ChannelBuzz.ca

ChannelBuzz.ca
  • 0.0 (0)
  • Tech News
  • Daily

Cutting through the noise for Canadian VARs and MSPs

  1. 6 hrs ago

    Nutanix wants partners to make more money beyond the infrastructure sale

    Christian Goffi, Nutanix’s channel chief for the Americas Nutanix is rolling out significant changes to its Elevate Partner Program today, with new incentives designed to encourage partners to look beyond the initial infrastructure sale and build more profitable businesses around the entire customer lifecycle. The company describes the changes as its largest investment in Elevate to date, introducing new rewards for cross-selling additional Nutanix technologies, improving customer renewals, and developing services capabilities. It’s also formally expanding the program to include systems integrators and consulting partners, recognizing that the partners influencing customer decisions aren’t necessarily the same ones transacting the deals. For Christian Goffi, Nutanix’s channel chief for the Americas, the changes reflect both the company’s evolution and a broader transformation in what customers need from their technology partners. Nutanix has moved well beyond its hyperconverged infrastructure roots, with a growing emphasis on hybrid multicloud, Kubernetes, and AI. At the same time, its expanding relationships with vendors including Cisco, Dell, NetApp, and Everpure are creating opportunities for partners to deliver more complex, integrated solutions. That requires a different set of partner capabilities, Goffi told In the Channel in an interview recorded ahead of today’s announcement. Rather than focusing primarily on landing new customers, Nutanix wants partners to remain engaged after the sale, helping customers adopt its technologies, expand their deployments, and ultimately get more value from their investments. And the company is putting new incentives behind that strategy. Among the changes is a new earned business development fund for Premier partners, providing the equivalent of one per cent of total contract value on qualifying software sales. Goffi emphasized that this funding is incremental to existing incentives, rather than money shifted from elsewhere in the program. Nutanix is also introducing incentives for cross-selling additional technologies, including its Kubernetes and AI offerings, along with an accelerator that rewards partners for stronger renewal performance. The goal is to make customer lifecycle management a more tangible contributor to partner profitability. But Goffi argues that the greatest opportunity may be in services. Nutanix’s Powered by Nutanix: Verified Services initiative is intended to help partners demonstrate their capabilities and build differentiated services practices around its platform. For partners already delivering complex infrastructure migrations, Goffi suggested that becoming verified may largely involve formalizing and validating capabilities they already possess. Others may need to invest in training, certifications, or additional technical expertise. That investment is increasingly important as customers look for help navigating technologies that extend beyond traditional virtualization, including Kubernetes, AI, and hybrid cloud environments. Goffi also sees a growing role for partners in helping customers overcome the uncertainty associated with major infrastructure changes. Technical expertise and proven implementation experience can provide the confidence customers need to move forward with modernization projects. The new Elevate program also reflects a changing view of the partner ecosystem. By formally incorporating systems integrators and consulting partners, Nutanix is recognizing organizations that influence technology decisions and deliver services, even when they don’t handle the underlying transaction. And the company is looking to give partners better tools for managing those ongoing customer relationships. New visibility into customer health, adoption, and utilization through Nutanix Partner Central is intended to help partners identify opportunities to improve customer outcomes, expand deployments, and manage renewals more proactively. An AI-powered Deal Coach capability is planned for later in Nutanix’s fiscal year. For Canadian partners, Goffi confirmed that the new program benefits are available on the same basis as in the United States. He also sees particular opportunities for regional partners, including through incentives that reward individual salespeople and sales engineers as well as their companies. In this episode of In the Channel, Goffi joins us to discuss the thinking behind the Elevate changes, how Nutanix is reshaping partner profitability, the growing importance of services, and why the partners best positioned for success may be those most willing to invest in new capabilities. Listen to the full conversation below. Read Full Transcript Robert Dutt: Hello and welcome to In the Channel from ChannelBuzz.ca, bringing news and information to the Canadian IT channel for the last 16 years. I’m Robert Dutt, editor of ChannelBuzz.ca, and your host for the show. Nutanix is rolling out significant changes to its Elevate Partner Program this morning, describing them as the largest investment in the program to date. And while there’s a range of new and expanded incentives involved, the bigger story may be what those incentives tell us about how Nutanix sees the channel evolving. The company is putting more emphasis on what happens after the initial infrastructure sale, rewarding partners for expanding their relationships with customers, driving adoption and renewals, and building services businesses around the platform. It’s also formally bringing systems integrators and consulting partners into Elevate, reflecting the increasingly complex ecosystems involved in delivering modern infrastructure solutions. But what does all of that mean for partners in practical terms? Where are the new opportunities to make money? What kind of investments will partners need to make to take advantage of them? And how does this fit into a market that’s being reshaped by virtualization disruption, hybrid cloud, and AI? To explore those questions, I sat down ahead of today’s announcement with Christian Goffi, Nutanix’s channel chief for the Americas. We discussed the economics of the new program, the growing importance of services, the changing role of partners, and what it all means for the Canadian channel. Let’s get right into it. My chat with Christian Goffi. Robert Dutt: Christian, thanks for taking the time. I appreciate it, especially leading up to the launch. Christian Goffi: My pleasure. Thanks for having me. Robert Dutt: You guys are describing these changes as the largest investment in the partner program to date for Nutanix. So give us the big picture here. What’s changing? Why now? And what are you hoping to accomplish with this new version of Elevate? Christian Goffi: Great question. There’s a lot of things that go into this, as you know, Robert. We want to skate to where the puck is going, right? The old Gretzky quote really tells the story of what these tweaks to Elevate are all about. There are some foundational things we’d like to see in the evolution of our partner ecosystem. A big one is that we’ve done a really, really good job in our history of going after new customers together. Nutanix hasn’t been around that long as a brand when you think in a historical sense. We made our name in the hyperconvergence world, which was an appliance at the time. We’ve traversed through multicloud and hybrid multicloud evolution. Now we’re landing in this place of being a platform company for AI workloads. When you look at the things you need from a channel ecosystem at each phase of our evolution, those things are changing. AI has really rocked us in a good way. It’s forced us to evolve faster than we were used to evolving. So we’re trying to paint a picture of what we need our partner ecosystem to look like, not for the distant future, but for the near future, answering the questions that customers have. We’ve always been a brand that has prided itself on customer choice. We’re a very nimble platform that gives you that cloud agility in the private data centre, and that got us started. Where we are now, we’ve really opened the doors toward collaborating with other brands like we’ve never done before. You see this value proposition of Nutanix showing up with Cisco, NetApp, Everpure, AWS, and Dell. What is that? We have a common, mutual partner base. Our partners are their partners and vice versa. When we’re landing on these partners, they know them and they know us, but do they know us together? Do they know how to articulate our value proposition together? That’s one big factor: understanding how to put us together and doing a little less selling of point solutions and a little more selling of joint solutions. To do that, I think the services layer takes a much bigger role. The competencies we need in our partner community need to evolve as well. We probably saw a big leap when we introduced products like NDB for database management. We saw that when we introduced NKP for the Kubernetes platform. It’s different to live in a hypervisor world than to go into Kubernetes, and you’ve got to speak all these languages if you want to speak AI. Our program has a lot to do with guiding partners toward where this is going. It’s not just about the core offering Nutanix has. We’re incentivizing more lifecycle management and cross-selling of the portfolio. Those are two big things. It’s not so much about landing accounts together and then focusing on getting another one. Now it’s much more about how we’re managing that customer journey after we’ve landed. What are we doing to ensure customer satisfaction? You can’t have that without proper adoption. You can’t have that without proper implementation. And you can’t have that without your skills and competencies getting higher. Put all these things together, and we’re seeing additi

