@ Doug Green

“There’s a tremendous opportunity for partners to deliver more value, improve customer retention and create new recurring revenue streams.”

RabbitRun has joined the Crexendo Ecosystem Vendor Partner Program, giving Crexendo, NetSapiens and channel partners new ways to deliver resilient connectivity, business continuity and managed network services to their customers.

In this Technology Reseller News podcast, RabbitRun Founder and CTO Pat Saavedra discusses the partnership and the opportunity it creates for MSPs, service providers and telecom resellers.

RabbitRun offers an integrated platform that brings together Always-On Internet, enterprise-class SD-WAN, cybersecurity, voice survivability, POTS replacement and business continuity. The goal is to help businesses remain connected and operational when internet connections, networks or other critical infrastructure fail.

For channel partners, Saavedra says the opportunity extends well beyond simply selling another connectivity product. Partners can use RabbitRun to address real customer concerns surrounding uptime, security and operational resilience while creating new sources of recurring managed-services revenue.

As more business applications move to the cloud, internet connectivity has become essential infrastructure. A failed connection can interrupt voice services, payment processing, customer support, remote access and other core operations. RabbitRun is designed to identify network problems and move traffic to an available connection, helping businesses continue operating with minimal disruption.

The platform also gives partners greater visibility into customer networks, allowing them to identify performance issues, manage connectivity and provide ongoing support. That creates a more proactive relationship in which the partner is helping protect the customer’s business rather than simply responding after something goes wrong.

The conversation also explores the growing importance of voice survivability. Businesses may have backup internet connections but still discover that their voice systems fail during an outage. RabbitRun helps partners address that gap by protecting both data and voice communications as part of a broader continuity strategy.

POTS replacement represents another opportunity. As traditional analog lines become more expensive and difficult to maintain, businesses need alternatives for services such as alarms, elevators, fax machines and emergency communications. RabbitRun enables partners to incorporate those requirements into a modern managed connectivity offering.

By joining the Crexendo Ecosystem Vendor Partner Program, RabbitRun becomes more accessible to a large community of service providers already delivering communications through Crexendo and the NetSapiens platform.

Saavedra says this gives partners an opportunity to expand the value of their existing customer relationships. Rather than competing only on voice seats or connectivity pricing, they can provide a broader solution built around reliability, security and business continuity.

For MSPs and communications providers, the message is straightforward: protecting the customer’s ability to remain connected can become both an essential service and a meaningful recurring revenue opportunity.

Learn more about RabbitRun and its participation in the Crexendo Ecosystem Vendor Partner Program.

“AI is changing collaboration by helping IT teams see, manage, and improve the entire workplace experience.”

In this Technology Reseller News podcast, Doug Green speaks with Brian Phillips, Director of Product Marketing at HP Inc., about HP’s InfoComm 2026 announcements and the company’s expanding vision for AI-powered enterprise collaboration.

The conversation focuses on how HP is bringing together meeting room technology, personal productivity tools, AI-enabled management, and workplace analytics into a more unified collaboration ecosystem. At the center of that strategy is the HP Workforce Experience Platform, or WXP, which is designed to give IT teams a broader view across devices, rooms, applications, and user experiences.

Phillips discusses how WXP, together with Poly Lens and new AI-powered capabilities such as Room Visualizer AI, helps organizations move beyond basic device management. Instead of simply monitoring endpoints, IT teams can gain more actionable insight into how rooms are configured, how devices are performing, and how collaboration spaces can be improved.

The podcast also covers HP Poly Studio Room Compute, VideoOS 5.1, and Poly DirectorAI, technologies designed to make hybrid meetings more engaging and equitable. These tools help meeting participants be seen and heard more clearly, whether they are in the room, working from home, or joining from another location.

Beyond the meeting room, HP is also expanding its personal workspace portfolio with products such as the Poly Focus 6 Series Bluetooth headsets and the HP Collaboration Keyboard. Phillips explains how these devices fit into the larger HP collaboration strategy by supporting productivity wherever employees work.

For MSPs, channel partners, and enterprise IT leaders, the message is clear: workplace collaboration is moving toward integrated ecosystems, AI-powered insights, and better experiences for both users and IT teams.

As The Independent Show approaches, NCTC and ACA Connects say broadband, cable and communications providers are facing a fast-changing market where agility, collaboration and confidence matter more than ever.

“The conversations never end. You just have to be agile.”

In this Technology Reseller News podcast, Doug Green speaks with Grant Spellmeyer, President and CEO of ACA Connects, and Lou Borrelli, CEO of NCTC, about The Independent Show and the evolving landscape for independent broadband, cable and communications providers.

The discussion looks at the issues now shaping the independent provider community, including AI, mobility, network evolution, bundling, policy, competition and changing customer expectations.

Borrelli notes that independent providers continue to have an important advantage: they know their communities. Their local presence, customer relationships and ability to respond quickly remain powerful differentiators. At the same time, those providers are operating in a more competitive environment, with fixed wireless, satellite, larger providers and new service models entering markets that were once less contested.

Spellmeyer discusses the policy work ACA Connects is doing in Washington, including advocacy on behalf of smaller and independent operators as federal and regulatory decisions continue to affect broadband investment, competition and deployment.

Borrelli also explains how NCTC helps members access the content, technology, solutions and shared expertise they need to compete more effectively. The conversation highlights the importance of collaboration across the independent provider ecosystem, especially as members consider new opportunities in mobility, AI-enabled services and bundled offerings.

The Independent Show will bring these conversations together in one place, giving providers an opportunity to compare notes, learn from peers, meet technology and content partners, and return home with practical ideas for growth.

For independent providers, the message is clear: the market is changing quickly, but they do not have to navigate that change alone. With the right partnerships, tools and strategy, local providers can continue to compete, serve their communities and build for the future.

“The intelligent worker is the person who can balance knowledge with the use of AI tools,” says Iain Sinnott of the Cloud Communications Alliance.

In this Technology Reseller News podcast for TR Publications and the Cloud Communications Alliance, Doug Green speaks with Iain Sinnott, European Development Chief of the CCA, about AI, human capability, dyslexia, governance and the changing nature of work.

The conversation begins with Sinnott’s blue glasses, which he says became a useful icebreaker during COVID-era video meetings. But the discussion quickly turns to something deeper: how AI can help people with dyslexia and other challenges bring more of their talent into the workplace.

Sinnott explains that dyslexia has shaped how he works, learns and sells. While reading and writing have often been difficult, his oral memory and problem-solving skills have been strengths. AI tools, he says, are now helping reduce the impact of some of those weaknesses.

“I think in 41 years of business, I am now more efficient and less challenged than I’ve ever been,” says Sinnott.

But Sinnott also warns that AI must remain a tool guided by human responsibility. He says users must challenge AI, verify its work and avoid becoming overly dependent on it.

“We are responsible for making sure that this remains a positive tool, not a negative tool,” says Sinnott.

The podcast also explores AI governance, data sovereignty and security, especially in the European market. Sinnott says organizations need guardrails that protect data and manage risk, while still allowing employees the freedom to experiment, explore and improve workflows.

That balance, Sinnott argues, may lead to the rise of the “intelligent worker”: someone who can find information, challenge it, apply it and combine human judgment with AI-enabled tools.

The conversation also addresses the risk that companies may use AI only as a cost-cutting tool. Sinnott cautions that replacing junior roles too quickly could damage the long-term development of future senior talent.

“The human brain isn’t replaceable,” says Sinnott. “But some of the tasks we ask it to do are.”

Sinnott also discusses the work of the Cloud Communications Alliance in Europe, where sovereignty, communications policy, national security and critical infrastructure have become increasingly important issues. He says the CCA has a role to play in convening conversations and helping members develop thoughtful strategies that embrace innovation while protecting essential communications systems.

Learn more about the Cloud Communications Alliance at www.cloudcommunications.com.

Dalrymple explained that while business communications have expanded far beyond traditional voice calls, many organizations still struggle with disconnected tools and unmanaged mobile communications. Mobex addresses this challenge by integrating business calling, SMS, and WhatsApp directly into Microsoft Teams and VoIP environments, creating what he described as a “single pane of glass” for enterprise communications.

“We try to help our clients integrate those communication channels into what makes sense for them in their workflow and work process,” Dalrymple said.

A key benefit is improved compliance and governance. Rather than employees conducting business conversations on personal devices outside company oversight, Mobex enables organizations to route business communications through managed platforms that support recording, AI transcription, compliance requirements, and centralized management. The platform also provides business eSIM capabilities, allowing employees to separate personal and business communications while retaining native mobile phone functionality.

Dalrymple also highlighted opportunities for MSPs and channel partners. Because many already deploy Microsoft Teams, Mobex can be added as an integrated solution for business calling, texting, WhatsApp, compliance, and call recording, creating new recurring revenue opportunities with minimal deployment complexity. The company has also expanded into the UK, where WhatsApp plays a larger role in business communications than traditional SMS.

Learn more: https://www.mobex.biz/

TERRA founder Stephen Napoli says the move gives members “a good home” while bringing two important communities together in the electronics reuse, recycling and ITAD ecosystem.

In a special ASCDI podcast, Doug Green spoke with Stephen Napoli, president and founder of TERRA, about a milestone moment for the ITAD community: TERRA’s members are now becoming part of ASCDI — The ITAD Association.

The move brings approximately 80 TERRA companies into ASCDI, joining two communities that have long worked in the same orbit: ITAD, electronics reuse, e-scrap, certified recycling and the circular economy. Napoli said TERRA will cease operations, but its members will move into ASCDI with continuity, visibility and a larger industry platform.

“For our membership that we have really been blessed with over the last seven years since we started this endeavor, we found them a good home,” Napoli said.

Napoli founded TERRA to give certified electronics recycling and ITAD companies a stronger voice. The organization helped promote the value of certification, especially around standards such as R2 and e-Stewards, and worked to help customers understand why responsible reuse and recycling matter.

As Napoli explained, certified ITAD and recycling companies do more than process used equipment. They protect data, support reuse, keep electronics out of landfills, advance the circular economy and help make sure equipment is handled in ways that protect both people and the environment.

Asked why ASCDI — The ITAD Association was the right next home for TERRA members, Napoli pointed to ASCDI’s long-standing reputation, advocacy and history in the technology reuse market.

“They’ve been in this space for a long time and they have a very good reputation,” Napoli said. “They do a very good job of advocating for people that are in this space, which is what we’ve been doing. So it really was a natural fit.”

