s really a holistic posture that you need to have on an end-to-end basis.” He also points to the complexity of legacy infrastructure, describing some environments as a “Frankenstein architecture” assembled over time from different systems, vendors and operational processes. That complexity can make troubleshooting more difficult and itself become a security problem. AI and NaaS The report also shows strong interest in new operating models. Sixty-four percent of healthcare organizations surveyed are open to adopting Network-as-a-Service to simplify operations and strengthen security, while 20% of more mature organizations now view AI-driven automation as essential to running their networks. Nile argues that combining Zero Trust, automation and networking into the infrastructure itself can help healthcare IT organizations move from constant firefighting toward more proactive operations. For Kiran, that shift ultimately comes back to healthcare’s core mission. “In healthcare, the network is the lifeblood of patient care — when it falters, both patient care and patient privacy are put at risk,” he said in announcing the research. The takeaway is that networking, security and patient care are increasingly interconnected. As healthcare organizations enter their next infrastructure refresh cycle, Nile believes the opportunity is not simply to replace old equipment, but to rethink an architecture that has become too complex to operate and secure effectively. The full “The State of Networking, Security & AI in Healthcare” report is available from Nile.

“The best value you will get out of it is if you get as many conversations and as many conversation types as possible,” says Mattias Ohde of Meetric. In this special podcast for the Cloud Communications Alliance and TR Publications, Doug Green speaks with Mattias Ohde of Meetric about conversational intelligence, AI and the new opportunity emerging for service providers, UCaaS providers, mobile carriers, MSPs and channel partners. Ohde says Meetric focuses on conversational intelligence for service providers, helping them collect and structure conversations from telephony, video, live meetings, email and other sources. Once those conversations are organized, AI can help extract insights, create workflows, support automation and make everyday work more structured. The conversation centers on a shift in how business communications are understood. For years, companies have recorded calls and saved voicemails, but much of that information was difficult to search, organize or use. Ohde says AI changes that by allowing conversations to become data points. “Now with the introduction of AI, you can all of a sudden consider these conversations as data points,” Ohde says. That creates what Ohde describes as a kind of “gold mine” for businesses. By bringing together conversations from across departments and communications channels, companies can gain a broader view of customers, operations and markets. They can also run more advanced analysis across the accumulated body of communications, creating insights that were not previously practical. For service providers, the opportunity is both operational and commercial. Ohde says conversational intelligence gives providers something new to bring to customers beyond traditional voice, UCaaS and collaboration tools. It can help providers deliver a more direct impact on the customer’s daily work while creating a higher-value service layer. “This is in a way quite revolutionary for the industry itself,” Ohde says. Meetric delivers its services as a white-label offering, allowing mobile carriers, UCaaS platform providers and local service providers to bring conversational intelligence to market under their own brand, through their own invoicing and bundled with other services. Ohde says that creates a fast route to market for providers looking to add AI-enabled services without building the full capability themselves. He also discusses MCP and open AI workflows, noting that Meetric’s functionality can be used inside other tools and platforms. That allows conversational data and AI-generated insights to become part of broader workflows across the customer’s business. Ohde says the revenue opportunity is significant because conversational intelligence services may command much higher market pricing than traditional subscription services for UCaaS or mobile connectivity. For CCA members, MSPs and channel partners, the message is direct: the conversations customers are already having may contain untapped value. AI now gives providers a practical way to capture, organize and act on that information — while building a new service and revenue opportunity on top of the communications infrastructure they already provide. Learn more at https://meetric.com