    Nutanix wants partners to make more money beyond the infrastructure sale

  2. 8 hrs ago

    The Buzz: HP names new CEO, Evergreen embeds AI engineers in MSPs, and Hatz launches collaborative AI

    Today’s headline news for Canadian IT solution providers: HP names former GSK chief Emma Walmsley as its next CEO HP Inc. has appointed Emma Walmsley as its next chief executive officer, effective January 4, 2027, bringing in a leader from outside the technology hardware industry at a pivotal moment for the company. Walmsley succeeds Bruce Broussard, who has served as interim CEO since February. Broussard will become chair of HP’s board, replacing Chip Bergh. Walmsley was CEO of pharmaceutical company GSK from April 2017 through December 2025. During her tenure, she oversaw a major transformation of the business, including the separation of its consumer healthcare operations. Before joining GSK, she spent 17 years at L’Oréal. She has also served on Microsoft’s board of directors for seven years. HP’s board emphasized her experience leading large organizations through significant change. For HP’s channel partners, the appointment comes as the company navigates several major transitions, including the growing importance of AI-enabled PCs, pressure on component costs and the evolution of workplace technology. Walmsley does not bring direct experience running a PC or printing company, making her appointment an interesting choice as HP looks for its next phase of growth. The global leadership change follows last week’s announcement of changes at HP Canada, where John Cammalleri is taking over the country’s top position on an interim basis following Michelle Biase’s move to a U.S. leadership role. HP has not announced any changes to its channel strategy as part of Walmsley’s appointment. Source: HP’s November 4 announcement. Evergreen’s Lyra Technology Group commits to embedding more than 50 AI engineers in MSPs Evergreen’s Lyra Technology Group has formally launched a forward-deployed engineer program designed to help its managed service providers build and deliver practical AI solutions for small and midsized business customers. Announced Wednesday, the program aims to place more than 50 engineers inside Evergreen-owned MSPs by the end of 2027. Sixteen engineers are already working across eight MSP businesses. Unlike a centralized consulting organization, the engineers are embedded within individual MSPs, working alongside their existing teams to develop managed AI practices and deliver customer projects. The approach is designed to combine the customer relationships and business-process knowledge of individual MSPs with engineering resources that those businesses might struggle to recruit independently. Lyra says the program is already producing results. One example involves Scribcor Global, a professional services company whose MSP, Outsource Solutions Group, worked with forward-deployed engineering resources to develop an AI-powered email-triage system. According to Lyra, the system saves approximately 45 minutes per employee per business day. For MSPs, the broader significance is the shift from maintaining customer technology toward developing and managing AI-powered business processes. The program also illustrates how Evergreen’s ownership model can provide individual MSPs with access to resources and expertise beyond what they could typically support on their own. Lyra’s announcement builds on forward-deployed engineering initiatives the company had previously discussed, but formalizes a substantial expansion commitment. Source: Lyra’s November 4 announcement. Hatz AI introduces collaborative workspaces for MSP customers Hatz AI has introduced Spaces, a collaborative AI workspace within Hatz Chat intended to help small and midsized businesses move beyond individual AI conversations and toward shared, repeatable work. Announced Wednesday, Spaces allows teams to organize AI interactions around shared projects and business objectives, giving multiple employees a place to work with AI-generated material and move it toward usable results. The new capability extends Hatz’s broader strategy of delivering managed AI services through MSPs. Rather than simply providing access to AI models, Hatz is positioning its platform as an environment where MSPs can help customers adopt AI in a more organized and governed way. That distinction is becoming increasingly important as businesses move from experimenting with generative AI tools toward incorporating them into everyday workflows. For MSPs, collaborative AI workspaces could provide another opportunity to support customer onboarding, governance, adoption and ongoing service delivery. Spaces also builds on Hatz’s existing efforts to help MSPs develop managed AI practices and bring AI capabilities to SMB customers. The announcement illustrates the continuing evolution of the managed AI opportunity: from providing secure access to AI tools toward helping customers use those tools to change how work gets done. Source: Hatz AI’s November 4 announcement. Read Full Transcript Welcome to The Buzz from ChannelBuzz.ca. I’m Robert Dutt, and today is Thursday, November 5, 2026. We’ve got a major leadership announcement from HP today, a significant investment in AI engineering talent inside managed service providers, and a new collaborative AI offering from Hatz. First up, HP has named its next chief executive officer, and it’s an interesting choice. The company announced yesterday that Emma Walmsley will become CEO on January fourth, twenty twenty-seven. She’ll succeed Bruce Broussard, who’s been serving as interim CEO since February. Broussard will move into the role of board chair, replacing Chip Bergh. What’s particularly interesting about Walmsley’s appointment is her background. She spent nearly nine years as CEO of pharmaceutical company GSK, where she led a significant transformation of the business, including the separation of its consumer healthcare operations. Before GSK, she spent seventeen years at L’Oréal. And she’s also served on Microsoft’s board of directors for seven years. So this is an experienced executive who has led major global businesses through substantial change, but she doesn’t have direct experience running a PC or printing company. And that makes her appointment particularly interesting given where HP finds itself today. The company is navigating a changing PC market, rising component costs, and the growing importance of AI-enabled devices and services. HP’s board emphasized Walmsley’s experience leading organizations through transformation, and her ability to help the company capitalize on new opportunities as AI moves closer to the devices people use every day. For channel partners, there aren’t any immediate program changes attached to the announcement. But the choice of CEO could tell us something about the direction HP wants to take over the next several years. Is the next phase of HP’s business primarily about selling more PCs and printers, or about building a broader set of products and services around how people work? That’s a question worth watching as Walmsley takes over. And there’s a Canadian connection to this week’s news. We reported last Friday on leadership changes at HP Canada, with John Cammalleri stepping into the country’s top role on an interim basis as Michelle Biase moves to a U.S. leadership position. So HP is going through significant leadership changes at both the Canadian and global levels. Next, Evergreen’s Lyra Technology Group is making a substantial investment in helping its managed service providers deliver AI solutions. Lyra announced yesterday that it’s formally launching a forward-deployed engineer program, with plans to place more than fifty engineers inside its MSP businesses by the end of twenty twenty-seven. Sixteen engineers are already embedded across eight MSPs. Now, forward-deployed engineering is becoming an increasingly important concept in the AI industry. Essentially, it’s about putting engineering talent close to the customer, where they can understand how the business actually operates and build solutions around real problems. And Lyra is adapting that model to managed services. Rather than having a centralized team of consultants that MSPs call on occasionally, the engineers work full time inside individual MSP businesses. They help those companies develop managed AI practices, work directly with customers, identify opportunities for automation and build solutions that can be used in day-to-day operations. And that’s an interesting distinction. MSPs already have relationships with their customers and understand many of the processes those businesses rely on. But they may not have the specialized engineering talent required to build custom AI-powered workflows. Evergreen’s approach is to use the scale of its ownership group to provide that talent to individual MSPs. Lyra says it’s already seeing measurable results. One example involves a professional services company called Scribcor Global. Its MSP worked with forward-deployed engineering resources to build an AI-powered email-triage system around the company’s existing workflows. According to Lyra, the result saves approximately forty-five minutes per employee per business day. That’s a company-reported figure, but it’s a useful illustration of the kind of problem these engineers are supposed to solve. And there’s a larger business-model question here for MSPs. For years, managed services have largely been about keeping customer technology running, secure and available. But AI creates an opportunity to move more directly into improving how a customer’s business operates. That could mean automating repetitive work, connecting systems or developing new workflows that save employees time. Those are potentially valuable services, but they also require different skills and a different approach to customer engagement. Lyra’s program is an interesting attempt to bridge that gap. An