Napoli described the transition as bittersweet. TERRA began as an idea seven years ago and grew into a community of certified and allied companies across the electronics recycling and ITAD landscape. Now, he said, that work can continue through a larger association.

“I’m forever grateful,” Napoli said. “And really happy that it’s just not coming to an end, that I’m able to pass it along to the benefit of them and to another organization in the space to make this industry stronger.”

The conversation also reflected the personal side of the ITAD community. Napoli said that while companies in the space may compete, there is also a family quality to the industry, with many people sharing a common commitment to reuse, responsible recycling and doing the right thing with technology at the end of its first life.

“I found a gem,” Napoli said, reflecting on his entry into the industry. “It has been the joy of my career to be part of it.”

Visit ASCDI — The ITAD Association to learn more.

SmarTrak.ai Turns Cisco Data Into Partner Growth, Podcast

Cisco 360, AI, refresh cycles, and multivendor migration are creating new openings — and SmarTrak.ai says partners have a timely opportunity to grow more strategically.

“We help them manage their practice, grow their practice, and increase their profitability around it,” says Ted Lee of SmarTrak.ai.

In this Technology Reseller News podcast, recorded following Cisco Live, Doug Green speaks with Ted Lee of SmarTrak.ai about the company’s expanding role in helping Cisco partners turn Cisco data into actionable business intelligence.

Lee describes SmarTrak.ai as a platform built to help Cisco partners manage their Cisco practice by ingesting data from Cisco APIs and other sources. The goal, he says, is to give partners better visibility into customer environments, including hardware assets, software, services, service contracts, subscriptions and enterprise agreements.

For end customers, SmarTrak.ai provides visibility into Cisco infrastructure and spending, helping organizations optimize their environments while giving partners a more strategic way to support long-term customer retention.

The discussion focuses heavily on Cisco 360, one of the major themes at Cisco Live. Lee says SmarTrak.ai announced a Cisco 360 module designed to help partners understand how they can perform under the program, identify opportunities to improve their scores, and increase profitability with Cisco.

“We announced at Cisco Live that we had a 360 module that we are releasing that gives predictability into how they can perform, how to optimize it,” Lee says. “Since we have their entire estate with every one of their customers globally, we can then give them opportunities with which they can raise their scores in order to increase their profitability with Cisco.”

Lee also points to a larger market moment for Cisco partners. With major refresh cycles, end-of-life events, new AI-enabled products and changing customer infrastructure requirements, partners have an opportunity to move from reactive selling to more strategic planning.

SmarTrak.ai is also putting that intelligence directly into the hands of sales teams. The company announced a mobile application designed for sellers and solutions engineers who are meeting customers in the field, giving them access to forward-looking intelligence around sustainability swaps, end-of-life replacements, AI replacement SKUs and other Cisco-driven opportunities.

“Sales reps are not sitting at their desks,” Lee says. “These partners are out with their customers, and we are putting this wealth of intelligence in the hands of their sales reps and their solutions engineers.”

The podcast also covers SmarTrak.ai’s multivendor migration capabilities. Lee notes that customer environments are rarely Cisco-only. Partners often encounter Juniper, Palo Alto Networks, Fortinet, Aruba, Ruckus, HPE and other installed platforms. SmarTrak.ai’s migration platform allows partners to ingest those install bases and build forward-looking roadmaps for when it may make sense to replace other platforms with modern Cisco solutions.

Lee says the platform can help customers budget, help partners quote more effectively, and help move opportunities toward higher-level Cisco buying programs such as enterprise agreements.

The conversation also touches on audit readiness. Lee says SmarTrak.ai has helped partners pass CX Expert and advanced audits by providing the visibility and health scoring needed to support certifications, partner status, rebates and incentives.

“We are a full Cisco practice engine to help them take advantage of the wealth of data and opportunity in front of them and turn it into revenue and profitability with the end customers,” Lee says.

AI is also part of the SmarTrak.ai story. Lee says the company was founded in early 2023, as large language models were becoming more widely accessible, and recognized an opportunity to use AI against Cisco’s large data universe. SmarTrak.ai is SOC 2 Type II and is pursuing ISO 27001 certification, Lee says, emphasizing that the company is “security first” while using AI to help partners analyze data faster and identify new sales opportunities.

Lee describes the result as “agentic lifecycle intelligence,” enabling partners to generate forward-looking Cisco practice plans, budgets, replacement strategies, enterprise agreement eligibility, and takeover opportunities across large customer bases.

“One of our customers has nearly 10,000 Cisco customers,” Lee says. “They can view any customer in the world with a few clicks of their mouse, and they can create a five-year forward-looking internal or external Cisco practice plan.”

The podcast offers a look at how SmarTrak.ai is positioning itself as a Cisco partner growth platform: helping partners make Cisco data more usable, make customer conversations more strategic, prepare for Cisco 360, manage refresh cycles, and turn infrastructure intelligence into recurring revenue opportunities.

Learn more at smartrak.ai.

Airsys has specialized in mission-critical cooling for more than 30 years, serving telecom operators, modular data centers, and edge infrastructure around the world. Brock noted that the industry has moved beyond simply installing air conditioners in telecom shelters. Today’s operators are demanding intelligent systems that combine variable-speed technology, economizers, advanced controls, and predictive maintenance to reduce energy consumption while maintaining reliability. “Remove the thought process from 10 or 15 years ago that cooling was an afterthought,” Brock said. “Let’s spend time on the most efficient solutions.”

The discussion explored how AI and next-generation wireless networks are changing infrastructure requirements. As 5G evolves and AI workloads move closer to the edge, telecom shelters and remote network sites are becoming significantly more power-dense. That creates new cooling challenges in locations where maintenance is difficult and uptime is essential. Brock explained that operators are increasingly looking for longer-lasting equipment, better energy efficiency, and systems capable of identifying maintenance needs before failures occur.

Brock also described Airsys’ continued investment in manufacturing and customer support, including its new 300,000-square-foot production facility in Woodruff, South Carolina, where products are designed, manufactured, and customized for customer requirements. Combined with global manufacturing operations, parts availability, and hands-on training programs for contractors and channel partners, Airsys is focused on supporting mission-critical environments where reliability is paramount.

Learn more about Airsys: https://airsysnorthamerica.com/

“Six G leaders are now going to be judged on how resilient the network is, how adaptive, how quickly it can recover from an issue,” says Stephen Douglas of Spirent, a Keysight company.

In this Technology Reseller News podcast, Doug Green speaks with Douglas about the accelerating 6G timeline and why service providers may need to begin planning for 6G business models sooner than many expected.

For years, 2030 was widely viewed as the point when the industry would begin looking seriously at 6G. Douglas says that assumption is changing. Pre-commercial 6G demonstration systems are now being discussed for 2028, with the first commercial 6G equipment and operator deployments potentially emerging in the mid-to-late 2029 timeframe.

The shift is being driven by rapid movement in standards, including 3GPP work on 6G radio, core network architecture, security, APIs, application enablement, management, orchestration and AI-based operational support. Douglas says this creates a compressed window for operators, vendors and ecosystem partners to test, validate and prepare for a new network generation that may arrive sooner than expected.

The podcast also looks at how 6G may differ from previous mobile generations. Rather than treating AI as an add-on, Douglas describes 6G as an AI-native network architecture, where AI is built into operations, orchestration, security, APIs and even the radio layer itself.

“What you’re seeing is a big shift, and AI is at the heart of that,” Douglas says. “That big shift is moving from an AI-assisted network to an AI-native network.”

That could allow networks to predict congestion, reconfigure network slices, detect threats, expose capabilities to third parties in real time and support new AI-driven services at the edge.

A major theme of the discussion is monetization. The 5G era delivered important technology advances, but many operators struggled to translate those advances into new revenue. Douglas argues that 6G gives service providers an opportunity to avoid repeating that pattern by developing new services, ecosystems and pricing models during the deployment phase, rather than waiting until after the network is built.

The conversation highlights several emerging 6G opportunity areas, including AI and communication, integrated sensing and communication, ubiquitous connectivity, immersive communication, massive communication and hyper-reliable low-latency communications. Douglas points in particular to integrated sensing, where the network could support services that use radio infrastructure to understand objects, environments and movement while also carrying traditional communications traffic.

Douglas also discusses the growing role of edge AI. As more AI inference moves from centralized data centers toward edge locations, devices and regional infrastructure, operators may have an opportunity to participate more directly in the AI economy. Instead of acting only as transport providers for AI traffic, service providers could support sovereign AI, low-latency inference, industrial computer vision and other AI-as-a-service models.

The key message for operators is that they do not need to wait for 6G to begin preparing. Douglas says 5G Advanced can serve as a bridge, allowing operators to test business models around sensing, edge compute, AI services and network-based awareness today, while building a roadmap toward 6G.

The winners in the 6G era, Douglas says, may not simply be the providers with the fastest networks. Success may be defined by intelligence, sensing and resilience — and by the ability to turn 6G capabilities into services that customers are willing to pay for from day one.

Learn more at keysight.com.

“If you don’t give feedback, you’re not helping them improve,” says Julie Thiel of TTS Company.

In this Technology Reseller News podcast, Doug Green speaks with Julie Thiel of TTS Company in the latest installment of an ongoing series on leadership, hiring and better management practices.

This episode focuses on one of the most common leadership challenges: the feedback conversations managers often delay. Thiel says many managers avoid these conversations because they hope the issue will resolve itself, they do not want to create awkwardness, or they simply do not know how to begin.

But waiting has a cost. Small performance issues can become repeated habits, and repeated habits can become larger organizational problems. Thiel says managers may also become increasingly frustrated, while employees are left unclear about what needs to change.

“One small action becomes ten small actions, which becomes a big problem,” says Thiel.

Thiel recommends a practical rule of thumb: if something happens once, give the employee some room. If it happens twice, there may be a knowledge or skill gap. By the third time, the manager needs to address it.

The conversation also offers a simple preparation framework for managers before giving feedback:

What specifically needs to improve?
Why does it matter?
What support can I provide?
What does success look like?

Thiel says feedback should not be viewed as criticism. Done well, it is a way to help the employee succeed, strengthen trust and build a better team.

“It really does build trust because people know where they stand,” says Thiel.

The podcast also discusses how managers can protect the relationship while giving feedback. Thiel encourages leaders to stick with observable facts, assume positive intent, listen as much as they talk, and ask questions such as, “What am I missing?”