By Doug Green “They’re no longer just the corner store with X amount of potential customers. Now they’ve added X plus Y. So it’s really a game changer.” National Retail Solutions (NRS) is giving independent convenience stores, bodegas and neighborhood retailers a direct path to the delivery economy through its new integration with Uber Eats. In this Technology Reseller News podcast, I speak with Elie Y. Katz, President and CEO of NRS, about what the integration means for independent merchants — and why it also creates an opportunity for MSPs, resellers and other channel partners already serving small businesses. The integration lets merchants connect Uber Eats ordering with the NRS point-of-sale platform they already use. Katz says that gives local retailers a way to reach customers beyond the people who normally walk into the store, while making products from neighborhood bodegas, tiendas, convenience stores and corner groceries available through delivery. Katz says the opportunity is especially significant because independent retailers often carry products that large chains cannot easily duplicate. Many also prepare fresh sandwiches, salads, hot foods and culturally specific items that reflect the communities they serve. Uber Eats can help those merchants turn those local advantages into a much larger potential customer base. The podcast also looks at the operational side of delivery. Katz describes visiting a business with a literal “wall of iPads” — separate devices for Uber, DoorDash, Grubhub and other platforms. The goal of NRS integrations is to bring ordering into a more unified workflow instead of forcing small merchants to manage multiple disconnected systems. There is also a clear channel opportunity. Katz says companies that already have relationships with small businesses can visit sellnrs.com and look at ways to add NRS products to their existing sales structure. “Why should they leave money on the table?” he asks, noting that NRS offers multiple products that can fit customers those partners are already serving. The conversation offers a practical look at how delivery platforms are changing independent retail — while giving MSPs and channel partners another way to deepen their relationships with small-business customers. Related story: NRS Connects Independent Retailers Directly to Uber Eats Visit https://nrspros.com/

By Doug Green “It certainly eliminates the speed bump.” That is how James Walters, VP Strategic Vendors and Alliances at Exclusive Networks, describes the impact of the company’s appointment as a Fortinet Global Distributor. In this TR Podcast, Walters explains that the new designation builds on a relationship with Fortinet spanning more than 25 years, while giving Exclusive Networks a framework to better support partners and customers pursuing cross-border and multinational opportunities. At the center of the new model is a global deal desk designed to centralize multinational transactions. Walters says Exclusive Networks can help coordinate requirements that previously had to be handled market by market, including payments, tax alignment, support documentation and support-of-record issues. The result, he says, should be fewer administrative requirements, faster sales cycles and improved revenue recognition for partners and their customers. Under previous arrangements, multinational deals often required partners to work through local teams and local processes, creating inconsistencies in technical support, deal structure and transaction velocity. The new framework is intended to remove those friction points while preserving Fortinet’s partner protections. It is aimed at global systems integrators and large international partners, but Walters says regional resellers with customers expanding internationally should also engage Exclusive Networks. The opportunity also extends to enterprise customers and MSPs. Enterprises operating across multiple countries can use the model to accelerate Fortinet deployments and strengthen security posture across locations. MSPs, meanwhile, can use Exclusive Networks’ global go-to-market support to expand Fortinet technology across multinational customer environments, with support spanning pre-sales, point of sale, implementation and lifecycle management. Walters describes the designation as a natural next step in an already strong Fortinet relationship. His message to partners is straightforward: whether they are global integrators, MSPs or regional resellers beginning to follow customers into new markets, Exclusive Networks now has a broader global structure to help them take Fortinet solutions across borders with less friction and more consistent support. Visit www.exclusive-networks.com Watch the TR Podcast to learn more.

First episode in a new multipart podcast series explores how lifecycle intelligence can protect recurring revenue and uncover new opportunities for Cisco partners. The sale is only the beginning. For Cisco partners, the real work of protecting recurring revenue starts after the purchase order is signed, the technology is deployed and the customer begins using what they bought. In the first episode of a new multipart podcast series, SmarTrak.ai explains how Cisco partners can gain greater control over the subscription renewal process by bringing fragmented customer, contract, install-base and adoption data into a clearer, more actionable view. Partners often lose visibility after deployment. Information becomes scattered across systems and spreadsheets, customer adoption can be difficult to measure and warning signs may remain hidden until a subscription is close to expiring. By that point, the partner may have limited time to address the problem or demonstrate the value the customer has received. SmarTrak.ai is designed to help partners identify those risks earlier. The platform helps organize Cisco install-base, contract, subscription and lifecycle information so partners can see what customers own, what is approaching renewal and where engagement may be slowing. That visibility can help partners begin renewal conversations well before an expiration date. It can also support better planning around SmartNet, Enterprise Agreements, true-ups, technology refreshes and customer budgets. The opportunity goes beyond retention. Better lifecycle intelligence can help Cisco partners identify expansion opportunities, attach additional services, grow wallet share and uncover competitive takeover opportunities across the customer account. This opening conversation examines why lifecycle management has become essential, what typically breaks down after the sale and how partners can turn post-sale intelligence into stronger customer relationships and more predictable recurring revenue. The multipart series will continue with deeper discussions on adoption measurement, renewal readiness, customer data, Cisco 360 and the role of AI in helping partners recognize risks and revenue opportunities earlier. Podcast: The Sale Is Not the Finish Line Series: How SmarTrak.ai Helps Cisco Partners Master Subscription Renewals and Unlock New Revenue Opportunities Visit: https://smartrak.ai/

