In 2020, when Microsoft acquired Metaswitch for more than $270M in stock and cash, I wrote (and wrote) that it was a mobility and cloud play. Now that Microsoft has 400M desktops on Office365 and approaching 100M phone licenses, they are divesting from Metaswitch after they pissed off the customer base. By ending Max UC without much fanfare or with a replacement (can’t use Teams as a residential or SOHO softphone!), Metaswitch operators were worried about what they were going to do.

Alianza had acquired Counterpath, which owned a popular softphone client named Bria. It gave Alianza a reason to talk to the Metaswitch operators. Now they have another reason to talk to them: Alianza will own Metaswitch by Q2-2025.

For Alianza it is the hope that they can move a significant number of operators over to their cloud switch.

For Metaswitch operators it is the hope that Metaswitch lasts longer, which it won’t.

The PR sub-headline says it all:  Acquisition creates clear path for communications service providers to enter the cloud-native and AI services economy. That doesn’t mean keep running a Metaswitch!

This is the Cisco playbook on Broadsoft. Eventually the operator will pay a fortune to keep Metaswitch alive in fees. Move to Webex Calling or pay a fortune. Move to Alianza or pay a fortune.

It is short and sweet because it is cut and dry. Alianza wants the Metaswitch operators to put down the switch and migrate to their cloud platform.

ADVICE TO THE OPERATOR:

Decide today. What will your path be?

It takes at least 6 months to decide on a new switch. It takes over a year to migrate customers over. The phone company likely still has TDM or GR303 customers that need to migrate. The HPBX customers will need to move.

All of this takes a PLAN, personnel, time and money.

Decide now what you will do.

Need help? Hire RAD-INFO INC. Call 813-963-5884. We helped over 60 service provider choose softswitches that worked for their business environment over the years. No one understands the ISP/CLEC industry better.

There are a bunch of alternatives to turn to, but you need to do it soon, since time is running out and the process takes at least a year and most likely a lot longer!

Other viewpoints on the Alianza-Metaswitch buy at Fierce; another at Fierce;

 

CVX Expo in Scottsdale at Talking Stick Resort & Casino is in its third year. Registration was up from year 2.

On the SD-WAN panel, while some panelists didn’t pay attention to instructions about telling sales stories, Ryan from Sandler Partners did and tackled the topic well. When panelists treat the session like a chance to do commercials, I’d like to tell you how much it turns everyone off. It does you no good to push your commercial at us, when we are sitting there to hear stories about selling SD-WAN and instead get everything but that.

Best lesson from that session: more than 98% of businesses are SMALL business. Understand how any of the myriad “SDWAN” solutions benefit your target customer.

On the CyberSec panel, big props to Hilary at CORO.net who told a great sales success story about a private school buying cybersec. It was as close to a roadmap for partners to follow to get a cybersec deal sold as you can get in under 10 minutes!

Want to thank Dany from COLOTRAQ for moderating the AI panel for me.  (Currently, I have little desire to be talking about artificial intelligence.)

On the floor, I want to rate booths next year. So many companies do themselves a disservice by having nonsense on their booth and banner. Tell us what you do in 10 words or less! Don’t make me guess, because I don’t care enough to guess. The whole idea is to Garner Interest. Make people want to stop. Not make them guess what you do.

Top Golf, poker, VR games, racing cars — there was plenty to do each night after the expo closed.

I want to thank the attendees that showed up for any of the 4 sessions I was involved in, including the Channel Manager training this morning that was lively and satisfying. I hope you took home a nugget or two to put to work for you!

It was a good show for RAD-INFO Inc as we got a few good leads out of the show!

It was great seeing friends at this show. That is one of the best parts of the show. And enjoying sharing the Kentucky Owl with you! See you next year!

One thing I get asked a lot by channel managers is How to Sell through a TSB (brokerage formerly known as Master Agency). Basically, how do I get the Attention of Partners.

As a partner, I get too many emails from too many vendors – and most of it nonsense meaning it is all about the vendor.  None of it about my business or my customers.