TTS Company helps growing companies get HR and people issues off the plate of CEOs and founders, while also supporting larger HR teams with projects and added capacity. Thiel also previews The Vault, a leadership development community designed to provide practical, ongoing support for technology leaders.

Learn more at thettscompany.com

“The regulatory environment is actually forcing everybody to take some action,” says Alex Quilici, CEO of YouMail.

In this Technology Reseller News podcast for the Cloud Communications Alliance, Doug Green speaks with Alex Quilici, CEO of YouMail, about a new reseller opportunity around YouMail Protective Services.

Quilici says YouMail’s mission is to protect phone numbers. While YouMail is widely known for its consumer app that blocks robocalls, scam texts, spam calls and unwanted voicemail, the company is now bringing that intelligence to telecom providers, enterprises and resellers.

YouMail Protective Services uses data from consumer reports, app activity and the National Spam Reporting Center to help carriers and enterprises see what is happening with phone numbers from the outside. Quilici says this gives providers a broader view than traditional honeypot-based monitoring.

“Bad guys will target real consumer mobile phones,” says Quilici. “They’ll never show up anywhere else.”

The podcast outlines four core services: Score, a phone number reputation service; Watch, which monitors carrier networks from the outside; an enterprise version of Watch for call centers and business numbers; and Quash, which helps disrupt bad actors impersonating brands.

For resellers, Quilici says the opportunity is to add YouMail Protective Services to existing carrier offerings, including phone numbers, SIP trunking, compliance tools and robocall mitigation services. The services can be white labeled and integrated through an API into existing dashboards.

“This is a natural extension of more monitoring, more compliance,” says Quilici.

Implementation can be simple. Quilici says Watch can begin with something as basic as an SPC code, allowing YouMail to provide feedback on calls associated with that carrier identity. More advanced integrations can include phone number lists, CDRs and API connections.

Quilici says demand is being driven by regulation, compliance exposure and the growing need for carriers to demonstrate that they are taking robocall mitigation seriously.

“You can’t just point and say it’s somebody else’s problem,” says Quilici.

For resellers and MSPs, YouMail Protective Services offers a new way to help carriers and enterprises protect phone numbers, improve compliance and identify bad behavior earlier.

Learn more or request a demo at youmailps.com.

“The telecom industry is really in a state of need to migrate and evolve into a new state,” says Joe Dechant, Vice President of Product Transformation at TNS.

In this Technology Reseller News podcast, Doug Green speaks with Dechant about why communications service providers are rethinking voice infrastructure as legacy switching environments age, maintenance costs rise and specialized telecom expertise becomes harder to find.

“Voice is still mission critical,” Dechant notes, and that means modernization has to happen without disruption. CSPs are under pressure to support modern services such as UCaaS and CCaaS, but they also need to protect the reliability customers expect from core voice services.

Dechant discusses how TNS Voice Transit and Hosted Cloud Connect give providers a managed path away from aging infrastructure, helping them simplify operations, reduce complexity and move toward more flexible, cloud-based architectures.

The conversation is not just about replacing old switches. It is about giving CSPs a foundation for trusted, secure and scalable communications.

#Telecom #TechnologyResellerNews #CSP #VoiceInfrastructure #CloudCommunications #UCaaS #CCaaS #ManagedServices #NetworkModernization

“We are too close to the problem. Help us audit what we’re doing because we probably aren’t getting what we think we’re supposed to be getting.”

That is how Fornix CEO Charlene Ignacio describes the question many vendors are asking as they move into Q3 and Q4 planning. Marketing Development Funds are supposed to help vendors and partners drive growth, build market awareness and reach the right channel audience. But Ignacio says many companies may not have a clear enough view of how those dollars are actually being used, measured or translated into partner impact.

In this podcast, Doug Green, publisher of Technology Reseller News, speaks with Ignacio about Marketing Development Funds, channel execution and the need for a more disciplined look at what is working and what is not. As Channel Partners recedes into the rearview mirror and ChannelCon and other MSP events approach, the conversation focuses on how vendors can use this midyear moment to reassess their MDF strategy before the second half of 2026 gets away from them.

Ignacio says Fornix is helping vendors step back, audit their channel activity and better understand whether their programs are delivering the results they expect. That includes looking beyond activity alone and asking whether campaigns, partner outreach and MSP engagement are actually moving the needle.

The discussion also looks at the MSP audience Fornix serves: business owners who are trying to get out of the day-to-day seat of handling sales, marketing, PR and business development on their own, so they can focus more directly on partners, technology and preparing their businesses for AI.

Learn more at Fornix: https://fornixmarketing.com/

“Voice is its own modality.”

In this episode of the Technology Reseller News podcast, Doug Green speaks with Anoop Dawar, Chief Strategy Officer at Deepgram, about the infrastructure behind the voice AI economy and why production-grade voice agents require more than a strong demo.

Dawar says Deepgram is a real-time AI infrastructure company focused on helping machines understand human speech. The company’s roots are in machine learning and end-to-end deep learning, applied to one of the hardest problems in AI: understanding hundreds of languages, thousands of dialects, accents, intonation, vocabulary changes and real-world speech patterns.

For decades, Dawar says, humans have learned to speak machine through keyboards, programming languages, interfaces and apps. Deepgram’s mission is to reverse that pattern by helping machines learn to understand people.

The conversation explores why voice AI is different from text-based AI. Voice agents must understand not only words, but tone, emotion, background noise, accents, timing and conversational context. A word such as “hello” may carry different meaning depending on how it is spoken.

Dawar says it is relatively easy to build a voice AI demo in a controlled environment. The real challenge is making voice agents work in production. A restaurant drive-through, for example, may include freeway noise, trucks, music, children talking in the background and legacy audio equipment. In that environment, real-time voice AI has to understand the speaker immediately and respond correctly, with no opportunity to edit or revise the interaction after the fact.

“Real-time voice is unforgiving,” Dawar says. “There is no do-over.”

The podcast also looks at AI drift and the difference between deterministic software and probabilistic AI systems. Traditional systems produce predictable results. Voice AI systems, by contrast, operate in a world where language, customer behavior, environments and models can change. That means production systems must be monitored, tested and improved continuously.

For MSPs, channel partners, contact center providers, CPaaS providers and customer experience platforms, Dawar says voice AI should be understood as infrastructure, not simply as an application. Real-time voice agents depend on network performance, audio quality, data center infrastructure, latency, packet loss, jitter, speech recognition, language models and text-to-speech working together.

Looking ahead, Dawar sees a world of 24/7 AI agents working across voice, text, image and video. Voice will be a major part of that future, but it requires dedicated attention and infrastructure because it carries nuance that text alone cannot capture.

For Deepgram, the goal is to help developers, enterprises and partners build production-grade voice agents that work reliably in the real world, not just in the lab.

Learn more at deepgram.com

“When prevention has failed, what are you going to do?”

In this episode of the Technology Reseller News podcast, Doug Green speaks with Josh Howell, Healthcare CTO at Rubrik, about Rubrik’s recognition as an American Hospital Association Preferred Cybersecurity Provider and the growing need for cyber resilience in healthcare.

Howell says traditional backup systems were built for IT recovery, not modern ransomware attacks. Rubrik is designed for immutable data protection, helping healthcare organizations recover even if attackers gain high-level access inside the network.

The podcast explores why cybersecurity is now a patient care issue. When hospital systems go offline, care continues, but delays in lab results, diagnostics, appointments and treatment can create real clinical risk.

AI is also changing the threat landscape. Howell says defenders are using AI to classify and respond to threats, while attackers are using AI to move faster and exploit vulnerabilities more effectively.

The discussion also covers Rubrik Agent Cloud, which helps organizations place guardrails around AI agents and recover quickly if agentic AI causes damage or exposes sensitive data.

Howell says Rubrik focuses on “day two” resilience: what happens after prevention fails. For healthcare leaders, the message is clear: strong security matters, but hospitals also need a recovery strategy that can protect operations and patient care when attacks get through.

Learn more at rubrik.com

“Communication in the absence of details creates anxiety.”

In this episode of the Technology Reseller News podcast, Doug Green speaks with Harold Hardaway of Voix House about what leaders often miss when rolling out AI.

Hardaway says many organizations treat AI as a tooling decision, when it is really a change management challenge. Giving employees access to AI does not automatically create adoption, competence or business value. Leaders need to explain what is changing, how teams should use the technology and what success looks like.

The conversation also explores why AI adoption should be local and team-specific. Instead of trying to transform everything at once, organizations should identify specific workflows, test AI in practical ways, and build from what works.

Hardaway says AI can help draft content, messages and plans, but drafting is rarely the real bottleneck. The harder work is leadership alignment.

“Draft was never the bottleneck. Alignment was,” Hardaway says.

The podcast also looks at customer experience. AI can support routine updates and proactive communication, but in moments of consequence, customers often need a human in the loop.

For MSPs, service providers and enterprise leaders, the message is clear: successful AI rollout requires communication, governance, leadership alignment and room for teams to learn.

Learn more at voixhouse.com

“We want to do for assets what CRM did for customer records.”

In this episode of the Technology Reseller News podcast, Doug Green speaks with Tim Harris, CEO of SoloTruth, about the company’s new asset relationship management platform for enterprises and the opportunity it creates for asset-intensive organizations, MSPs and channel partners.

Harris says SoloTruth bridges the gap between the physical assets a company owns and the financial system of record, typically the ERP system. The goal is to make sure that what a company actually owns is accurately reflected in its books.

SoloTruth calls this asset relationship management, or ARM. Just as CRM evolved from a system for tracking contacts into a broader platform for managing customer relationships and the sales cycle, SoloTruth aims to provide a 360-degree view of enterprise assets.

The podcast explores a common problem in asset-heavy businesses: asset drift. A company may purchase a forklift, server, laptop, piece of telecom equipment or other capital asset, but over time that asset may be moved, misplaced, retired or replaced without the financial system being updated. Harris says this creates “ghost assets,” which no longer exist but remain on the books, and “zombie assets,” which exist in the field but are not reflected in the ERP.

For companies with large fixed-asset bases, the financial implications can be significant. Harris notes that for many manufacturing, logistics, healthcare, telecom and banking organizations, fixed assets can represent one of the largest categories on the balance sheet. Yet many companies only get an accurate view of those assets during periodic audits.

SoloTruth combines IoT-derived location data, including RFID and GPS technology, with human inspection data captured through a mobile app. That combination gives companies better visibility into both where an asset is located and what condition it is in. Harris says those two factors are critical to useful life, depreciation schedules, valuation, maintenance planning and proof of existence.