Power, water and local resistance may reshape the map, but Major says demand for data centers and high-capacity fiber is not slowing down. By Douglas Green, Publisher, Technology Reseller News AI is creating a new infrastructure race - but the winners may be determined as much by power, water and fiber as by demand for compute. FiberLight CEO Bill Major says growing community resistance is unlikely to stop the data center buildout, but it will increasingly determine where projects can realistically move forward. Major sees a familiar pattern from the early cell-tower era: people wanted mobile service, but often resisted the towers needed to provide it. The same tension is now emerging around AI. Bill Major "The data centers are coming," Major said. Communities may slow, reshape or redirect projects, but he does not expect demand to disappear. Power has become one of the biggest constraints. Developers are looking at markets with available generation, land and water, while some are considering behind-the-meter or self-generation options when grid capacity is tight. That could give regions with existing energy infrastructure a major advantage in the next phase of AI development. Fiber is just as critical. Major said hyperscalers, neocloud providers and AI companies are demanding far more capacity, pushing FiberLight toward larger duct banks, more conduit and substantial dedicated fiber builds. Increasingly, connectivity has to be ready before a tenant arrives. "Speed to market is critical right now as we continue this race for AI dominance," he said. Major has also changed his view on how long the boom will last. A year ago, he expected AI infrastructure spending to begin slowing in the second half of 2028. He no longer believes that. "This isn’t slowing down in 2028," Major said. "It’s a once-in-a-lifetime generational opportunity for businesses, for tradesmen, et cetera." His larger point is simple: AI infrastructure is not only a data center story. It is a power, fiber and regional-development story - and the markets that can combine energy with high-capacity connectivity will be best positioned for what comes next. Visit www.fiberlight.com

By Doug Green “There’s nothing that beats proactivity. If you can stop the problem before it happens, the amount of value saved is immense.” First Orion’s Josh Whitehurst, Head of Product, joins TR Publisher Doug Green to discuss why trusted communications now require more than simply authenticating a phone number. As voice, text and RCS increasingly converge, Whitehurst says businesses need to treat telephone numbers and messaging sender identities as valuable brand assets — much like websites, email domains and other digital properties. STIR/SHAKEN was an important first step, Whitehurst explains, because it helped determine whether a call was actually originating from the number it claimed to be using. But the industry is now moving “beyond STIR/SHAKEN” toward a broader trust framework that combines enterprise vetting, number-right-to-use verification, branded identity, analytics and end-to-end call authentication. First Orion’s approach can authenticate individual calls in real time by comparing an authoritative signal generated when an enterprise initiates a call with what ultimately arrives at the terminating carrier. When the signals match, the recipient can be shown verified branding, including the company name, logo and even a reason for the call. When they do not match, carriers can remove the branding — or potentially block the fraudulent call altogether. Whitehurst offers a striking example from a large financial institution. After First Orion’s technology was deployed, the company discovered that on some days 10% to 20% of calls appearing to come from the institution were actually impersonation attempts. The system was able to block roughly 100,000 to 200,000 fraudulent call events per month before those calls ever reached consumers. The conversation also explores how AI is raising the stakes. Scammers are becoming increasingly sophisticated, but Whitehurst notes that carriers and communications providers can use AI, predictive analytics and real-time detection on the defensive side as well. The larger goal is an omnichannel identity framework that lets consumers know who is really contacting them whether the interaction arrives by voice, text or another communications channel. For enterprises and SMBs, Whitehurst’s message is to start thinking differently about communications identity. Verified phone numbers and sender IDs should be managed and protected as part of the organization’s brand and security infrastructure. Learn more at FirstOrion.com.