    The Buzz: HP names new CEO, Evergreen embeds AI engineers in MSPs, and Hatz launches collaborative AI

  3. 1d ago

    Senator calls for more Canadian investment in SMEs ahead of federal budget

    Senator Daryl Frindhandler Canada needs to do more to ensure that its substantial pools of investment capital are available to help small and medium-sized businesses grow, according to a Canadian senator who helped lead a recent study of the country’s SME financing challenges. And with the federal budget scheduled for Thursday, Senator Daryl Fridhandler of Alberta is hoping to see the government take meaningful steps toward improving the environment for Canadian entrepreneurs. Fridhandler, a member of the Senate’s Standing Committee on Banking, Commerce and the Economy, joins this edition of In The Channel to discuss the committee’s recent report, From Potential to Prosperity: The Urgent Case for Greater Investment in Canada’s SMEs, and the challenges Canadian businesses face in securing financing. The study, which grew out of conversations about Canada’s capital markets at the 2025 Calgary Stampede, involved 15 committee meetings, 24 hours of hearings and testimony from 35 witnesses. For Fridhandler, who spent decades working in corporate law and business finance before joining the Senate, one of the central issues is Canada’s difficulty turning promising small businesses into larger, globally competitive Canadian companies. He points to a deeply ingrained risk-averse culture in Canadian banking, investment and financial regulation, arguing that the country’s emphasis on protecting against risk can also discourage the investment needed to support business growth. That’s a particularly relevant issue for Canada’s IT channel, where many businesses derive much of their value from their employees, expertise, customer relationships, intellectual property and recurring service revenues rather than traditional physical assets. Fridhandler also questions whether Canada’s major pension funds and institutional investors are doing enough to support domestic businesses. While acknowledging that pension funds have a responsibility to generate returns for their beneficiaries, he argues that there should be greater consideration of how their enormous investment resources could contribute to the Canadian economy. He suggests that institutional investors could participate more actively in SME financing through specialized investment funds and co-investment arrangements, rather than necessarily building the capacity to evaluate and manage every individual small-business investment themselves. The conversation also explores consolidation in the Canadian IT services market, where private equity-backed acquisitions have become an increasingly important part of the industry. Fridhandler expresses concern about Canadian businesses being acquired by foreign investors and subsequently seeing their talent, intellectual property or future growth move outside the country. He argues that Canada needs to develop more global business champions that remain headquartered and grow domestically, rather than continually producing promising companies that eventually scale elsewhere. Artificial intelligence adds another dimension to that challenge. As businesses invest in new technologies and capabilities, access to financing could become increasingly important to their competitiveness. Looking toward Thursday’s budget The timing of the conversation is particularly significant, coming just ahead of the federal budget. Fridhandler says he was encouraged by Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne’s recent description of the coming budget as one focused on entrepreneurs and innovators. Among the changes he would like to see are tax measures that encourage investment and business growth, including expanded use of flow-through shares in industries beyond Canada’s traditional resource sectors. Such measures could help technology and other innovation-focused businesses attract investment during periods when they face substantial development costs but have not yet generated significant revenues. Fridhandler also discusses the importance of more competitive taxation, incentives for reinvesting capital gains, and better coordination of federal programs supporting SMEs. Whether Thursday’s budget delivers on those priorities remains to be seen. In this episode of In The Channel, we discuss: Why Canada’s financial system can struggle to support established, growing SMEs. The challenges facing businesses whose value lies in expertise, intellectual property and recurring revenues rather than physical assets. Whether Canadian pension funds should invest more of their capital domestically. Private equity consolidation, foreign ownership and the future of Canadian businesses. The role of government in supporting Canadian technology companies and commercialization. The tax and investment measures Fridhandler hopes to see in the federal budget. Read Full Transcript Robert Dutt: Hello, and welcome to In The Channel from ChannelBuzz.ca, bringing you news and information about the Canadian IT channel for the last 16 years. I’m Robert Dutt, editor of ChannelBuzz.ca, and your host for the show. Most of the businesses we talk about on this podcast are small and medium-sized Canadian companies. They’re building services practices, hiring people, developing new capabilities, expanding into new markets, and increasingly acquiring other businesses or becoming part of larger organizations. And whether they’re looking to grow independently or participate in the consolidation we’re seeing across the IT services industry, access to capital is often an important part of the equation. But is Canada’s financial system doing enough to support those businesses? That’s the question at the heart of a recent report from the Senate’s Standing Committee on Banking, Commerce and the Economy, titled From Potential to Prosperity: The Urgent Case for Greater Investment in Canada’s SMEs. The committee argues that Canada needs to do a better job of helping its small businesses become larger, more successful Canadian businesses. And with the federal budget coming Thursday, there’s an opportunity for the government to act on some of those recommendations. My guest today is Senator Daryl Fridhandler of Alberta, a member of the committee who helped initiate the study and who brings decades of experience in corporate law and business financing to the discussion. We talk about Canada’s risk-averse investment culture, why businesses built around intellectual property, expertise and recurring revenues can struggle to attract financing, and whether Canadian pension funds should be doing more to support domestic businesses. We also explore the growing role of private equity in consolidating Canadian companies, the risks of seeing successful businesses and their intellectual property move abroad, and what the senator hopes to see in Thursday’s federal budget. It’s a little different from our usual conversations about technology vendors and partner programs, but it gets to some of the fundamental questions about the environment in which Canadian IT businesses operate. Let’s get right into it. My conversation with Senator Daryl Fridhandler. Robert Dutt: Senator, thanks for taking the time. I appreciate it. Senator Daryl Fridhandler: My pleasure, Rob. Robert Dutt: A lot of the people listening to this podcast run or work for Canadian technology businesses, most of them small or medium-sized companies. And those who haven’t, especially those who’ve been in the business a long time, have had the pleasure of growing from a small business to something larger. Whether they’re looking to hire, expand into new markets, develop new services, acquire or be acquired, access to capital is often a big part of the equation for their businesses and their lives. Your committee’s just completed a study looking at how well Canada’s financial system serves those exact kinds of businesses, it sounds like. And some of the conclusions suggest there might be some room for improvement. Let’s start with the big picture. What prompted the committee to undertake this study, and what did you discover in so doing? Senator Fridhandler: So, interestingly, at Stampede 2025, at a breakfast, I was sitting with a president of an independent brokerage firm, the executive director of the Independent Dealers Association, and a president of a junior stock exchange. They were talking to me about issues in the capital markets, and I said, “I hear you, and I think that the Banking, Commerce and the Economy Committee would be an ideal place to look into capital formation and capital availability.” The way the Senate works, not to get too far into committees, is that when we’re not reviewing legislation that’s assigned to the committee, which is a priority, we will do special studies. We pick special studies based on pitches made by the members of the committee. So I pitched a study on capital markets and capital availability. And here we go: 15 meetings, 24 hours of hearings, 35 witnesses. I would have loved to have heard more. There were lots of great people who couldn’t fit it into their schedules, lots of great people waiting. But we had a robust, interesting, highly qualified set of witnesses who advised us on their views of the issues for SME capital availability. Robert Dutt: What were the big lessons? What were your big takeaways from the study? Senator Fridhandler: Well, there were lots, but I can highlight a few for your audience. I rely on witnesses’ testimony. Jim Balsillie told us that 92 per cent of the S&P companies rely on intangible assets. I would not have even thought anything close to that. Ninety-nine per cent of the Canadian workforce in the private sector is found in SMEs, 50 per cent of our GDP. Pension funds have $2.5 trillion under management. Deferred plans, almost similar — this is RRSPs, TFSAs — $2.5 trillion under management. So there were a lot of numbers that really helpe