The company recently won an award for its approach, which combines IoT-based location tracking with human condition capture. Harris says that combination can help organizations keep their books in order continuously, rather than waiting for an annual audit or emergency review tied to financing, collateral, or M&A activity.

Harris says SoloTruth typically looks at payback period as the key customer metric. For companies with $100 million in fixed assets, he says the platform can generate roughly $1.5 million to $4 million per year in cost savings, with a payback period often below six months.

The podcast also looks at the channel opportunity. Harris says MSPs and channel partners already have relationships with customers and are often involved in placing assets into enterprise environments. SoloTruth can give partners a way to extend that relationship by helping customers track, inspect and manage assets after deployment.

For enterprises, the message is clear: better asset intelligence can reduce unnecessary capital spending, improve maintenance planning, support financing and M&A activity, and help ensure that the financial system reflects the real operating environment.

Learn more at solotruth.com

@Doug Green

8×8 is moving beyond communications as simple connectivity and into a broader role for communications as a source of action, intelligence and accountability.

In this podcast, we look at two recent 8×8 announcements posted on Technology Reseller News: 8×8 Resolve, a mobile-first critical communications and incident management solution for deskless and distributed workers, and 8×8 Pulse, a conversational intelligence solution that turns business conversations into insight.

“The real shift is that conversations are no longer just moments in time,” says Dhwani Soni, Global Vice President of Product Management at 8×8. “They are where work is coordinated, decisions are made, risks are surfaced and customer relationships are understood.”

8×8 Resolve addresses a practical enterprise problem: when something goes wrong, the people most affected may be the hardest to reach. Frontline employees in healthcare, retail, logistics, utilities, manufacturing and field services often do not sit at a desk, may not have corporate email, and may not be connected to the same tools used by office-based teams.

As outlined in the TR-posted announcement on 8×8 Resolve, the solution reaches workers through channels they actually use, including SMS, voice, WhatsApp and the 8×8 Work mobile app. Resolve can escalate until acknowledgment is confirmed and produce an exportable audit trail showing who was notified, when they responded and how the incident was handled.

The conversation also explores 8×8 Pulse. Businesses already generate valuable intelligence in calls, meetings, chats, emails, support tickets and customer conversations. Too often, that information remains scattered across recordings, transcripts, inboxes and systems of record.

“With Pulse, the conversation itself becomes a source of business memory,” says Soni. “That changes how leaders, account teams, customer success teams and frontline managers understand what is actually happening across the organization.”

As described in the TR-posted announcement on 8×8 Pulse, the product is built around the idea that business decisions increasingly happen inside conversations — and that those conversations can become a source of insight, context and action.

Taken together, Resolve and Pulse point to a larger platform strategy. Communications are becoming the place where organizations detect problems, coordinate responses, capture commitments, understand customers, manage risk and create a record of what happened.

For service providers, MSPs, channel partners and enterprise IT leaders, the message is clear: the next wave of cloud communications value will come from helping customers act on communications data, not simply move it from one endpoint to another.

• 8×8 Resolve: https://telecomreseller.com/2026/06/03/8×8-announces-8×8-resolve-a-critical-communications-solution-built-for-the-deskless-workforce/
• 8×8 Pulse: https://telecomreseller.com/2026/06/03/8×8-introduces-8×8-pulse-conversational-intelligence-built-for-where-decisions-are-made/
• Learn more at www.8×8.com.

“Governance is absolutely necessary. It’s no longer optional.”

In this episode of the Technology Reseller News podcast, Doug Green speaks with Rajesh Kari, Senior Director of Products and Solutions at Versa Networks, about the emerging security challenges created as agentic AI moves into live network and security operations.

Kari says Versa Networks is a leader in SASE, offering a unified platform that brings together networking, security and operations across enterprise infrastructure. As AI becomes more embedded in operations, Versa is focused on a new zero trust challenge: controlling not only users and devices, but also the hidden AI-driven sub-actions that can touch production systems.

Kari explains that agentic AI is different from traditional AI because it can take action on behalf of users. Rather than simply answering a prompt or returning information, an agent may break a task into sub-queries, call APIs, use credentials, access systems and make changes inside the infrastructure. Those hidden sub-queries can create risk if organizations cannot see, validate and govern what the agent is doing.

“People build agents. They know what the objective of the agents are,” Kari says. “But under the hood, what the agent actually deploys, which APIs it accesses, and what kinds of authorization and authentication it leverages can be unknown.”

The podcast explores how this creates new exposure for enterprises, MSPs and channel partners. If an AI agent gains access to credentials or production systems, organizations need constant verification, validation and governance around each action. Kari says agentic AI can also hallucinate or generate unnecessary sub-queries, creating additional security and operational risk.

Versa is addressing this through Versa Verbo and its Zero Trust MCP architecture. Verbo is designed to help network practitioners gain visibility, management and analytics through natural language interactions. Instead of searching through hundreds of alerts or dashboards, operators can ask questions about outages, performance issues, configuration changes, security incidents and branch health.

The Zero Trust MCP architecture extends that capability by applying governance and access control to AI-driven actions. Kari says this enables AI models and agents to query Versa infrastructure securely, while maintaining controls around authentication, authorization, APIs and operational workflows.

For MSPs and channel partners, Kari sees an important opportunity. Many organizations want to deploy AI quickly but do not have the internal capability to build governance infrastructure around it. Partners that develop practices around policy architecture, deployment, ongoing governance and human-in-the-loop approval can help customers adopt agentic AI more safely.

Kari says AI operations copilots are becoming standard in SASE and network platforms. Network teams, infrastructure managers and executives increasingly want to use natural language to understand the health of their infrastructure instead of relying only on dashboards. But as those tools become more powerful, governance becomes the deciding factor in adoption.

“If the agent has gained access into certain files or visuals which has violated any particular compliance standards, it becomes the responsibility of the organization to prove it,” Kari says.

For Versa, the message is clear: agentic AI can simplify operations and accelerate decision-making, but it must be governed from the beginning. Zero trust principles need to be built into every AI agent connection.

Learn more at www.versa-networks.com

“Running a business, running a network, is really about making good decisions. And to make good decisions, you have to base that on good data.”

In this episode of the Technology Reseller News podcast, Doug Green speaks with Jezzibell Gillmore, General Manager and Vice President, Service Provider at Kentik, about how AI workloads, rising data volumes and infrastructure complexity are creating new operational challenges for service providers.

Gillmore describes Kentik as a network intelligence company that uses NetFlow, SNMP, synthetic testing, streaming telemetry and data enrichment to provide actionable insights for organizations that rely on networks to run their businesses. As networks generate more data than humans can easily interpret, Kentik helps service providers understand what traffic means, where it is coming from, where it is going, and how it affects customers, performance and profitability.

The conversation focuses on the growing infrastructure demands associated with AI. Gillmore says the industry is preparing for a significant rise in AI-driven traffic, particularly east-west traffic between servers and data centers. While the full impact has not yet arrived, service providers are already seeing signs of what may be ahead as GPU deployments, data center power demands and high-capacity interconnect requirements continue to grow.

Gillmore notes that service providers will face pressure not only from higher traffic volumes, but also from the physical realities of network expansion. Adding capacity is not always as simple as turning up another wavelength. Providers may need to plan new fiber routes, obtain permits, expand conduit capacity and manage the long timelines associated with physical infrastructure.

The podcast also explores where service providers are likely to encounter operational blind spots. Gillmore says resiliency is moving from a “good to have” to a mission-critical requirement. At the same time, traditional observability tools were built for an earlier era and may not provide enough visibility into encrypted traffic, hybrid cloud, east-west AI traffic, GPU-to-GPU telemetry and increasingly complex routing environments.

For Gillmore, the shift is from passive observability to actionable network intelligence. Traditional tools may show what happened over the last 30 days, but AI-era networks require near real-time insight that can help operators make better decisions immediately.

She also points to a growing skills challenge. Many of the engineers who helped build the internet are retiring, while newer engineers may be strong in automation and code but have less deep operational experience. Machine-assisted insight can help bridge that gap by giving teams clearer guidance and better context.

For service providers, the message is clear: AI-driven demand will require better visibility, stronger resiliency and more intelligent operations. Gillmore says providers should begin by identifying gaps in their networks and evaluating how network intelligence can improve efficiency, customer experience and business value.

Learn more at kentik.com

“Infrastructure is increasingly becoming a control point for AI enablement and productivity.”

In this episode of the Technology Reseller News podcast, Doug Green speaks with Shashi Kiran, Chief Marketing Officer at Nile, about why infrastructure is moving back to the center of enterprise strategy, budgeting and AI readiness.

Kiran says Nile is modernizing enterprise networks with what it describes as the world’s most secure network delivered as a service. The company provides wired and wireless local area networking for mid-size and large enterprises, with security built in and operations managed across the lifecycle.

The conversation focuses on a growing reality for enterprises: AI may appear to live in applications, cloud platforms and user devices, but its success depends on the infrastructure underneath. As organizations rethink AI adoption, infrastructure decisions are becoming long-term strategic decisions again.

Unlike software, Kiran notes, infrastructure cannot simply be changed overnight. Network decisions often shape cost, security, agility and business performance for years. A poor infrastructure choice can become a drag on the rest of the organization’s technology investment.

Kiran says this is driving renewed interest in network as a service. In the modern model, he says, network as a service is not simply a managed provider operating someone else’s technology. Instead, Nile builds, owns and operates the technology, giving customers a single accountable partner across the full value chain.

For Nile, the focus is the enterprise edge: campuses, branches, users, devices, IoT and, increasingly, AI agents. Kiran says that part of the network has often been overlooked while much of the industry focused on data centers and cloud. Yet it is also where complexity, operational cost and security exposure are often highest.

Nile’s approach is built around simplifying that environment. Kiran describes a clean-slate architecture with wired and wireless connectivity, zero trust principles, identity-based authentication, security built in, and autonomous operations. Nile also backs its service with performance SLAs and financial penalties.

Kiran says the results can include lower complexity, faster change management, reduced breach exposure and significant savings. He says customers typically see cost reductions of 30% to 50% at a minimum, along with faster deployment and change cycles.

As enterprises plan for the next several years, Kiran says infrastructure will become even more important as organizations work to become more AI-native. The companies that move away from legacy models and adopt more agile infrastructure approaches will be better positioned to support AI, improve productivity, reduce cost and strengthen security.