Ecuador-based ITAD provider looks to build new global partnerships while expanding the circular economy across Latin America. Jhoanna Rosales, CEO Vertmonde Vertmonde has joined the ITAD Association, opening the door to new relationships with IT asset disposition providers, technology companies and channel partners in the U.S. and around the world. In a new Technology Reseller News podcast, I speak with Jhoanna Rosales, CEO of Vertmonde, about the fast-changing ITAD market in Latin America and the opportunities emerging as e-waste, data protection and circular-economy requirements continue to develop. Vertmonde provides collection, recycling, refurbishment, reuse and other ITAD services, with partner coverage across multiple Latin American countries. We also discuss the company’s work helping bring refurbished technology to rural schools in Ecuador and its “Galapagos Free of E-waste” initiative. Learn more: https://www.vertmonde.com/

“The number one metric should be: did the person calling you have the intent to buy?” In this Technology Reseller News podcast, Todd Fisher of CTM discusses how businesses can connect advertising activity to actual phone-call conversions and better understand whether their marketing dollars are producing qualified buyers. CTM is a call tracking and attribution platform designed for businesses where phone calls remain an important part of the sales process. The platform helps companies identify which ads generated calls, what happened during those conversations and whether the caller actually intended to purchase. Fisher says traditional metrics such as call volume and duration often fail to answer the most important question. “If they wanted to buy your product, then the ad probably did its job,” Fisher says. “What happens after that may be something you need to look at internally.” CTM uses AI to analyze calls and answer specific questions about each conversation. Businesses can determine whether a caller had buying intent, whether they were qualified, whether they had the right insurance or service requirements, and how effectively the sales team handled the opportunity. That creates value for organizations of almost any size—from large contact centers to local HVAC companies, medical practices and other small businesses that depend on inbound calls. The platform can also help companies improve advertising efficiency by identifying campaigns that generate serious buyers rather than simply more calls. Fisher says AI is making this level of intelligence available to smaller organizations that previously could not afford the labor required to manually review thousands of conversations. CTM also offers voice AI that can answer calls, book appointments and connect with calendars and CRM platforms, giving small businesses another way to capture leads when employees are unavailable. Companies can work with CTM directly or through advertising agencies and other partners that bundle the platform into their services. Visit CTM.com to learn more.

By Doug Green “It’s a community that helps support the growth of your business.” In this Technology Reseller News podcast recorded at ChannelCon 2026, Amy Slater of the Managed Service Providers Association of America discusses how MSPAA helps managed service providers increase visibility, find trusted resources and connect with businesses looking for technology support. MSPAA is a membership organization that gives MSPs a profile on its public platform, where small and midsized businesses can search for providers that match their needs. Slater says visibility is only one part of the value. Members can also contribute articles, share social media content, participate in podcasts and gain access to event opportunities, including discounted tickets and speaking engagements. The association also helps MSPs find trusted vendors and service providers in areas such as marketing, HR and technology. “There’s usually no shortage of companies that can solve a problem,” Slater says. “The challenge is finding the right one.” MSPAA works to vet both its MSP members and the vendors it recommends, giving providers another layer of confidence when looking for help. The organization also offers vendor focus groups where participating MSPs can be compensated for their time. Slater says participation in two focus groups can effectively offset the annual membership cost. For smaller MSPs with limited internal resources, the association is designed to extend the team by providing marketing exposure, business resources, industry connections and opportunities to share success stories with a wider audience. Visit MSPAA.net to learn more.