Here’s a few ways to improve your results:

1. Explain concisely who your Customer is and in what way they benefit from your services.
2. Do not send me a list of services!
3. Tell me a Story.
4. Summarize a use case.
5. Tell me what your company does exceedingly well and for whom.

The largest issue that vendors have is that they cannot answer any of these questions.

They do NOT know who their customer is. They say: Everybody which is marketing-speak for We Don’t Know.

If you have happy customers, what are they saying? Why did they buy? Who was the Buyer?

If you have satisfied Partners, why did they sell your services?

I understand that you paid money to the TSB who gave you a list of emails and that spamming that list sounds like a productive day at the office. I can tell you that is the worst idea you ever had.

This is 2024. Time to try something else.

A majority of the partners are busy. Every sale, every renewal is for a less dollar value. We are running faster and faster to maintain our business. So to take time out to have a chat about your business is a waste of our time. If you want to chat about your business, start a podcast. What ever happened to the Elevator Pitch? Quite literally telling me:

Most of the channel managers in our industry are on their 6th or 7th vendor. They do not have 15 years of experience. They have experienced their first two years of channel sales 7.5 times. That means that they aren’t growing, learning. I understand that Quota is a heavy burden, but the rolodex is burned out. It’s time to flip the script because doing the same thing you did pre-pandemic is not going to work anymore.

I have spent many hours explaining channel strategy and marketing to vendors.

The two best concepts are Aligned and Enrolled.

At CVX Expo in Scottsdale on Mov. 14th, I will be holding a session on Channel Management.

Or you can hire me to help your strategy or marketing or to train your Channel Managers.

Or buy the book!

November 2021:  “RingCentral will pay Mitel $650 million to acquire intellectual property rights and patents covering network and call management, security, and infrastructure. Demonstrating its commitment and excitement about the partnership, Mitel’s existing investor group led by affiliates of Searchlight will invest $200 million in equity in RingCentral as part of the transaction.”

Now did RNG get $900M worth of ARR from that deal? No. How many of Mitel’s 35M users went to RNG? No idea.

Now Mitel has a deal like Avaya has with Zoom.

Here’s the funny thing, NEC launched their version of this in 2021. It is called NEC Bridge and works by connecting NEC PBX customers to cloud functions and mobility. It seems funny that everyone is making a big deal out of Avaya and Mitel doing what NEC did 3 years ago. Well, a lot of pundits and analysts had their foundational work with one or both of those companies, so everything Avaya or Mitel do is amaz-balls! Except it isn’t.  If it was would Avaya have gone bankrupt 3x?

The bottom line is that complex on-premise PBX systems are not going to cloud any time soon. AI, mobility and other functions in cloud communications are wanted by companies and a Bridge product provides that.

AppDirect’s MSP event is going on this week in Chicago (Avant’s backyard). AppD said 22% of its base of 10,000 technology advisors are transacting more than $1 million a year in end user billings. (I want to call BS on the 10K but why bother).

Yet $1M in annual billing is simply $83K per month. On average that comes to about $10K per month in commissions – or less if it is all SaaS sales. So 22% make about $100K per year. That means that 78% make way less than $100K per year!!!!  Not even a quarter of their ten thousand make $100,000. You can extrapolate that 22% make less than $1500 per year (the minimum check is $100 per month).

If a majority of those ten thousand are MSPs, then that AppD commission check is just a bonus on top of the UP TO $5M per year in revenue that 90% of US MSPs make. Now the Trusted Advisors without an MSP or VAR business better have another hustle!

A little more interesting is that AppD integrated into TD & Ingram.

“The marketplace company introduced integrations on its platform that give resellers the option to source technology SKUs from distributors Ingram Micro and TD Synnex.” No idea what this gets AppD, but I guess making it one pane of glass for VARs is nice.  I guess this is an extension of the “Marketplace” concept.

Even more interesting is that AppD will do the end customer invoicing for partners! This gets AppD closer to the customer. This also is in the hopes that a Trusted Advisor that is not an MSP now has access to a billing platform.

The goal of all the TSBs is to get closer to the customer because it makes their data more valuable to investors. It is also the first step in cutting the TA out altogether, especially if your marketplace is open to customers (like AppD is) and partners encourage customers to self-serve.