Learn more at nilesecure.com

Heltewig describes Cognigy as becoming an enterprise AI layer across the NICE technology stack, bringing conversational and agentic AI capabilities deeper into the company’s products. The discussion looks at the progress of the integration, the strategic thinking behind the move, and how Heltewig’s team is helping shape NICE’s broader AI roadmap.

The conversation also points to a larger shift in customer experience. AI is moving beyond isolated tools and standalone chatbots toward embedded capabilities that can support automation, orchestration and intelligent engagement across enterprise operations. For NICE, the integration of Cognigy is part of that broader move toward AI operating across the stack.

Heltewig also discusses current AI initiatives, product innovation and the future of enterprise AI inside the NICE ecosystem. As customer experience platforms become more AI-driven, the focus is shifting from experimentation to real-world deployment, enterprise readiness and measurable business outcomes.

For partners and technology providers, the podcast highlights an important channel opportunity. As AI becomes more central to contact center, service, workforce and analytics strategies, customers will need help understanding where AI fits, how it connects to existing systems and how it can improve both customer experience and operational performance.

Learn more: https://www.nice.com/

“It’s the first time we’ve had a really global effort around bringing our partnerships together.”

Dorothy Copeland, Chief Channel Partner Officer at NiCE, joined the Technology Reseller News Podcast at NiCE World to discuss her vision for the company’s partner strategy following her appointment earlier this year.

Copeland joined NiCE in January as the company’s first partner officer, a role created to bring together the company’s global partner efforts and strengthen its channel organization.

NiCE is leaning more deeply into its partner ecosystem as both a source of growth and a source of scale. Copeland’s work includes building a global partner organization, growing partner revenue, strengthening enablement, and ensuring partners have the capabilities needed to support customer implementations.

The conversation also explored the changing role of agents, trusted advisors, and MSPs as customer needs evolve. Copeland noted that AI is creating greater demand for managed services and end-to-end customer support.

“One of the changes with AI is that customers need more of a managed services approach,” Copeland said.

For channel partners, that shift creates an opportunity to move beyond initial customer relationships and participate more fully across the customer’s CX journey, from strategy and deployment to ongoing support and optimization.

Copeland also discussed the development of NiCE’s first formal channel program, the importance of partner enablement, and the company’s broader commitment to building an ecosystem that supports long-term partner success.

Learn more at NiCE.

“The best learning is actually to learn by doing.”

In this episode of the Technology Reseller News podcast, Doug Green speaks with Carlos Pereira, Cisco Fellow and Chief Architect, Customer Experience, about Cisco IQ and how Cisco is using AI, lifecycle intelligence and customer experience to help enterprises better understand, secure and future-proof their environments.

Pereira says Cisco IQ reflects a broader shift in how customer experience is being delivered. At Cisco, CX is not treated as something that begins after a product is deployed. It spans the full lifecycle: land, adopt, expand and renew, with support embedded throughout. That lifecycle view is especially important because more than 95% of Cisco’s business is indirect through partners, and more than half of Cisco’s revenue is recurring.

Cisco IQ, which became generally available in April, is designed to give customers visibility across the Cisco assets they own, including devices that may be approaching or past end of sale or end of support. Pereira notes that many Cisco products remain in production for years because they are reliable, but long-running environments can create risk if older software, unsupported assets or unpatched vulnerabilities remain in place.

With Cisco IQ, customers can see more of their environment, understand lifecycle status, assess security exposure and receive AI-driven insights tied to their own deployments. Pereira says that visibility becomes more important as AI accelerates the speed of both operations and threats.

“The speed has changed because the adversary is now faster than what you think your ability to move,” Pereira says.

The podcast also looks at how Cisco IQ fits with Cisco Cloud Control, announced at Cisco Live. Pereira explains that Cisco Cloud Control brings product operations together through an agentic interface, while Cisco IQ focuses on lifecycle visibility, entitlement, assets, security assessments, performance and operational insight. Together, the two offerings reflect Cisco’s effort to combine AI-driven operations with full lifecycle intelligence.

A major theme of the conversation is future-proofing the enterprise. Pereira says Cisco IQ can help customers identify assets that may pose security or operational risks, including devices past last day of support or software exposed to newly discovered vulnerabilities. Cisco IQ can also support assessments around emerging concerns such as quantum readiness, including hardware, software and cryptographic materials.

Pereira also discusses why Cisco designed Cisco IQ to support multiple deployment models from the beginning. Cisco IQ can run as SaaS, on-premises tethered, or on-premises air-gapped. That matters for customers with government, sovereignty, security or isolation requirements who still need AI-driven insight without compromising deployment constraints.

For partners, Cisco IQ creates a new way to engage customers around lifecycle management, security posture, renewals and modernization. Instead of waiting for problems to emerge, partners can use Cisco IQ to help customers understand what they have, where risks exist and how to prioritize action.

Looking ahead, Pereira says the second half of 2026 will be less about AI hype and more about applying AI to business workflows with measurable ROI. In areas such as security and identity operations, the need for speed, visibility and lifecycle intelligence will only increase.

Pereira encourages Cisco customers with support entitlements to begin using Cisco IQ directly at iq.cisco.com. Because Cisco IQ includes personalized, AI-driven documentation and insights, he says the best way to understand the platform is to self-onboard and begin using it.

Learn more at cisco.com

Cisco IQ: iq.cisco.com

“Everything is fighting for your attention.”

In this episode of the Technology Reseller News podcast, Doug Green speaks with Gerry Christensen, trusted industry strategist at ICA AI, about the future of business-to-consumer communications, AI-powered voice solutions, and how enterprises, carriers, MSPs and channel partners can prepare for a post-agentic AI communications environment.

Christensen says ICA AI is focused on making it easier for consumers and businesses to engage with the calls and messages they actually want, while filtering out the unwanted traffic. The company uses AI, including deterministic AI, to help determine whether a call should be allowed through, blocked, or handled through an AI-powered interaction layer.

The conversation looks ahead to a future where AI is increasingly used for outbound calls, contact center interactions, appointment setting, collections, notifications and even person-to-person communications. Christensen says AI-to-AI interactions are likely to become more common, where one person’s AI assistant may interact with another person’s AI assistant before a human conversation ever takes place.

That future, he says, will require governance, transparency and trust. Consumers may accept AI-driven communication, but they will want to know when AI is being used and whether the entity behind the call can be trusted.

“What matters is, do you trust who’s calling you?” Christensen says.

The podcast also explores the risks of AI being used by bad actors. Agentic AI can automate useful workflows, but the same capabilities can also be used to create more convincing fraud, impersonation and scam attempts. Christensen says that is why solutions such as ICA AI will become increasingly important as AI-powered communications become more common.

For enterprises, the implications are significant. Contact centers, collections teams, healthcare organizations, appointment-setting operations and customer service groups may all use AI to reach consumers more efficiently. At the same time, they will need systems that help ensure legitimate calls get through while unwanted or harmful traffic is blocked.

Christensen describes ICA AI’s current approach in three parts: allow calls that should go through, block known bad calls, and use AI to handle the middle ground where additional screening or interaction is needed. That middle ground may become especially important as consumers increasingly rely on their own AI tools to manage communications.

For MSPs, channel partners and carriers, Christensen says there is also an opportunity. ICA AI is developing channel partnerships and licensing its technology to carriers, creating a path for providers to bring AI-powered call protection and engagement tools to their customers.

As AI becomes more deeply embedded in communications, Christensen says the industry needs to prepare now. The future may include dynamic AI-to-AI exchanges, more intelligent call handling, and new ways for consumers to control their attention. But that future will also demand trust, accountability and stronger protections against abuse.

Learn more at icatrusted.ai

“AI can be perfect, but it can’t care.”

In this episode of the Technology Reseller News podcast, Doug Green speaks with Dan Rochon, author of Teach to Sell: Why Top Salespeople Never Sell and What They Do Instead, about trust, influence, and why the best sales conversations begin with teaching rather than pitching.

Rochon says Teach to Sell is about ethical influence. For MSPs, service providers, technology resellers, and channel partners, that means moving beyond product-first selling and becoming a guide who helps customers understand their own needs, problems, and desired outcomes.

The conversation comes at a time when AI is changing how buyers are approached, how salespeople prepare, and how marketing messages are created. Rochon says AI can help with research and preparation, but it cannot replace the human connection that creates trust.

“Technology can give us more information than ever before,” Rochon says. “But only human beings can give us trust.”

Rochon outlines a sales approach built around rapport, deeper questions, and active listening. Instead of telling a customer what their problem is, the salesperson should guide the customer to discover it. He argues that the product or service should be presented as the bridge between the customer’s pain and the result they want to achieve.

For channel partners and MSPs, Rochon’s message aligns closely with the long-running idea of becoming a trusted advisor. Customers do not simply need another vendor selling tools, subscriptions, or services. They need someone who understands their business, asks the right questions, and helps them make better decisions.

The podcast also explores renewals and recurring revenue. Rochon says salespeople should not be afraid to revisit customers when they believe their product or service is genuinely helping. Maintaining an existing customer is often easier than winning a new one, but it still requires confidence, communication, and a commitment to guiding the customer.

Rochon says Teach to Sell is designed for people who are tired of pitching and want better conversations, shorter sales cycles, stronger trust, and more consistent revenue.

Learn more at www.teachtosellbook.com

“We want everybody to be a spam reporter.”

In this special Cloud Communications Alliance and Technology Reseller News podcast, Doug Green speaks with Alex Quilici, CEO of YouMail, about the launch of the National Spam Reporting Center, a new consumer-facing resource designed to make it easier to report spam, scam calls, robotexts, and other suspicious communications.

The new site, spamreporters.com, is intended to give consumers one simple place to report unwanted or fraudulent communications. Quilici says the problem today is confusion. If a consumer receives a text, robocall, or email impersonating a bank, retailer, insurance provider, or government agency, it is not always clear where that person should go or who should be notified.

YouMail created the National Spam Reporting Center to simplify that process. Consumers can go to spamreporters.com, upload a screenshot or report, and YouMail can then use that information to help identify patterns, alert carriers, and support faster action against abusive campaigns.

“The key thing is we act on them,” Quilici says.

The podcast explores how these reports can benefit multiple groups. Consumers get a simple reporting path. Carriers can receive evidence about numbers or campaigns that may need to be shut down. Banks, e-commerce companies, insurers, and other frequently impersonated brands can gain better visibility into abuse targeting their customers.