By Doug Green Recognized as GTIA Member of the Year at ChannelCon 2026, Lee discusses Rev.io’s AI-native PSA and billing platform, along with the importance of giving back to the channel community. Rev.io is working to give managed service providers a more complete platform for operating their businesses, combining professional services automation, billing and payments on a native AI foundation. “This is what a PSA should have been when they first came out,” said Brook Lee of Rev.io, speaking with Technology Reseller News at GTIA ChannelCon 2026. “This is truly a solution that you can use to run your entire MSP business from quote all the way to payments and cash.” Lee said the platform is intended for everyone working inside an MSP, rather than being limited to technicians and engineers. Rev.io began as a telecommunications billing company and expanded its platform to support ticketing, service delivery, billing and other operational requirements. During ChannelCon, Lee was also recognized as GTIA Member of the Year. She has helped develop a guide for finding, hiring and retaining women in technology, created a case study aimed at increasing company-wide participation in GTIA and served in several association leadership roles. “I am extremely passionate about this community,” Lee said. “I hope that why I was voted in was because of the work that I do to give back to the community.” Lee said the channel’s real value comes from the connections members build and their willingness to help one another solve problems. “If it’s not me, I know a guy,” Lee said. “Maybe I can’t solve your problem, but you tell me what you’ve got going on, and I can go find somebody to try to help you solve it.” Watch the podcast to learn more about Rev.io’s platform, Lee’s work with GTIA and why community remains central to the technology channel.

By Doug Green “Join GTIA, but that’s not enough. You really need to get involved.” At ChannelCon 2026, Raffi Jamgotchian of Triada Networks offered a member’s perspective on how active participation in GTIA can strengthen individual businesses while helping the technology channel address larger industry challenges. Triada Networks is a managed service provider based in northern New Jersey that serves financial services companies across the United States. Jamgotchian joined CompTIA through his membership in the ASCII Group, but for several years remained largely inactive. That changed when an industry colleague encouraged him to contribute his experience and help shape the issues affecting MSPs. Jamgotchian became involved in the security community, eventually serving as vice chair and chair. His work included initiatives related to business certifications, the Security Trustmark and broader efforts to raise the cybersecurity bar for managed service providers. Following the transition to GTIA, he joined the Member Champions group, which helps recruit new members and guides them toward the communities, research and resources available through the organization. One of GTIA’s greatest strengths, he said, is its ability to bring MSPs and vendors together without the usual sales dynamic. “You’re no longer from Triada or Choice Security or Sophos,” Jamgotchian said. “You’re a person who has some knowledge and some experience that, together, we can use to solve industry issues and move forward.” For MSP owners and channel partners considering membership, Jamgotchian’s message is direct: participation determines the value. ChannelCon provides relationships, meaningful conversations and a strong sense of community, but members should also find an area that interests them and contribute at their own pace. “You get what you put into it,” he said. “There’s always something to do, and there are a lot of initiatives that we need to move our industry ahead.” The conversation also turned to artificial intelligence, which Jamgotchian described as the channel’s latest major inflection point—an opportunity, threat and change agent arriving all at once. His advice is to learn from people who are further ahead, help those who are behind and avoid leaving the future of the business to someone else. “If you’re not thinking about it, somebody is going to think about it for you,” he said. Learn more about GTIA at gtia.org and Triada Networks at triadonet.com.