    Senator calls for more Canadian investment in SMEs ahead of federal budget

  4. 1d ago

    The Buzz: HPE upgrades CloudPhysics, Cynet expands AI security, and CyberFOX exposes security staffing gaps

    Today’s headline news for Canadian IT solution providers: HPE expands CloudPhysics capabilities for infrastructure modernization HPE is expanding the capabilities of CloudPhysics on GreenLake, giving channel partners and customers more information to support infrastructure modernization decisions. Announced Tuesday, CloudPhysics 2.0 adds expanded server modelling and deeper analysis of virtualized storage environments. The updates are intended to help organizations better understand their existing infrastructure before making decisions about hardware refreshes, virtualization platforms and upcoming software licensing renewals. For partners, the opportunity is to build recommendations around evidence gathered from a customer’s environment rather than relying primarily on product specifications or assumptions about future requirements. That could be particularly useful as customers evaluate the cost of their existing virtualization environments, alternative platforms and broader hybrid-cloud strategies. The assessment approach also gives partners an opportunity to start conversations about infrastructure modernization before a customer has already settled on a particular technology or purchasing decision. The new capabilities build on HPE’s broader GreenLake strategy, which brings together infrastructure, management and services across hybrid environments. Source: HPE’s CloudPhysics announcement. Cynet adds AI and identity security capabilities for MSPs Cynet has announced new AI Security and Identity Security capabilities for its unified security platform, along with enhancements intended to simplify operations for managed service providers. The AI Security features are designed to help organizations discover AI applications, autonomous agents and generative AI services operating across their environments, including unsanctioned tools. They also introduce approval management, exposure assessment and reporting capabilities that MSPs can use to help customers develop more effective AI governance policies. On the identity side, Cynet is bringing authentication activity, identity risk signals and identity threat detection and response alerts into a centralized view, with guided investigation and remediation workflows. The company also announced 40 additional SIEM integrations, cross-customer email investigations and the ability to move endpoints between managed sites without reinstalling agents. For MSPs, the broader goal is to bring emerging AI and identity risks into the same operational environment they already use to manage endpoint, network, email, cloud and SaaS security. The new AI Security and enhanced Identity Security features are currently available in beta to selected Cynet customers and partners. Source: Cynet’s November 3 announcement. CyberFOX research finds staffing shortages leave security risks unresolved New research commissioned by CyberFOX suggests that many small and midsized organizations understand their cybersecurity responsibilities but lack the resources to carry them out consistently. The company’s 2027 Security Maturity Index surveyed 361 IT and cybersecurity leaders at organizations with fewer than 5,000 employees. Among respondents, 62 percent said limited staffing had left important security risks unaddressed, while 46 percent said their most significant known security gap had remained open for at least six months. The findings also reveal a gap between security policies and operational reality. While 60 percent said their organizations closely follow least-privilege principles, 54 percent reported that employees still retain standing administrator rights on their devices. Only eight percent had completely replaced standing administrator accounts with temporary elevation. The staffing challenge was particularly pronounced among smaller IT teams. Of respondents with fewer than 15 IT staff, 81 percent reported unresolved security risks related to limited staffing, compared with 37 percent among teams of 15 to 50. Those smaller teams were also more likely to use managed service providers or managed security service providers: 79 percent reported using an MSP or MSSP for at least one function. For channel partners, the findings reinforce the opportunity to deliver security controls that customers can sustain with limited internal resources. The research also found that 77 percent of respondents allowed employees to use generative AI tools for work, while only 16 percent had comprehensive AI policies in place. The study was commissioned by CyberFOX and conducted by independent research agency TrendCandy. Its results should be understood as survey findings rather than a direct measure of the entire Canadian market. Source: CyberFOX’s November 3 research announcement. Read Full Transcript Welcome to The Buzz from ChannelBuzz.ca. I’m Robert Dutt, and today is Wednesday, November 4, 2026. Here’s what’s happening in the channel today. We’ve got three stories today about helping customers make better technology decisions and manage increasingly complicated environments. HPE is expanding its CloudPhysics assessment tools, Cynet is adding new AI and identity security capabilities for managed service providers, and new CyberFOX research suggests that many smaller IT teams know exactly where their security gaps are, but don’t have the resources to close them. First up, HPE is making some changes to CloudPhysics on GreenLake, its infrastructure assessment and planning technology. The company announced yesterday that CloudPhysics 2.0 is adding expanded server modelling and deeper analysis of virtualized storage environments. And while that may not sound like the flashiest technology announcement, there’s a useful channel story here. Customers are facing some fairly complicated decisions about their existing infrastructure. They may be approaching software licensing renewals, considering changes to their virtualization platforms, or trying to determine whether it’s time to refresh servers and storage. And those decisions can have significant financial and operational consequences. HPE’s pitch is that CloudPhysics can give partners and customers better information about what they already have, how it’s being used, and what their options might look like. The expanded modelling and storage analysis are intended to support more informed comparisons as customers consider modernization projects. For channel partners, that creates an opportunity to lead with assessment and advice rather than simply showing up with a product recommendation. It’s also a way to start conversations before a customer has already made a decision about what technology to buy. And that matters in a market where virtualization costs, infrastructure requirements and hybrid-cloud strategies are all under review. The more clearly a partner can explain the business and technical implications of a customer’s options, the more value that partner can potentially bring to the relationship. Next, Cynet is expanding its unified security platform with new capabilities focused on artificial intelligence and identity security. The company announced yesterday that it’s adding AI Security features designed to help organizations discover AI applications, agents and generative AI services operating across their environments. That includes shadow AI: tools employees may be using without formal approval or visibility from the IT department. The new capabilities include approval management, exposure assessment, recommendations and reporting. For managed service providers, the idea is to help customers understand what AI tools are being used, which ones are approved, and where those tools may be creating additional risk. Cynet is also introducing enhanced identity security capabilities. Those bring together identity risk, authentication activity and identity threat detection alerts, with guided investigation and response workflows. And there are some operational improvements for MSPs as well. Cynet says it’s adding forty SIEM integrations, expanding cross-customer email investigations, and making it possible to transfer endpoints between managed sites without reinstalling the security agent. That last point may sound like a relatively small improvement, but anyone managing security across multiple customer environments knows how much time those routine operational tasks can consume. The broader direction here is to bring AI and identity risk into the same security workflow as endpoints, networks, email and cloud services. And that’s particularly relevant for MSPs, which need to manage increasingly complex security environments without creating a separate console and process for every new threat category. One important availability note: the new AI and enhanced identity security capabilities are currently in beta for selected Cynet customers and partners. So this is a development to watch, rather than a feature set that every Cynet partner can necessarily deploy immediately. And finally today, new research from CyberFOX offers an interesting look at the gap between what smaller IT teams know they should be doing about security and what they can actually accomplish. CyberFOX commissioned a survey of three hundred and sixty-one IT and cybersecurity leaders at small and midsized organizations. Sixty-two percent said staffing limitations had left important security risks unaddressed. And forty-six percent said their most significant known security gap had been open for at least six months. That’s a pretty striking finding. We’re not necessarily talking about organizations that don’t understand the risks. We’re talking about organizations that know a problem exists but haven’t had the resources to resolve it. The survey also found a disconnect between security principles and day-to-day practices. Sixty percent said their organizations clo

    The Buzz: HPE upgrades CloudPhysics, Cynet expands AI security, and CyberFOX exposes security staffing gaps