Quilici points to current scam activity around health insurance, Medicare, preapproved loans, and impersonation campaigns as examples of where consumer reporting can provide important signals. In some cases, consumer reports can help distinguish between legitimate communications and suspicious campaigns.

The discussion also looks at the challenge facing legitimate businesses. Many organizations depend on calls and texts to reach customers about appointments, service updates, reminders, and other important matters. But when those calls are mislabeled as spam, consumers do not answer. That has led some legitimate businesses to use large pools of numbers in an effort to reach customers, a technique that can resemble the behavior of scammers.

Quilici says better reporting and faster analysis can help reduce that confusion, protect consumers, and improve the ability of legitimate businesses to reach customers.

YouMail does not expect the National Spam Reporting Center to eliminate the entire scam and spam problem. The goal is to reduce the damage by moving faster, using consumer-submitted reports, carrier relationships, and YouMail’s existing data to identify abuse and support action before larger enforcement processes run their course.

For service providers, enterprises, brands, and consumers, the message is clear: spam and scam prevention improves when more people can report what they are seeing and when that information can be acted on quickly.

Learn more at spamreporters.com

Learn more about YouMail at www.youmail.com

@Doug Green

“AI is no longer a debate. Enterprises are already using it. The question now is whether the network is ready to support what comes next,” says Marek Wasilewski of Expereo.

In this Cisco Live 2026 podcast, Doug Green speaks with Marek Wasilewski of Expereo about the company’s 2026 Enterprise Horizons report and what it reveals about enterprise AI adoption, network readiness and the growing pressure on global connectivity.

This is one of several Cisco Live podcasts worth revisiting after the initial wave of show coverage. The conversation provides interesting insights into how AI is changing the network conversation for enterprises, service providers and channel partners.

According to Expereo’s research, 92% of enterprises are using AI in some form, while 30% are already using it extensively. At the same time, 70% are investing in AI without carefully measuring ROI. That combination creates both opportunity and risk: enterprises are moving quickly, but many are still building on networks that were not designed for the scale, performance and resilience demands of AI-driven operations.

Expereo, a global Network-as-a-Service provider, helps enterprises simplify and manage connectivity across complex international environments. In the podcast, Wasilewski explains why AI success depends not only on models, applications and cloud platforms, but also on the underlying network that connects users, data, workloads and business locations.

For channel partners, MSPs and enterprise technology leaders, the message is clear: AI is making the network strategic again. Connectivity is no longer just plumbing. It is becoming a core part of digital transformation, customer experience, automation and business continuity.

The conversation also explores how enterprises can think more clearly about AI investment, how global connectivity strategies are changing, and why network visibility, flexibility and reliability will matter even more as AI moves from pilot projects into production environments.

Learn more: expereo.com

@Doug Green, Publisher, Technology Reseller News

“The network is hot again because a lot more data is traversing on it, and a lot more data will traverse on it,” says Sarbjeet Johal of Stackpane.

In this Technology Reseller News podcast, Doug Green speaks with Sarbjeet Johal, Founder and CEO of Stackpane, technology analyst, cloud strategist and go-to-market specialist, about why the network has moved back to the center of the enterprise technology conversation.

Johal brings an unique mix of technical, business and economics experience to the discussion. A veteran of VMware, Oracle and Dell EMC, Johal has spent decades building and deploying enterprise systems, advising technology providers, and helping buyers understand cloud strategy, infrastructure modernization and digital transformation.

At Cisco Live, Johal says the biggest theme was simplification. Cisco, he argues, is working to reduce infrastructure complexity for customers operating across public cloud, on-premises systems, AI workloads and increasingly distributed environments. That includes a renewed focus on infrastructure as code, platform control, and AI-assisted tools such as Cisco IQ, which Johal says can help customers and partners troubleshoot, configure and operate Cisco environments more effectively.

The conversation then turns to Johal’s recent observation that “the network is hot again.” His point is that AI, real-time systems, digital services, autonomous agents, and API-driven interactions are all placing new demands on network performance. As more data moves across enterprise systems, latency, memory, compute, and connectivity become more strategically important. Johal notes that during AI inference, latency is especially critical, making the network, chips, CPUs, and memory all part of the same infrastructure story.

Johal also frames the issue through systems economics. Enterprises are not simply buying more technology for the sake of modernization. They are being forced to ask whether cloud, AI, on-prem infrastructure, and automation actually pencil out in terms of total cost of ownership, return on investment, and operational value. For MSPs, channel partners, and technology providers, that creates an opportunity to help customers make better architecture decisions, not just consume more tools.

The podcast closes with a look ahead to a future conversation on token economics, AI infrastructure costs, and where MSPs and channel partners can find real business opportunity as enterprise technology becomes more automated, more data-intensive, and more dependent on resilient network infrastructure.

Editor’s note: This podcast was recorded at Cisco Live in Las Vegas and is being posted later. With time, the conversation has become even more notable. Johal’s central point — that the network is “hot again” — has only gained relevance as AI, automation, cloud infrastructure and real-time digital services continue to place new pressure on enterprise networks.

Learn more: Stackpane at stackpane.com

We sat down with Jake Wilcox, Omni-Channel Solutions Architect at Geisinger, to discuss the critical role of context in delivering exceptional customer and patient experiences. Wilcox explained how organizations can reduce friction by ensuring information flows seamlessly across departments and touchpoints, enabling more personalized and efficient interactions. The conversation also examined the business impact of disconnected experiences, the risks friction poses to customer satisfaction and organizational performance, and key considerations for deploying AI-powered solutions in healthcare and other highly regulated environments.

In this episode, Dan Belanger, President of the Americas at NiCE, reveals how strategic partner enablement drives success in the technology channel. He shares NiCE’s go-to-market approach, emphasizing how equipping partners with the right tools, preventing overlap, and aligning sales teams creates scalable growth across the Americas.

At NiCE World 2026, Moshe Beauford, Technology Editor at Technology Reseller News, sat down with Justin Robbins, CEO and Founder of Metric Sherpa, for a wide-ranging conversation on the evolving role of AI in customer experience and decision-making process during the technology purchasing phase. Robbins shared insights into his entrepreneurial journey, the growth of Metric Sherpa, and his participation at the event. The discussion explores the current state of AI adoption, practical implementation challenges, strategies for evaluating AI investments, and how organizations can make smarter technology purchasing decisions in an increasingly crowded market.

“We’re absolutely on the path, and we’re not talking five, six, seven years. We’re talking in the next 18 to 24 months.”

In this episode of the Technology Reseller News podcast, Doug Green speaks with Josh Kindiger, COO and co-founder of Grokstream, about the company’s new L1 Agent and what it means for the future of AI-driven network and IT operations.

Grokstream is the company behind Grok, an AI-powered predictive agent platform for network and IT operations. The platform comes out of the event intelligence and AIOps space and is designed to help operations teams identify, triage, and resolve recurring issues more efficiently.

Kindiger says Grokstream recently released its first role-based agent, the L1 Agent, in beta. The full production release is expected in Q2. The agent is already being used with customers to prove out real-world capabilities.

Because many organizations remain cautious about AI-driven automation, Grokstream is starting with low-risk, repeatable use cases. In many operations centers, Kindiger notes, the same incidents occur repeatedly, sometimes accounting for as much as 70% of activity. The L1 Agent is designed to recognize those patterns and guide operators through triage and resolution.

For example, if a recurring issue requires a service restart, the system can recommend or automate that step. If a pattern points to a commercial power outage at a site, the agent can help avoid unnecessary dispatches while monitoring backup power systems.

Kindiger says the goal is not to remove human oversight immediately, but to build trust through guardrails, staged automation, and operator control. Low-risk automations can be handled end to end, while higher-risk actions may require human approval.

The podcast also explores the broader opportunity for enterprises, MSPs, and CSPs. Kindiger says service providers and managed service providers face growing pressure to improve efficiency, reduce costs, and differentiate in competitive markets. AI-driven operations can help them respond faster, lower manual workload, and deliver better service outcomes.

The long-term direction is clear: autonomous network operations are coming. Kindiger says companies should begin now because foundational work is needed before they can fully benefit from automation.

For MSPs and CSPs, he says the urgency is even greater. Cost pressure is shaping renewals and new customer wins, and AI-powered operations may become a competitive advantage.

Learn more at www.grokstream.com

“AI is generating code, but it’s not generating secure code.”

In this episode of the Technology Reseller News podcast, Doug Green speaks with Jonathan Kozimor, Vice President of Channel Americas at Checkmarx, about the company’s next-generation SAST engine and the growing opportunity for MSPs and channel partners in application security.

Kozimor says software development has changed dramatically. Developers are producing more code, AI is accelerating that process, and traditional security models are struggling to keep up. The old approach of writing code, scanning it, and fixing issues later is no longer enough.

Checkmarx’s new SAST engine is designed to reduce noise, false positives, and lack of context by helping teams focus on the vulnerabilities that matter most.

“The industry does not need more vulnerability data,” Kozimor says. “Security teams already have plenty of findings. What they need is intelligence, and they need faster fixes.”

The podcast also explores findings from recent Checkmarx research, including the gap between security awareness and execution. Kozimor notes that many organizations understand the risks, but still struggle to operationalize security at the speed of modern development.

Looking ahead, Kozimor says AppSec must become more automated, more intelligent, and more deeply embedded in the development lifecycle. AI will play a role, but it must be paired with governance, security policy, and human oversight.

For channel partners, the opportunity is clear. Customers need help modernizing AppSec, managing change, and embedding security into development workflows without slowing innovation.

“This is where the partner ecosystem is fundamental to customer success,” Kozimor says.

Learn more at www.checkmarx.com

In this Telecom Reseller podcast, Doug Green speaks with Thiel about how MSPs, channel partners and growing technology businesses can strengthen leadership, retention and performance through everyday interactions with employees.

Thiel says HR is often misunderstood as paperwork, compliance or “the fun police.” In reality, she says, effective people practices are about leadership and helping businesses grow. For smaller entrepreneurial companies, that means building trust with employees through regular conversations, follow-through, recognition and simple moments of human connection.

The discussion focuses on the idea that leadership is not built only through major decisions or formal speeches. It is built through small, repeated actions: asking how someone is doing, remembering what matters to them, listening a little longer, and making time for regular one-on-one conversations.

Thiel says those small moments can make difficult conversations easier later, whether a manager needs to give feedback, address a client issue or ask an employee to take on new responsibilities. When trust already exists, employees are more likely to hear feedback constructively and bring forward ideas, concerns and opportunities.