By Doug Green “It was an ecosystem experience that I hadn’t seen in a while.” CloudFest Americas is returning to Miami with a broader mission: bring together the cloud, hosting, domain, MSP and corporate IT communities in one place—and make the experience feel less like a conventional trade show and more like a working industry festival. In this Technology Reseller News podcast, recorded at GTIA ChannelCon 2026, Anthony Pombal of CloudFest and Mark Crall of MSP Global preview CloudFest Americas, scheduled for November 11–12 at Ice Palace Studios in Miami. The event is expected to attract approximately 2,000 attendees from North America and Latin America. CloudFest Americas is derived from the long-running CloudFest event held at Europa-Park in Germany. Its audience includes cloud service providers, web agencies, hosting companies, MSPs, MSSPs, software and hardware vendors, corporate IT teams and other organizations looking for alternatives to the largest hyperscale platforms. Pombal says the event is particularly relevant for companies seeking new products, services, partners and routes to market. Exhibitors can reach what he describes as the alternative cloud service provider market, along with web developers, hosting providers, managed service providers and businesses evaluating new infrastructure and software options. The event is also co-located with NamesCon, creating a point of convergence between the cloud, hosting and domain-name communities. That overlap reflects a broader shift in the market as MSPs, hosting companies and cloud providers increasingly compete, partner and build services across what were once separate technology categories. Crall says his experience at MSP Global in Barcelona demonstrated the value of bringing those communities together in a vendor-agnostic setting. Rather than focusing only on product pitches, the event combined technology education, thought leadership, lessons from industry practitioners and informal community building. “To see that happen in an agnostic environment and actually learn something at the same time while having fun is kind of cool,” Crall says. CloudFest Americas is designed around that same model. In addition to its exhibit floor and conference content, the Miami event will include a server-throwing competition, a domain auction, giveaways and locally inspired activities in the Wynwood arts district, including a live mural created by a graffiti artist. The program will also feature forward-looking content and smaller community discussions. A new area called the Florida Room is planned as a birds-of-a-feather-style forum where groups can exchange ideas, discuss operating challenges and share practical lessons without turning every session into a sales presentation. For technology resellers and MSPs, the event offers an opportunity to look beyond familiar vendor ecosystems. The convergence of cloud infrastructure, managed services, cybersecurity, software, hosting and domain technologies is creating new partnership and recurring-revenue possibilities for channel companies willing to explore adjacent markets. Watch the podcast to learn how CloudFest Americas is building a cross-market community for cloud providers, MSPs, hosting companies, technology vendors and corporate IT leaders—and why Miami may become an important November meeting point for the wider channel ecosystem. Event details: CloudFest Americas, November 11–12, Ice Palace Studios, Miami.

TouchPoint helps MSPs identify businesses with email authentication problems, begin conversations with a documented risk and open the door to broader managed services. By Doug Green “You are definitely missing the boat” if you are not pursuing this opportunity, says Alan Richards of EasyDMARC. Recorded live at GTIA ChannelCon 2026 in San Diego, this Technology Reseller News podcast explores how MSPs can use email authentication problems as a practical entry point to new customers and recurring revenue. Alan Richards of EasyDMARC explains that the company has spent years simplifying DMARC management for MSPs. Its platform brings DMARC, SPF and DKIM oversight into a single environment, helping partners keep customer email authenticated, aligned and deliverable. EasyDMARC is now extending that value beyond management and compliance. Through its TouchPoint lead-generation platform, MSPs can identify businesses in their local markets whose DMARC configurations are out of alignment or not properly authenticated. Instead of approaching a prospect with a generic pitch about IT services, the MSP can begin with a specific, documented problem. An exposed domain may be vulnerable to spoofing, malware and impersonation, while legitimate messages may also be rejected or routed to spam. “Now you’re going to them and you actually have an issue,” Richards says. “You actually have a problem and you have a solution.” That targeted approach can raise the prospect’s level of trust and create an opening for a wider managed-services conversation. Once an MSP helps correct the email authentication problem, it can introduce additional security, infrastructure and support services. TouchPoint supports both outbound and inbound lead generation. MSPs can search geographically for organizations with DMARC issues, while an embeddable domain scanner can capture interest from visitors to the MSP’s own website. EasyDMARC can return information about the company, the domains scanned and relevant contacts, with CRM integration enabling rapid follow-up. Richards says EasyDMARC also provides hands-on partner support, including growth managers and a 128-page MSP marketing playbook. The company helps partners install the domain scanner, understand the opportunity and guide customers through ongoing DMARC management. The opportunity is not limited to one vertical. Legal, healthcare and financial organizations are especially sensitive to fraud and impersonation, but Richards notes that any business sending invoices, marketing messages or CRM-generated email needs properly aligned authentication. For MSPs at ChannelCon, the message is straightforward: email authentication is more than a technical requirement. It can be a measurable security problem, a reason to contact a prospect and the beginning of a longer customer relationship. Learn more: EasyDMARC MSP Reseller Program Previous EasyDMARC podcast: EasyDMARC Turns Email Security Gaps into MSP Sales Opportunities