  5. 2d ago

    TD SYNNEX’s Meredith Payne on taking PartnerFirst beyond the distributor portal

    Meredith Payne, TD SYNNNEX’s vice president of digital growth and customer success For decades, the distributor portal has been a central part of how IT resellers do business. Partners log in to check inventory, retrieve pricing, build quotes and place orders. But what happens when those capabilities become available directly within the applications partners already use, or through AI agents that can perform some of those tasks automatically? That’s the direction TD SYNNEX is taking with PartnerFirst, its digital platform for channel partners. And according to Meredith Payne, TD SYNNNEX’s vice president of digital growth and customer success, the goal isn’t to force every partner into a new way of working, but to make the distributor’s capabilities available wherever they make the most sense. Speaking with ChannelBuzz.ca at TD SYNNEX Inspire Canada in Toronto, Payne discussed the company’s evolving approach to digital commerce, the growing role of AI agents, and how partners can begin adopting automation without fundamentally changing their existing workflows. TD SYNNEX says more than 4,000 Canadian partner organizations, representing more than 12,000 users, are using PartnerFirst each month. As adoption grows, the company is expanding the ways partners can interact with the platform. For partners who prefer to work directly within PartnerFirst, the company is introducing AI agents that can help with tasks including product discovery, quoting and ordering. Agent Bridge provides another option, allowing partners to configure predefined workflows that automate repetitive tasks. And for partners already building their own AI applications, TD SYNNEX’s Model Context Protocol (MCP) integration makes PartnerFirst capabilities accessible from those environments. Payne said the company is seeing early success with relatively straightforward applications, particularly quoting and ordering workflows that previously required significant manual effort. Rather than beginning with a fully autonomous process, she recommends that partners identify repetitive tasks consuming substantial staff time, automate one of them, evaluate the results and expand from there. But the longer-term possibilities go considerably further. Payne said some partners are already considering agentic commerce environments in which AI agents could handle purchasing transactions without routine human intervention. While she declined to offer a timeline, she suggested that such capabilities may be closer than some expect. The conversation also explored how TD SYNNEX is incorporating partner feedback into development, including the needs of Canadian partners and the different industries they serve. And Payne discussed the company’s own experience as what it calls “Customer Zero,” with employees building and experimenting with AI agents internally before lessons from that work inform partner-facing offerings. Beyond AI, TD SYNNEX is also bringing MyShop, its reseller-branded e-commerce storefront offering, to Canada. Payne described a deliberately hands-on rollout, with participating partners receiving support to customize the experience for their businesses and customers. As PartnerFirst evolves, Payne said its success ultimately comes down to whether the capabilities help partners grow their businesses, whether by improving productivity, expanding their services or reaching new customers. In this edition of In the Channel, we discuss: Why TD SYNNEX is moving beyond the traditional distributor portal. How PartnerFirst, Agent Bridge and MCP integrations serve partners at different stages of AI adoption. Where partners are seeing early benefits from automating quoting and ordering. How close the channel may be to more autonomous, agent-driven commerce. Why repetitive, time-consuming tasks are a good starting point for AI. How TD SYNNEX incorporates Canadian partner feedback into its development process. What the company’s internal AI experimentation is teaching it. The Canadian rollout of MyShop and the broader business impact of PartnerFirst. Listen to the full conversation below. Read Full Transcript Robert Dutt: Hello and welcome to In the Channel from ChannelBuzz.ca, bringing news and information to the Canadian IT channel for the last 16 years. I’m Robert Dutt, editor of ChannelBuzz.ca, and your host for the show. For decades, one of the defining features of the relationship between IT distributors and their reseller partners has been the distributor portal. Need to check inventory, get pricing, build a quote, place an order? Log in, find what you need, get it done. But what happens when partners no longer need to go to the distributor’s systems to do those things? What if they can bring those capabilities into the applications they already use, or even have AI agents handle some of the work on their behalf? That’s a big part of the vision behind TD SYNNEX’s PartnerFirst platform, which was a major focus at the distributor’s Inspire Canada event in Toronto last week. TD SYNNEX says more than 4,000 Canadian partner organizations are now using PartnerFirst every month, and it’s expanding the platform with AI agents, configurable automated workflows and integrations that allow partners to connect their own AI tools directly to the distributor’s systems. And the company sees a future where more of the routine work of interacting with distribution, including quoting and ordering, can happen automatically, potentially without a human needing to intervene at every step. I sat down with Meredith Payne at Inspire to discuss that evolution, how TD SYNNEX is accommodating partners at very different stages of AI adoption, and what the company is learning from putting AI to work within its own business. We also discussed the arrival of MyShop in Canada, how PartnerFirst is being adapted to the needs of different partners, and what the company is seeing in terms of adoption and business impact. Let’s get right into it. My conversation with Meredith Payne of TD SYNNEX. Robert Dutt: Meredith, thanks for taking the time. I appreciate it. Meredith Payne: Of course. Yeah, I’m happy to be here. Robert Dutt: I wanted to start with MyShop, since that was sort of discussed off the top, and then we’ll get into the PartnerFirst strategy. Jessica McDowell announced this morning it’s launching in Canada. Let’s start there. How does what you do with MyShop differ from the traditional distributor-backed partner web store? What’s the timing for the launch, and what will Canadian partners be able to do that wasn’t possible before? Meredith Payne: Sure. With MyShop, our goal is really to help bring the technology to our partners so they can leverage the expertise and stand that up, and be able to seamlessly drive that digital-first experience for their customers. So as she mentioned, this is something that we’ve seen a lot of success in when we look at North America as a whole. And with Canada, we’re looking at a very thoughtful launch. And so each of the partners that are coming on and starting to deploy MyShop within their own business, we’re handholding them very much through that process, making sure that the experience is set up exactly how they’re looking for it to be. We’ve got opportunities to customize based on how much they want to offer their customers, how much flexibility they want to allow for them to go in and do things on their own, versus where they need to set up guardrails. And so we’re really excited about MyShop expanding because, again, it just gives more of that opportunity for our partners to leverage the technology, using the expertise that we have already and leveraging some of what we’re already seeing success around, to ultimately grow their business, both with their existing customer base, but also going out and finding new customers as well through that offering. Robert Dutt: It sounds like it’s a fairly bespoke process. You’re going deliberately with select partners. Is that about Canada? Meredith Payne: That’s right. Yep, that’s right. So certainly continuing to expand, but those partners that are leaning in with us with this launch are getting that full customized experience to make sure that it’s successful. We’re getting lots of feedback from the partners that are already working with us, and it’s been great so far. So we’re looking forward to seeing that continue to expand. Robert Dutt: Okay. More broadly with PartnerFirst, one of the most interesting things, I think, about the direction things seem to be going recently is the move towards agents, MCP integrations. Traditionally, it was partners went to the distributor’s portal to get things done, and there are a variety of opinions in the partner community about that particular model. Now it seems like we’re talking a lot more about bringing what you guys do and what you’re able to do into the applications, the agents, the systems that partners are already using. Is that sort of ultimately, at least at this moment, the goal for where you’re taking PartnerFirst? Meredith Payne: Absolutely. You hit the nail on the head. I should be interviewing you. Our approach with PartnerFirst, and specifically the way that we’re leveraging AI, is to meet partners where they are, the way that they work, right? And what we have found is that it just looks different for everybody. So we do still very much have those partners within our ecosystem who come into our system and they work that way, and it works well for them. And we’re not looking to disrupt those workflows. Of course, we have ideas on how we can continue to improve there and work alongside them. When we think about how AI is leveraged, Agent Bridge is a great way for them to kind of start entering into this game. Okay, how do I leverage some of these predefined workflows that we’ve worked to build and im

    TD SYNNEX’s Meredith Payne on taking PartnerFirst beyond the distributor portal

  6. 2d ago

    The Buzz: Distribution sales surge 29%, Guardz adds browser security, and Microsoft expands AI networking

