5 Companies That Came To Win This Week

For the week ending Sept. 1, CRN takes a look at the companies that brought their ‘A’ game to the channel including SolarWinds, Dell Technologies, Google Cloud, Judy Security and CloudWerx.

The Week Ending Sept. 1

Topping this week’s Came to Win list is SolarWinds for enhancing its Transform Partner Program in a move that will make it easier for solution providers to move up within the program and gain access to more benefits.

Also making the list are Dell Technologies for its new edge computing platform and related partner certification efforts, Google Cloud for a host of new and enhanced products unleashed at its Google Cloud Next event, and Judy Security for its plans to expand the ranks of MSPs that work with the company’s cybersecurity platform for SMBs.

And applause for solution provider CloudWerx for being named Google Cloud’s 2023 Sales Partner of the Year for North America—just three years after becoming a Google Cloud partner.

SolarWinds Enhances Partner Program, Moves Toward The Cloud With New SaaS Opportunities

SolarWinds unveiled a major update to its Transform Partner Program this week in a move the company said will make it easier for solution providers to qualify for its upper tiers and gain access to more benefits.

SolarWinds, an observability and IT management software developer, rolled out the Transform program last October and has adopted a global channel-first go-to-market policy.

“This year, the intent is really to bring the program to the next level,” Chad Reese, SolarWinds sales president and global channel chief, told CRN. “So more benefits to our tiered partners including distributors, GSIs [global systems integrators], MSPs and hyperscalers. New programmatic rebates for the top tiers, new targets for those tiered partners. And on an international level, we’re offering the same targets, tiers and so on.”

SolarWinds is using its updated Transform Partner Program to help authorized partners move into an upper tier with a combination of upcoming certifications and offering to help with skills and joint business plans.

Another major change is the addition of a new acceleration program aimed at helping channel partners get certifications around key SolarWinds offerings including database, IT service management, and the company’s SaaS-based SolarWinds Observability hybrid cloud observability system.

SolarWinds is also moving more toward the cloud with SaaS opportunities it previously did not have, Reese said.

Dell Partners Call Edge Lab ‘Huge Differentiator,’ Praise NativeEdge launch

Dell Technologies is winning high marks this week for the launch of the Dell NativeEdge platform and a new Dell Edge Partner Certification Program that lets partners work directly with Dell engineers in a dedicated lab environment to test solution concepts.

The Dell NativeEdge platform simplifies application orchestration and infrastructure management across thousands of edge devices, said Cheryl Cook (pictured), Dell senior vice president of global partner marketing. Dell NativeEdge automates routine and repetitive tasks such as updating applications and on-boarding devices.

“Our customers are overwhelmed with edge complexity. And a lot of what Dell’s engineering team has done is develop a software platform that can offer consistency and high security,” Cook told CRN.

Through the Dell Edge Partner Certification Program channel partners and ISVs can validate edge deployment solutions. Cook said this will shrink the time it takes to bring those solutions to market by letting partners work directly with Dell engineers in a dedicated lab environment to test their designs before deployment.

Partners called the new platform and the lab access a “huge differentiator” that will provide their own engineering teams with a better way to develop, update and orchestrate edge solutions.

Innovation Wave At Google Cloud Next 2023

Google Cloud’s innovation engine was revved up at the Google Cloud Next 2023 conference this week where the company launched 20 new and enhanced products, highlighted by the company’s focus this year on artificial intelligence and generative AI.

“We are in an entirely new era of digital transformation, fueled by gen AI,” said Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian at the Google Cloud Next event. “This technology is already improving how businesses operate and how humans interact with one another. It’s changing the way doctors care for patients, the way people communicate, and even the way workers are kept safe on the job. And this is just the beginning.”

Among the announcements: Duet AI, Google Cloud’s AI-powered collaborator, was injected into some of Google Cloud’s most popular offerings including BigQuery, Looker and Cloud Spanner. The PaLM 2 Large Language Model was upgraded and Vertex AI received a healthy dose of new generative AI capabilities with the new Colab Enterprise.

Also making their debut at Google Cloud Next were the new BigQuery Studio unified interface for data engineering, analytics and machine learning, and the new Cross-Cloud Network networking infrastructure platform. On the cloud infrastructure front, Google Cloud launched new cloud TPUs (tensor processing units), virtual machines powered by Nvidia, and a new premium edition of Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE).

Judy Security Adding MSPs For Its ‘All-In-One’ SMB Security Platform

Judy Security, which offers a unified cybersecurity platform for small and midsize businesses, makes this week’s Came to Win list for its plans to add MSPs to its partner ranks as the company seeks to expand in the underserved SMB market.

The company currently has 70 partners and is aiming to reach 100 within the next 12 months, said Tim Hankins, senior vice president of growth at Judy Security, in an interview with CRN.

Judy Security is focused on providing a comprehensive cybersecurity platform for SMBs—a market often overlooked by many cybersecurity tech developers thatcater to enterprise customers. The Judy system offers the essential cybersecurity capabilities most SMBs need including endpoint protection with secure authentication—including multifactor authentication and single sign-on—and URL filtering.

CloudWerx Wins Google Cloud Sales Partner Of The Year

Startup CloudWerx earns a high-five for being named Google Cloud’s 2023 Sales Partner of the Year for North America less than three years after becoming an official Google Cloud partner. The announcement was made at this week’s Google Cloud Next conference.

Working at a ferocious pace this year, San Jose, Calif.-based CloudWerx was critical in on-boarding AI superstar MosaicML to Google Cloud, vastly expanded its customer base across North America, provided next-level services for customers and became one of the launch partners for Google’s huge generative AI charge.

“We are definitely one of the fastest, if not the fastest, to get this award,” Betsy Reed (pictured), CloudWerx co-founder, vice president and CRO, told CRN.

CloudWerx was founded in 2020 and bet all its chips on Google Cloud by partnering with the cloud giant from the start. CloudWerx achieved Google Cloud Premier Partner status in 2022 as sales and customer wins exploded. The engineering-based company increased its revenue by a factor of 10 in 2022 over 2021.

The company maintains an astounding 100 percent customer retention rate thanks to its commitment to technical, account and customer service, Reed said.