By Doug Green “The tools now can make anyone look like a pretty attractive candidate for a job.” Recorded at ChannelCon 2026, Paul Flaharty of Robert Half joins Technology Reseller News to discuss how artificial intelligence is changing hiring for MSPs and technology providers. AI can improve efficiency, but it is also making it easier to customize resumes, exaggerate technical abilities and even create uncertainty about whether an applicant is who they claim to be. Flaharty says experienced recruiters and comprehensive screening processes are becoming increasingly important. Rather than replacing the human element in recruiting, AI has reinforced its value. Skilled recruiters can validate a candidate’s identity, evaluate whether the person can perform the work and look beyond an impressive AI-generated resume. The conversation also examines how AI is affecting existing technology jobs. Flaharty says the greater risk may not be that AI eliminates a position, but that an employee is replaced by someone who knows how to use AI more effectively. Organizations are consequently moving forward with previously delayed technology projects and looking for professionals who can help develop and execute practical AI roadmaps. For MSPs, hiring is only one part of the challenge. Retaining strong technical employees requires a proactive talent strategy that includes competitive compensation, flexibility, development opportunities and a visible career path. Flaharty says an effective upskilling program can sometimes be as powerful a retention tool as compensation. Listen to the podcast to learn how MSPs can identify genuine candidates, streamline their hiring processes, develop existing employees and build teams prepared for an increasingly AI-enabled technology market. Learn more at roberthalf.com.

“The perimeter no longer exists.” In this Technology Reseller News podcast recorded at ChannelCon 2026, Peter Lekas and Lauren Hextall of SpecterX discuss how organizations can maintain control of sensitive information after it leaves their managed environment. SpecterX is a zero-trust data access platform designed to protect information shared with customers, vendors, partners and other third parties. The platform allows businesses to apply controls that travel with the data, including restrictions on forwarding, copying, pasting and taking screenshots. Traditional security tools protect networks, endpoints and applications that an organization can directly manage. However, businesses increasingly rely on cloud services, SaaS applications and external collaboration, creating multiple locations where sensitive data may reside. “Once that data is shared outside of your organization, you don’t know what that person is going to do with it,” the SpecterX team says. Data loss prevention tools may block sensitive information from leaving an organization, but many business processes require that information to be shared. SpecterX is designed to provide continued governance after the transfer takes place. This can be particularly important for organizations sharing regulated information, including healthcare data, intellectual property and documents governed by compliance requirements. For MSPs, SpecterX creates an opportunity to expand beyond endpoint and network protection into data governance, risk and compliance services. Rather than adding another security layer around the environment, the platform protects the data itself. Hextall says MSPs are well positioned to deliver these services because they understand their customers’ industries, workflows and business requirements. “This isn’t something that can simply be mandated from above,” she says. “You need to understand the workflows of your customers.” Visit SpecterX.com to learn more

“We’re giving MSPs a single pane of glass to protect email, file sharing and collaboration.” In this Technology Reseller News podcast recorded at ChannelCon 2026, Zach Schwartz of Trustifi discusses the company’s new collaboration security platform for Microsoft 365 environments. Trustifi traditionally provides email threat protection, encryption, data loss prevention, compliance management and security awareness training. Its latest platform extends that protection into Microsoft Teams, OneDrive and SharePoint. Schwartz says the new offering addresses a growing blind spot for MSPs and their customers. Although many attacks begin with email, compromised accounts and malicious content can quickly spread through collaboration and file-sharing tools. “Once an attack surfaces, it can spread rapidly through Teams, SharePoint and OneDrive,” Schwartz says. The platform gives MSPs centralized visibility across email, collaboration and file sharing. It can identify potential threats, account takeovers and DLP events while providing actionable alerts that help partners respond quickly. For MSPs, collaboration security also creates an opportunity to expand Microsoft 365 services and offer customers a higher level of protection without adding more disconnected tools. Trustifi offers free trials that allow partners to assess customer environments, uncover threats or compliance issues and produce reports outlining recommended remediation. The company uses AI to analyze large volumes of security data and identify activity that requires immediate attention. Schwartz says MSPs are also increasingly concerned about criminals using AI to improve phishing and other attacks. Trustifi is a 100 percent channel-focused company. Its platform includes multitenant management, MSP billing capabilities and policy templates for industries such as legal, financial services and healthcare. New partners face no minimums or long-term commitments, and Schwartz says the platform can be deployed in approximately five minutes without coding or specialized training. Visit Trustifi.com to learn more.