    Today’s headline news for Canadian IT solution providers: North American IT distribution revenue surges 29 percent to record $28.9 billion North American IT distribution revenue reached a record $28.9 billion in the third quarter of 2026, an increase of 29.2 percent year over year, according to new research from IDC. The November 2 findings come from IDC’s North America Monthly Distribution Tracker, powered by the Global Technology Distribution Council. AI infrastructure was the primary growth driver. Enterprise infrastructure revenue increased 140.1 percent, components and semiconductors grew 79.4 percent, and network infrastructure rose 63.7 percent. Together, those three categories accounted for $4.3 billion of the market’s $6.5 billion year-over-year increase. The growth wasn’t limited to hardware. Software revenue increased 12.5 percent, while services grew 19.6 percent, with both categories reaching record levels. IDC says AI infrastructure demand is increasingly extending beyond hyperscalers to enterprise customers and specialized cloud providers building their own AI capacity. But there are complications behind the headline numbers. Rising memory and storage prices contributed to revenue growth, while tight DRAM and NAND supplies continue to create constraints. IDC expects those supply pressures to persist into 2027. For Canadian solution providers, the report offers another indication of the scale of the AI infrastructure opportunity, while reinforcing the importance of supply-chain planning, pricing and services. The figures cover the United States and Canada together; IDC did not provide a separate Canadian growth rate. Guardz adds Palo Alto Networks’ Prisma Browser to its MSP security platform Guardz has integrated Palo Alto Networks’ Prisma Browser for Business into its security platform for managed service providers, extending its coverage into an increasingly important part of the small-business attack surface. Announced Monday, the integration connects browser security events with information from email, identity and endpoint systems. For example, if an employee follows a phishing link, Prisma Browser can block the malicious page while Guardz connects the browser event with the original email, related Microsoft 365 activity and endpoint information. That gives an MSP and Guardz’s managed detection and response team a more complete view of the incident. The integration also includes protection against malicious downloads, risky browser extensions and attempts to steal authenticated sessions. Guardz is positioning the offering as a way for MSPs to add enterprise-grade browser security without creating another disconnected security workflow. The company is also expanding its controls around employee use of AI applications, including policies governing copying, pasting and transferring information through browser-based services. For MSPs, the opportunity is to bring browser activity into the broader security services they already manage for customers. Canadian availability remains to be confirmed, as Guardz’s documentation describes regional restrictions on the Prisma Browser integration. More information is available from Guardz’s Prisma Browser integration page. Microsoft and Lumen expand collaboration around AI-ready enterprise networks Microsoft and Lumen Technologies have expanded their collaboration to jointly pursue enterprise networking opportunities tied to cloud modernization and artificial intelligence. The companies announced Monday that they will work more closely on helping customers connect applications, data and infrastructure distributed across cloud platforms, private data centres and enterprise locations. The expanded relationship combines Microsoft’s Azure cloud and AI capabilities with Lumen’s network infrastructure and cloud-native networking services. A central part of the effort is joint account planning and co-selling around opportunities where Azure modernization, network transformation and AI deployment intersect. The companies also intend to explore making more Lumen networking and application connectivity capabilities available through Azure and Microsoft Marketplace. Lumen’s Alkira cloud networking solution is already available through Microsoft Marketplace. For solution providers and systems integrators, the development reflects a growing reality of enterprise AI projects: deploying AI infrastructure and applications also requires work on connectivity, security, data movement and hybrid-cloud architecture. Those requirements create potential services opportunities, although the companies have not announced a new channel program or specific partner incentives as part of this collaboration. Read Lumen’s November 2 announcement. Read Full Transcript Welcome to The Buzz from ChannelBuzz.ca. I’m Robert Dutt, and today is Tuesday, November 3, 2026. We’ve got some remarkable numbers from the North American IT distribution market today, along with a new security integration aimed at managed service providers, and an expanded partnership between Microsoft and Lumen focused on the networking requirements of enterprise AI. First up, new research from IDC shows just how dramatically AI infrastructure demand is changing the technology distribution business. According to figures released yesterday, North American IT distribution revenue reached a record twenty-eight point nine billion dollars in the third quarter of twenty twenty-six. That’s an increase of twenty-nine point two percent from the same period last year. And while that’s an impressive headline number, the breakdown of where that growth came from is even more interesting. IDC says enterprise infrastructure revenue increased by a remarkable one hundred and forty percent. Components and semiconductors grew nearly eighty percent, while network infrastructure revenue increased almost sixty-four percent. Together, those three categories accounted for four point three billion dollars of the market’s six point five billion dollars in additional revenue. In other words, about two-thirds of the entire increase came from the product categories most closely associated with building AI infrastructure. And the growth wasn’t limited to hardware. Software revenue increased twelve and a half percent, while services grew nearly twenty percent. Both categories also reached record levels. IDC says AI infrastructure demand is increasingly moving beyond the hyperscalers, with enterprise customers and specialized cloud providers building more of their own capacity. That’s particularly interesting for the channel, because distribution is one of the ways those customers get access to the servers, storage, networking and other technologies required for those projects. But there are a couple of important qualifications to these numbers. First, this is a North American report covering both the United States and Canada. IDC hasn’t provided a separate Canadian growth figure. And second, not all of that revenue growth necessarily represents more equipment being sold. IDC says rising memory and storage prices have contributed to the increase, and tight supplies of DRAM and NAND are expected to remain a challenge into twenty twenty-seven. So we’re looking at a combination of very strong demand, rising prices and ongoing supply constraints. For solution providers, that creates both opportunity and complexity. There’s clearly substantial spending on AI infrastructure, but customers also need help navigating product availability, pricing, architecture and deployment. And as we’ve discussed before, the opportunity doesn’t end with supplying the hardware. Designing, securing, integrating and managing these increasingly complex environments is where partners can potentially build additional value. Next, Guardz is bringing a new layer of browser security into its platform for managed service providers. The company announced yesterday that it’s integrating Palo Alto Networks’ Prisma Browser for Business into its broader security offering. The idea is to bring browser activity into the same security picture as email, identity and endpoint information. And that matters because so much of what employees do now happens inside a browser. They access business applications, work with customer information, use cloud services and increasingly interact with AI tools. That also makes the browser an attractive target for attackers. Think about a phishing email that sends someone to a fake login page. Prisma Browser can help block that malicious page, while Guardz can connect the browser event with the original email, the user’s Microsoft three sixty-five activity and information from the affected endpoint. Instead of treating those as separate alerts from separate systems, the MSP and Guardz’s managed detection and response team can investigate the activity as a connected incident. The integration also brings protection against malicious downloads, risky browser extensions and attacks designed to steal authenticated sessions. Guardz is also expanding its controls around how employees use browser-based AI applications, including restrictions on moving sensitive information into services that an organization hasn’t approved. For MSPs, the interesting part is the potential to add browser security to the services they’re already delivering, rather than creating another disconnected product to deploy and manage. There is one important question for Canadian partners. Guardz’s documentation describes regional restrictions on the Prisma Browser integration, and we haven’t confirmed its availability for Canadian customer environments. So that’s something partners would need to clarify before making commitments to customers here. But the larger direction is worth watching. As more business activity moves into browsers and AI-powered appli

    The Buzz: Distribution sales surge 29%, Guardz adds browser security, and Microsoft expands AI networking

  7. 3d ago

    TD SYNNEX Canada’s Chris Fabes sees near-term growth in cloud, cybersecurity and AI economics