For MSPs and channel companies that may not be able to compete with larger employers on compensation alone, Thiel says relationship-building can become a competitive advantage. Smaller businesses can often offer flexibility, development opportunities and direct access to customers in ways larger organizations cannot.

The conversation also connects leadership and trust to company value. Thiel says businesses with stable teams, low turnover and developing leaders are better positioned for growth, succession and potential acquisition.

Learn more at thettscompany.com.

In this Telecom Reseller podcast, Doug Green speaks with Katz about National Retail Solutions, its relationship with IDT, and the continuing opportunity for telecom resellers, MSPs and channel partners to serve independent retailers.

Katz explains that National Retail Solutions was built to help independent merchants gain access to the tools they need to compete, including point-of-sale systems, credit card processing, cash advance, payroll and related business services. The company now serves more than 35,000 locations.

Katz says NRS grew out of IDT’s long-standing relationship with independent retailers, many of which were already selling telecom products. That connection helped NRS recognize that small merchants needed practical, easy-to-use technology to remain competitive as e-commerce, delivery, AI and digital payments reshape retail.

The discussion also looks at the importance of local stores in their communities. Katz says independent retailers often have close relationships with their customers, giving them a level of service and flexibility that larger chains may not offer.

For telecom resellers and channel partners, Katz says the retail community remains a strong opportunity. Many already have relationships with small businesses and can add value by bringing them technology and services that help them operate more efficiently.

Katz also discusses NRS retailer networking meetups, which bring merchants and business partners together to share ideas, learn from one another and identify new opportunities.

Learn more at NRSplus.com.

In this Telecom Reseller podcast, Doug Green speaks with Cheng about Sinch’s new research on what the company calls the “AI production paradox.” While many enterprises have moved beyond AI pilots, the bigger challenge is keeping AI agents reliable once they are live.

Cheng says Sinch surveyed more than 2,500 global enterprise executives and found that 62% already have AI programs in production. But 74% also reported having to roll back a live AI agent because of operational reliability issues, including exposed data, hallucinations, tone-of-voice problems, auditability gaps and compliance concerns.

The discussion focuses on why AI agents often perform well in controlled testing, but encounter problems when exposed to real customer interactions. Cheng says enterprises need stronger governance, clearer guardrails and communications infrastructure that can support secure, reliable, multichannel customer engagement.

“More monitoring means more failures are detected,” Cheng says. “It does not mean more failures are created.”

Cheng also explains why infrastructure is becoming central to enterprise AI strategy. If messages are not delivered, channels cannot be connected, or customer context cannot move across SMS, WhatsApp, RCS, voice and email, AI-powered customer engagement can break down before the model itself becomes the issue.

For enterprises operating across markets, industries and regulatory environments, Cheng says Sinch helps provide the communications foundation needed to support scale, compliance and customer experience.

Visit sinch.com.

In this Telecom Reseller podcast, Doug Green speaks with Christensen about ICA AI’s Plus Trusted platform, an AI-based communications assistant designed to help manage unwanted, suspicious and trusted calls.

Christensen explains that Plus Trusted is built around three basic call treatments: block known bad calls, interrogate questionable calls using AI, or allow trusted calls to pass through normally. The platform uses caller behavior, number reputation and the relationship between the calling and called parties to determine whether a trusted relationship exists before the phone rings.

While ICA AI can use probabilistic AI in gray-area situations, Christensen says the company emphasizes deterministic AI because many calls can be handled based on known patterns and trusted relationships.

The discussion also looks at the growing threat of AI-enabled robocalls, voice cloning and social engineering. Christensen says that as bad actors use AI to automate and personalize attacks, users and organizations will need AI-based protection on their side of the call.

For UCaaS providers, MVNOs, MSPs and channel partners, Christensen says Plus Trusted creates a new opportunity to help customers reduce unwanted calls while preserving legitimate communications. The platform is designed to interoperate with existing carriers and communications platforms.

“We consider ourselves Switzerland,” Christensen says. “You don’t have to be on a specific UCaaS platform. You don’t have to have a specific carrier.”

Visit icatrusted.ai.

By Doug Green

“We’re a partner-first company. It is in our DNA,” says Patrick Sheehan, Vice President of Channel Development and Distribution at Intermedia.

In this episode of Technology Reseller News, recorded for the CCA community, I spoke with Patrick Sheehan, Vice President of Channel Development and Distribution at Intermedia, about a new approach to helping channel partners grow recurring revenue while reducing operational complexity.

Intermedia describes itself as an intelligent cloud communications provider, bringing voice, video, messaging, contact center, collaboration and related services into one seamless, AI-powered platform. Sheehan noted that Intermedia supports thousands of partners and more than 150,000 businesses, with a strong focus on helping partners look good and keeping customers happy.

The central topic of the conversation was Intermedia’s Co-Op Partner Model, a program designed for partners who want to retain control over customer relationships and pricing, while Intermedia handles many of the back-end operational burdens that can slow growth.

For many partners, cloud communications, AI, Microsoft Teams integration, and contact center services represent significant opportunities. But traditional models can also add complexity to billing, taxation, collections, support and administration. The Co-Op model is designed to remove much of that friction.

With Co-Op, partners can maintain ownership of the customer relationship while Intermedia provides the operational infrastructure behind the scenes. That allows partners to focus on selling, serving customers and expanding existing accounts into new recurring revenue streams, with the potential to earn up to 2X more in profit compared to traditional models.

Sheehan also discussed where partners may be leaving money on the table. Existing customer relationships often contain opportunities for voice, collaboration, AI-enabled communications, customer experience tools and Microsoft Teams-related services. By simplifying the path to offer those services, Intermedia is encouraging partners to revisit accounts they already know well.

The conversation also covered Intermedia’s broader partner-first strategy, including its focus on customer service, technical support and reliability. Sheehan highlighted Intermedia’s ninth consecutive J.D. Power recognition for assisted technical support, along with the company’s financially backed 99.999% uptime service-level agreement.

For partners that have not engaged with Intermedia recently, Sheehan’s message was direct: the opportunity has changed. Cloud communications is no longer just about replacing phone systems. It is about helping customers modernize communications, improve customer experience, adopt AI-enabled tools and create more flexible ways to work.

The Co-Op model gives partners another way to participate in that opportunity without having to rebuild their own operations.

Learn more about becoming an Intermedia partner.

Read more about Intermedia’s Co-Op program.

“EnvisionDX helps you from the entire lifecycle — from adding a new site and getting a quote going, all the way through service delivery, monitoring and management.”

In this Technology Reseller News Podcast, I spoke with Laura Lehman, Director of Digital Experience Product Management at GTT, about GTT EnvisionDX and how the platform is changing the way enterprises and partners quote, order and manage complex networking and security services.

For enterprise IT teams and channel partners, one of the persistent challenges in global networking has been fragmentation. Quoting new services, validating site addresses, checking availability, managing installs and monitoring service performance have often required multiple systems, manual processes and repeated follow-up.

Lehman explained that EnvisionDX was built to bring those workflows into a single digital experience. The platform provides visibility across the full lifecycle of a customer’s network services, from initial quote through delivery and ongoing management.

A key part of the discussion focused on real-time information. EnvisionDX allows users to see site-level details, service status, utilization and other operational data in one place. That matters because enterprise networks are increasingly distributed, with customers managing multiple locations, providers, security requirements and service types.

Lehman also discussed one of the most common pain points in telecom quoting: address validation. EnvisionDX uses multiple address-validation tools, map-based views and latitude/longitude data to help users confirm exactly where a service is needed. The system allows a user to adjust a location pin on a map, helping improve quoting accuracy and reduce the risk of rework later in the process.

The platform also highlights GTT’s use of AI-powered tools to streamline partner and customer workflows. EnvisionDX supports more automated quoting and ordering processes, while giving users clearer visibility into the location, service and operational details that often determine whether a deployment goes smoothly.

For partners, the result is a faster, more transparent quoting process. For enterprises, the benefit is greater confidence that services are being quoted, ordered and delivered based on accurate location and site-level information.

The broader message is that enterprise networking is moving away from fragmented service portals and manual workflows toward unified digital platforms. EnvisionDX is GTT’s effort to simplify that experience, giving customers and partners a clearer view of what they have, what they need and what is happening across their network.

Learn more at: https://www.gtt.net/

Wipro’s Uday Kiran discusses what Cisco’s new platform means for enterprise customers, global partners and the shift to unified, AI-ready operations

By Doug Green

“Cisco Cloud Control unifies all of these domains.”

In this Technology Reseller News podcast, recorded virtually during Cisco Live, Doug Green speaks with Uday Kiran of Wipro about Cisco Cloud Control and what the announcement means when viewed from the front lines of enterprise transformation.

For Wipro, the announcement represents a logical evolution in Cisco’s portfolio. Kiran says enterprise customers are often managing separate domains across networking, security and observability. Those domains have historically operated as “multiple islands,” creating complexity for IT teams that need visibility, speed and control across distributed environments.

Wipro brings a global systems integrator’s view to the conversation. The company serves enterprise customers in more than 64 countries, has more than 250,000 employees, works with more than 1,000 enterprise customers, and has partnered with Cisco for more than 30 years, according to Kiran.

That scale gives Wipro a practical view of what customers are asking for now. Enterprises are not simply looking for another dashboard or another tool. They are looking for ways to simplify operations, improve resilience, bring security and networking closer together, and make AI useful inside complex production environments.

Cisco Cloud Control is important because it points toward a more unified operational model. Instead of treating network, security and observability as separate disciplines, the platform is designed to bring those areas together.

For partners such as Wipro, that creates a larger opportunity than product deployment. It creates a consulting, integration and managed services opportunity around helping enterprises modernize operations, rationalize toolsets, and prepare for AI-enabled infrastructure.

The discussion also reflects a broader Cisco Live theme: AI is moving from concept to operations. As enterprises adopt agentic AI, infrastructure must become more observable, more secure and more automated. Wipro’s role is to help customers make that transition in real environments, where legacy systems, global operations and business continuity all matter.

In this podcast, Kiran offers a partner’s view of Cisco Cloud Control: not just what was announced, but why it matters to enterprise customers trying to turn fragmented IT operations into a more unified, intelligent and resilient operating model.

By Doug Green

“We think there’s a tremendous opportunity for us to shine where we’ve thrived for years.”