    Chris Fabes, president of TD SYNNEX Canada, at Inspire 2026 Three months into his tenure as president of TD SYNNEX Canada, Chris Fabes has spent considerable time travelling across the country, meeting with partners and getting a better understanding of the distributor’s capabilities and opportunities. And while the company is looking at emerging markets ranging from robotics and space technology to physical AI, Fabes sees more immediate growth opportunities for Canadian partners in familiar areas that are undergoing significant change: cloud, cybersecurity, software and the economics of artificial intelligence. Speaking with ChannelBuzz.ca at TD SYNNEX Inspire Canada in Toronto, Fabes said his first few months have reinforced his confidence in the company’s foundation, while opening his eyes to capabilities that extend well beyond traditional technology distribution. One of the distributor’s priorities is expanding the amount of business flowing through the channel, including by bringing vendors into its ecosystem that have traditionally sold directly to customers. That increasingly means helping partners assemble complete solutions rather than simply source individual products. Fabes described TD SYNNEX’s evolving role as an orchestrator, connecting technology, expertise and services to help partners address customers’ business requirements. AI adds another layer of complexity, particularly when it comes to choosing the right models, managing consumption and ensuring that technology decisions fit customers’ budgets. Fabes said partners need to be able to have those conversations without exposing themselves or their customers to unexpected costs. The conversation also touched on two significant developments for TD SYNNEX’s Canadian business. The recently announced acquisition of BlueStar brings complementary capabilities in areas including mobility, identification and point-of-sale technology, along with access to specialized partners and markets. Fabes said the businesses will continue operating separately while decisions about their future integration are made. Meanwhile, TD SYNNEX is investing in a new 850,000-square-foot distribution facility in Caledon, Ontario. Fabes said the company expects the facility to come online around mid-2028, expanding its Canadian logistics capabilities and creating opportunities to introduce more advanced technology. And in a more personal example of TD SYNNEX’s internal AI adoption, Fabes described building his own AI-powered briefing agent to help him track business performance, outstanding decisions and priorities across the organization. In this edition of In the Channel, we discuss: What Fabes has learned during his first three months leading TD SYNNEX Canada. Where he sees the strongest near-term growth opportunities for Canadian partners. How TD SYNNEX is expanding its role beyond traditional distribution. Why AI economics, governance and cost predictability are becoming important partner conversations. What BlueStar could add to the Canadian business. The company’s planned Caledon distribution facility. How Fabes is using an AI agent to help manage the business. Listen to the full conversation below. Read Full Transcript Robert Dutt: Hello and welcome to In the Channel from ChannelBuzz.ca, bringing news and information to the Canadian IT channel for the last 16 years. I’m Robert Dutt, editor at ChannelBuzz.ca and your host for the show.When I last spoke to Chris Fabes back in August, he was just getting settled into his new role as president of TD SYNNEX Canada. At the time, he was embarking on a listening tour, getting to know the business, its partners, and the opportunities and challenges facing the Canadian channel. Fast forward about three months, and Fabes has had a chance to put some miles on the odometer, meet with partners across the country, and get a much clearer picture of where the business stands and where he wants to take it. I caught up with him this week at TD SYNNEX Inspire Canada in Toronto, where the distributor is laying out its vision for helping partners navigate a technology market increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence, new consumption models, and the growing importance of delivering business outcomes rather than simply selling products. We discussed what Fabes has learned during his first few months, where he sees the most immediate growth opportunities for Canadian partners, and how TD SYNNEX is looking to expand its reach into new technologies and markets. We also talked about what the recently announced acquisition of BlueStar could mean for the Canadian business, the company’s significant investment in a new distribution facility in Caledon, Ontario, and the economics of AI. And we wrapped up with a look at how Fabes is putting AI to work in his own role, including an agent he built to keep him on top of the business. Let’s get right into it, my chat with Fabes. Robert Dutt: Chris, thanks for taking the time. I know it’s obviously a busy day here, but your first Inspire running the show here. Chris Fabes: Yeah, thanks for being here. It’s been a big couple of days between today and yesterday. Well received, exciting, definitely a different position for me to be in, standing on the stage versus looking at the stage. Robert Dutt: Oh yeah, absolutely. Yeah, that was really good. When we spoke back in August, you were just getting started in the role. You were really fresh into what you talked about: listening, learning, understanding the business, understanding what partners want. You’ve now spent about 90 days, I’m sure, travelling across Canada a whole lot, talking to partners, talking to your teammates. What have you learned that you didn’t know coming into the job? And has anything surprised you enough to change your thinking about where things are at, or where they’re going, for TD SYNNEX Canada or for the Canadian channel at large? Chris Fabes: So you’re right. I’ve travelled quite a bit, and I did say I wanted to listen. And when we first spoke, it was, I guess, 30 days after. Very, very fresh. I still didn’t know what I didn’t know. So it’s helped me shape the expectations, the excitement, the angst maybe that some have in terms of everything coming out of the channel expectations. So by having those conversations internally, as well as with our partners and vendors, it’s been great to shape where we’re going. In terms of things that I would not have known or hadn’t expected, it’s been a pleasant — I’m cautious when I say the word surprise, but I’ll say that — because I’m coming in and I’m learning a lot about what our capabilities are. And a lot of the conversations or the comments that were being generated from our customers, we’re actually able to fill a lot of those gaps with what we’ve built or what we’re building. So coming into a business that my engagements in the past were a little bit more traditional in nature, but now seeing how TD SYNNEX is evolving the way that we approach the channel as an orchestrator, there’s so much more outside of the core distribution capabilities that we can offer. So that has been a very, very pleasant, I guess, enhancement is the best way of saying it, to my view. Robert Dutt: I guess playing into that, the state of the Canadian business. It’s a strong organization, clearly, but there’s economic uncertainty. We’re in the midst of some significant technology transformations, if you hadn’t noticed. Chris Fabes: Sure. I don’t know if it would come up. Robert Dutt: Basically, now that you’ve got a chance to look at things and have those conversations, how would you characterize the state of the business today? Where are you seeing momentum, and where are you hearing from partners that things are a little more challenging? Chris Fabes: The foundation is absolutely solid. And that has been wonderful to see. Not only foundationally at our core, what we’ve been offering to our partners for decades, but also the plans in place to be able to grow where the market is going. We talk about the distribution TAM expansion, because there’s a portion of the business in Canada that goes through the channel and there’s a portion that doesn’t. We have plans to be able to continue to attract additional vendors into the ecosystem, make sure that, as you said, the chaos or the complexity of what’s happening right now — it could be as simple as we understand that these are the technology drivers that our customers are demanding. We need to ensure that we’re ready as a partner, we’ve got those capabilities being built or already built, and we’re having those conversations. But also, the things that are a little bit more challenging for any one partner to understand, maybe collectively we can figure out together. So helping our partners understand how to have AI practices built out that focus on outcomes, help them answer their customer questions around sovereignty of data, sovereignty of access, capabilities to expand province through province. You heard Minister Evan Solomon spoke to us earlier this morning. Just engaging with understanding how we’re building our capabilities and then bringing that to the channel ecosystem, I think that’s going to be so important. Robert Dutt: There was a lot of focus this morning on some interesting new opportunities, areas that maybe haven’t traditionally been channel space. Between you and your team, you talked about defence, robotics, space, energy, agriculture and AI infrastructure, which of course has been the focus for a while for this group. But that’s a pretty broad range. I’m curious about your thoughts on which of those new growth areas represent the biggest tangible near-term opportunity for Canadian partners, and how you guys see yourselves helping the partners reach that. Chris Fabes: So in part, som

    TD SYNNEX Canada’s Chris Fabes sees near-term growth in cloud, cybersecurity and AI economics

  8. 3d ago

    The Buzz: Ottawa backs Cohere, Arrow expands managed storage, and 7AI builds its security ecosystem

    Today’s headline news for Canadian IT solution providers: Ottawa commits up to $1.6 billion to Canadian AI developer Cohere The federal government is taking an equity stake in Toronto-founded artificial intelligence company Cohere, committing up to $1.6 billion as part of a major new funding round. Announced Thursday, the investment will be made in stages and comes alongside private investors including NVIDIA, Bell and Germany’s Schwarz Group. Cohere has committed to maintaining its Canadian headquarters and incorporation, creating at least 1,000 Canadian technical jobs, and investing at least $1.7 billion in additional Canadian computing infrastructure by 2030. The company also announced the initial close of a Series E funding round targeting up to $7 billion. Unlike a conventional government grant, Ottawa’s investment gives Canada an ownership stake in the company. For the Canadian IT industry, the announcement is another significant development in the effort to build domestic AI capabilities. It also raises questions about how Canada’s growing sovereign AI infrastructure will be deployed, integrated and managed for enterprise and government customers. The immediate announcement is about investment rather than a new channel program. But the growth of Canadian AI infrastructure and enterprise AI platforms could create opportunities for solution providers with expertise in infrastructure, integration, security and managed services. Arrow introduces managed storage services for NetApp Keystone Arrow Electronics has introduced managed storage services for NetApp Keystone, giving channel partners another way to deliver consumption-based storage offerings without building all the underlying operational capabilities themselves. Announced Thursday, the new service builds on Arrow’s existing Partner XaaS with NetApp Keystone offering. It adds lifecycle management, proactive monitoring, performance and capacity optimization, cyber resilience, data protection and ongoing service reviews. Arrow says it is the first distributor to offer this type of managed storage service. The development illustrates an evolving role for distribution in the managed-services market. Rather than simply providing products or financing for consumption-based infrastructure, distributors are increasingly looking to supply the operational capabilities partners need to deliver ongoing services. For MSPs and solution providers, that could mean expanding recurring-revenue offerings while reducing the need to develop every supporting capability internally. Arrow describes the offering as global. Specific Canadian availability and commercial terms have not yet been confirmed. 7AI expands partner security ecosystem to 200 integrations Agentic security company 7AI says its Technology Alliance Program has reached 200 integrations, expanding the range of security tools, data sources and workflows that partners can connect to its platform. The October 29 announcement covers integrations spanning endpoint security, identity, email, cloud, SIEM, SOAR, ticketing, threat intelligence, vulnerability management and other security operations technologies. The company’s approach is designed to let AI agents investigate and respond to security events using data from systems customers already operate. For solution providers, systems integrators and managed security service providers, the opportunity is to modernize security operations without necessarily replacing a customer’s entire existing security stack. 7AI says nearly 45 percent of its sales pipeline now originates through partners, reflecting the importance it places on its broader alliance ecosystem. The integration milestone also illustrates a larger challenge for agentic security: AI-driven operations depend not just on the capabilities of the AI platform, but on its ability to work across the many systems already deployed in customer environments. Read Full Transcript Welcome to The Buzz from ChannelBuzz.ca. I’m Robert Dutt, and today is Monday, November 2, 2026. We’re starting the week with a major investment in Canada’s AI industry, a new managed storage offering from Arrow and NetApp, and an expansion of the partner ecosystem around agentic security company 7AI. First up, the federal government is making a substantial investment in Canadian artificial intelligence developer Cohere. Prime Minister Mark Carney announced Thursday that Ottawa will take an equity stake in the Toronto-founded company, committing up to one point six billion Canadian dollars. The investment is part of a much larger financing effort by Cohere, which has announced the initial close of a Series E funding round targeting up to seven billion dollars. Other investors include NVIDIA, Bell and Germany’s Schwarz Group. And there are some significant commitments attached to the federal investment. Cohere has agreed to maintain its Canadian headquarters and incorporation, create at least one thousand Canadian technical jobs, and invest at least one point seven billion dollars in additional Canadian computing infrastructure by twenty thirty. The government’s investment will be made in stages, with reporting requirements tied to those commitments. And there’s an important distinction here: this is an equity investment, not simply another government grant for AI development. Ottawa is taking an ownership stake in Cohere, meaning Canadians would participate in the company’s financial success if that investment pays off. For the Canadian technology industry, it’s another indication of how important sovereign AI infrastructure has become. Cohere is positioning itself around secure enterprise AI, particularly for organizations that need greater control over their data, infrastructure and the way AI systems are deployed. And those requirements are especially relevant in areas like government, financial services and other regulated industries. Now, this isn’t a channel program announcement, and Cohere hasn’t laid out a new set of partner opportunities as part of the investment. But there’s a broader question here for Canadian solution providers. As more investment flows into Canadian AI infrastructure and platforms, who’s going to help customers deploy those technologies, integrate them with existing systems, secure them and manage them over time? That’s where this development becomes interesting for the channel. The investment is about building Canadian AI capacity. Turning that capacity into useful enterprise deployments will require considerably more than the models and infrastructure themselves. Next, Arrow Electronics is expanding its role in managed services with a new offering built around NetApp Keystone. Arrow announced Thursday that it’s introducing managed storage services for NetApp Keystone, building on its existing Partner XaaS offering. The new service adds a layer of operational support around consumption-based storage. That includes lifecycle management, proactive monitoring, capacity and performance optimization, cyber resilience, data protection and ongoing service reviews. Arrow says it’s the first distributor to offer this kind of managed storage service. And the interesting part of the announcement is what it says about the changing role of distribution. For years, distributors have helped partners with financing, logistics, procurement and, increasingly, cloud marketplaces and subscription management. But as more infrastructure moves toward consumption-based models, partners also need help with the ongoing work of operating and supporting those services. That’s where Arrow is looking to play a larger role. The idea is that a solution provider or MSP can expand its managed storage business without having to build every operational capability from scratch. And that could make it easier for more partners to participate in storage-as-a-service opportunities. There are still some details we’d want to clarify for Canadian partners, particularly around local availability and commercial terms. But the broader trend is clear: distribution is increasingly moving beyond enabling the transaction and into enabling the service itself. And finally today, agentic security company 7AI says its Technology Alliance Program has reached two hundred integrations. The company announced the milestone Thursday, describing it as an important expansion of the ecosystem supporting its AI-driven security operations platform. Those integrations span a wide range of technologies, including endpoint security, identity, email, cloud platforms, SIEM and SOAR systems, ticketing tools, threat intelligence and vulnerability management. And the idea is to allow 7AI’s agents to investigate and respond to security events using information from the tools customers already have in place. That’s an important point, because most enterprise security environments are anything but simple. Customers have accumulated years of investments in different security products, data sources and operational processes. And introducing agentic security doesn’t necessarily mean they want to replace all of that infrastructure. For partners, that creates an opportunity around integration and modernization. Instead of approaching every customer with a complete replacement project, solution providers and managed security service providers can look at how AI-driven security operations might work across an existing environment. 7AI says nearly forty-five percent of its sales pipeline now originates through partners. That’s a company-reported figure, but it helps explain why 7AI is investing so heavily in its partner and technology alliance ecosystem. The larger lesson is that agentic security is becoming as much an integration and services challenge as a technology challenge. And that’s a potentially interesting place for the channel to build value. You can

    The Buzz: Ottawa backs Cohere, Arrow expands managed storage, and 7AI builds its security ecosystem
See All (20)

About

Cutting through the noise for Canadian VARs and MSPs

Information

  • Creator
    ChannelBuzz.ca
  • Years Active
    2011 - 2026
  • Episodes
    20
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    Copyright © ChannelBuzz.ca 2026
  • Show Website
    ChannelBuzz.ca