In this Technology Reseller News podcast, Doug Green speaks with Mike Nowak, Chief Revenue Officer at Centaris, about the challenges small and midsize businesses are facing as AI adoption moves faster than many IT and security programs can manage.

Centaris provides cybersecurity and managed IT services for small and midsize organizations, with a focus on the Great Lakes region and companies with roughly 50 to 5,000 employees. The company works across key verticals including manufacturing, healthcare and financial services, where security, compliance and operational continuity are central business concerns.

The conversation focuses on a problem that is becoming urgent for SMB leaders: AI is already inside the organization, whether or not it has been formally approved. According to Centaris, 86% of SMB workers are using AI tools, with 80% bringing their own tools into the workplace. At the same time, 80% of leaders cite leakage of sensitive data as their main concern.

That creates a new challenge for MSPs, IT leaders and business owners. The question is no longer whether employees will use AI. They already are. The question is whether companies can create a secure, consistent and manageable way to use AI without exposing customer data, intellectual property or regulated information.

Nowak outlines Centaris’ role in helping organizations move from uncontrolled AI experimentation to structured deployment. For many smaller companies, AI adoption is happening at the employee level first. Staff members are using publicly available tools to write, summarize, research and automate work. That can create productivity gains, but it can also create risk when sensitive information is pasted into tools that are not governed by company policy.

Centaris is positioning its AI and cybersecurity work around practical deployment. Rather than treating AI as a separate technology trend, the company sees it as part of the broader managed services and cybersecurity conversation. SMBs need policies, training, tool selection, identity controls and security frameworks that match the way employees are already working.

The podcast also looks at the broader cybersecurity posture of the small and midmarket. These organizations face many of the same risks as larger enterprises but often lack the same internal resources. That makes consistent managed security, compliance guidance and trusted IT leadership especially important.

Centaris is also in growth mode. Nowak says the company is looking to expand across the Great Lakes footprint, particularly in areas where it already has experience and vertical expertise.

“The ones that we’re looking for and where we’re looking to expand is really the Great Lakes footprint,” Nowak says. “We think there’s a tremendous opportunity for us to kind of shine where we’ve thrived for years.”

The acquisition strategy is focused on fit and execution. Centaris is interested in organizations that align with its strengths in manufacturing, healthcare, financial services and cybersecurity-driven managed services. The company works with larger clients and clients in other regions, but Nowak emphasizes that Centaris is careful about ensuring it can execute well before expanding.

For MSP owners, the message is direct: Centaris is open to conversations with firms that may be considering their next step. For SMB leaders, the message is equally clear: AI is already arriving inside the business, and the time to secure and standardize that adoption is now.

Centaris can be reached through LinkedIn, at info@centaris.com, or through the Centaris website.

Learn more at centaris.com.

Cisco Partners Move Into the AI Era with Cloud Control and AI Security, Podcast

Cisco Live conversation with Alex Pujols highlights the partner opportunity around AI, security, and infrastructure operations

By Doug Green

“Tons of excitement. Having the entire portfolio anchored on Cloud Control is something that has everybody really excited.”

In this Technology Reseller News podcast recorded at Cisco Live, I spoke with Alex Pujols, Vice President, Global Partner Engineering at Cisco, about what Cisco’s latest announcements mean for Cisco Partners and their customers.

Pujols said partners are responding with strong enthusiasm, especially around Cisco’s move to bring more of its portfolio together around Cloud Control. He also pointed to the growing importance of security in the AI era, noting, “Security in the AI era is an area that we’ve invested heavily in. The entire market is moving that direction.”

For partners, the opportunity is practical. Customers are hearing about AI everywhere, but many are still working through where to begin, what to secure, and how to move from experimentation to real deployments. Pujols framed the partner role around helping customers simplify the conversation, identify real use cases, and connect AI to infrastructure, security and business outcomes.

That message is especially important for Cisco Partners serving customers who did not attend Cisco Live or who are only beginning to absorb the announcements. The AI opportunity is not simply about adding another product to the portfolio. It is about helping customers understand how AI changes the way networks are operated, how infrastructure is protected, and how organizations prepare for a more automated, agentic future.

Pujols also emphasized that Cisco Partners have an important advantage: they already understand the customer environment. They know the installed base, the pain points, the security gaps and the operational realities. That gives partners a meaningful role as trusted guides in the transition to AI-enabled infrastructure and operations.

As AI becomes more central to business operations, customers will need help making decisions about readiness, governance, security and deployment. For Cisco Partners, that creates a path to deeper advisory conversations and new services opportunities.

In the podcast, Pujols makes the case that the next wave for partners will be about simplicity, trust and execution. The customers who win with AI will need more than technology. They will need partners who can help them put it to work securely, intelligently and at scale.

Learn more at Cisco: https://www.cisco.com/

By Doug Green

“I’m just a guy in IT that’s using an extraordinary product that I feel deserves the attention that it’s getting.”

In this Cisco Live podcast, I spoke with Scott Malone, Vice President of IT Infrastructure for GEODIS, about how a global supply chain and logistics company is using Cisco technology to strengthen visibility, resilience and operational control across a complex enterprise environment.

GEODIS is an end-to-end supply chain company supporting freight forwarding, contract logistics, distribution, express delivery and road transport. For a company operating across multiple lines of business and global markets, infrastructure reliability is not just an IT concern. It is part of the company’s ability to serve customers and keep logistics operations moving.

Malone brought a valuable end-user perspective to the conversation. Speaking shortly after presenting on stage at Cisco Live, he described GEODIS as a company working to modernize critical IT infrastructure while giving teams better tools to understand, manage and secure the environment.

A central theme of the discussion was the shift from reactive maintenance to proactive lifecycle management. Through Cisco IQ, GEODIS has gained greater visibility into infrastructure health, vulnerabilities and areas requiring attention. That insight helps the IT team prioritize work, focus resources and move faster on remediation.

Malone also discussed how GEODIS is working with Cisco Services and Cisco SD-WAN to build a more resilient architecture. The company’s goal is to support high availability across a distributed footprint while continuing to modernize remote access and LAN core infrastructure.

For Technology Reseller News readers, the GEODIS story offers a clear look at what enterprise IT buyers value in today’s environment: visibility, security, uptime, lifecycle intelligence and trusted support. The conversation also shows how Cisco’s broader portfolio can help large organizations move beyond point solutions toward a more proactive operating model.

As logistics, data, applications and customer expectations become increasingly dependent on always-available networks, GEODIS provides a practical example of how infrastructure modernization is becoming a business requirement.

Learn more at: https://www.geodis.com/

By Doug Green

“For partners, the message is simple: don’t bring a cookie-cutter approach. Understand the district, understand the mission, and tailor the solution.”

At Cisco Live, Technology Reseller News spoke with Joshua Umphrey, Chief Technology Officer for Olathe Unified School District in Kansas, about how one of the state’s largest school districts is building a secure, resilient and AI-ready digital foundation for K-12 education.

Olathe serves nearly 30,000 students across 51 schools. Like many school districts, Olathe faces enterprise-level technology challenges in a public-sector environment: protecting students and staff, keeping systems available, managing limited resources and preparing for emerging demands such as AI in education.

Umphrey brings a distinctive perspective to the CTO role. Before moving into technology leadership, he was a high school history and government teacher at Olathe East High School, where he also coached football and boys golf.

“Definitely an atypical route,” Umphrey said, reflecting on his move from the classroom into IT leadership.

That background still shapes how he views technology. For Umphrey, the network is not simply infrastructure. It is part of the learning environment. Technology has to protect students, support teachers, keep learning moving and help the district plan for what comes next.

In the podcast, Umphrey discusses how Olathe is using Cisco networking, security, Splunk, Cisco UCS, Call Manager and Cisco CX offerings to improve visibility, cybersecurity and resilience across the district. The goal is to move from reactive support to a stronger model of operational control, where IT teams have better insight into what is happening across the environment and can respond more effectively.

The conversation also turns to what Cisco Partners and technology providers should understand about serving K-12. School districts are not interchangeable. They have different budgets, facilities, staffing models, security needs and educational priorities.

For partners, Umphrey’s message is clear: K-12 customers need practical, secure and manageable solutions that are aligned with the mission of education. The sale is not simply about products. It is about helping schools protect learning time, reduce risk and build a technology foundation that can support students, teachers and staff over the long term.

Learn more about Cisco education solutions at cisco.com.

Kale outlined how companies are looking beyond basic automation toward tools that can surface insights, improve compliance and provide greater visibility into spending.

He also discussed the opportunity for channel partners to act as strategic advisors and add value helping customers integrate new technologies, streamline processes and extract more value from their data. The conversation highlights how AI-driven financial operations are becoming a larger part of enterprise modernization efforts and determine.

By Doug Green

“Customer experience is not about selling a product anymore. It’s about selling trust.”

That was the larger message from Vinod Muthukrishnan, Vice President and General Manager of Webex Customer Experience at Cisco, in this Technology Reseller News podcast recorded at Cisco Live.

Muthukrishnan connects several of the biggest themes at Cisco Live — agentic AI, observability, security and the network — to the place where they ultimately become real: the customer experience.

As AI moves into customer-facing environments, the stakes change. An autonomous agent may access corporate data, customer information, PII and confidential systems. It may then act autonomously and communicate directly with customers, partners and outside entities.

Put those steps together, Muthukrishnan says, and the threat surface becomes potentially “infinite.”

That is why he argues that AI-powered customer experience cannot be treated simply as a front-end application opportunity. “For me, it’s an infrastructure game,” says Muthukrishnan. The ability to observe, secure, manage and respond to AI-driven systems at machine scale becomes essential.

The conversation reflects a larger shift in the contact center and customer experience market. AI is no longer just a tool for routing calls, answering routine questions or assisting agents. It is becoming a new operating layer for customer engagement. That creates major opportunities for better service, faster resolution and more personalized interactions. But it also raises new questions about trust, governance, data access and operational control.

For Cisco Partners, MSPs and enterprise teams, that changes the conversation. The question is not simply how to add AI to the contact center. The question is how to build a secure, observable and trusted CX environment where AI can operate safely and effectively.

Muthukrishnan’s message is that Webex Customer Experience is positioned at that intersection. CX is where the promise of AI meets the expectations of real customers. It is also where enterprises will need to prove that autonomous systems can be useful, secure and trusted.

In this podcast, Muthukrishnan outlines how Cisco Webex is approaching that challenge and why trusted customer engagement may become one of the defining measures of success in the AI era.

Learn more at: https://www.webex.com/contact-center.html