Telecom Reseller

“Trust is built through very small moments,” says Julie Thiel of TTS Company. 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.

“If you're not moving forward, you're moving backwards,” says Elie Katz, CEO of National Retail Solutions. 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.  

“If your AI agent failed today, would you know before your customers do?” asks Sophie Cheng, Chief Marketing Officer at Sinch. 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.  

“What this industry needs is a fundamentally different approach, not probabilistic, deterministic,” says Gerry Christensen, Plus Trusted Industry Strategist at ICA AI. 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.

At NiCE World 2026, Moshe Beauford, Technology Editor at Technology Reseller News, sat down with Rachael Schaeffer, VP of Growth and GTM Execution at Concentrix, for a candid discussion about AI’s growing role in customer experience and business operations. Schaefer cautioned against organizations pursuing wholesale workforce replacement strategies, arguing that removing humans from the equation often creates new challenges rather than solving existing ones. Instead, she emphasized the importance of keeping people in the loop and leveraging AI to augment, rather than replace, human expertise. The conversation also explored channel opportunities, practical AI deployment strategies, organizational change management, and how businesses can strike the right balance between automation, efficiency, and customer satisfaction.

By Doug Green “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 Brings Enterprise Perspective to Cisco Cloud Control, Podcast 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.

Centaris Helps SMBs Bring AI Into the Business Without Letting Risk Come Along for the Ride, Podcast, 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. 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/

GEODIS Brings an End-User View of Cisco Infrastructure Modernization to Cisco Live, Podcast, GEODIS shares how Cisco IQ, Cisco Services and SD-WAN are helping a global logistics company move from reactive IT to proactive lifecycle management 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/

Olathe Unified School District: Cisco Helps K-12 Build Secure, Resilient, AI-Ready Infrastructure, Podcast, 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 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.

TRN caught up with Anant Kale about the evolution of AppZen, its channel program and the growing role partners play in helping organizations manage increasingly complex financial and operational data. 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.

“Customer experience is not about selling a product anymore. It's about selling trust.” Cisco Webex: Turning Agentic AI Into Trusted Customer Engagement, As Cisco Live spotlights agentic AI, security and observability, Vinod Muthukrishnan explains why Webex Customer Experience sits at the front line of AI adoption 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

Cisco Splunk: Agentic Observability, Token Economics and the Smaller War Room, Podcast, Cisco and Splunk are focused: helping customers bring the right information together, with the right context, so AI can be useful rather than overwhelming By Doug Green “The real opportunity is helping customers pull together all the different sources of data into an environment where they can understand when they need to pay attention, how to find and fix problems, and how to layer AI on top of that.” In this Technology Reseller News podcast, recorded at Cisco Live, I spoke with Patrick Lin of Cisco Splunk about the changing role of observability in a hybrid, AI-driven IT environment — and why the conversation now also includes token economics. As AI becomes part of everyday IT operations, enterprises are beginning to ask a new economic question: how much does it cost to reason over all this data? In an AI-native environment, every log, metric, trace, network signal and security event may become part of a larger decision-making process. That creates value, but it also creates cost. Token economics becomes part of the observability discussion because customers need to know what data matters, when to use AI, and how to get better answers without flooding systems with unnecessary context. That is where Cisco and Splunk are focused: helping customers bring the right information together, with the right context, so AI can be useful rather than overwhelming. Lin described how Cisco and Splunk are connecting observability, networking intelligence and AI-native workflows to help teams see across complex environments. A key example is the integration between ThousandEyes and Splunk Observability Cloud, giving teams the ability to understand whether a problem is happening in the application or in the network — and, if it is in the network, whether the issue is in the part of the network they own or the part they do not. That distinction matters. In hybrid environments, responsibility is often shared across enterprise infrastructure, cloud platforms, service providers, SaaS applications and third-party systems. Knowing where the problem lives can dramatically reduce the time teams spend in war rooms trying to determine what went wrong. Lin also pointed to Cisco Cloud Control and AI Canvas as part of a broader AI-native approach. Rather than forcing users to jump across separate tools and interfaces, Cisco is working toward a model where information from Splunk, Cisco platforms and the wider ecosystem can be brought into a collaborative environment. That includes human teammates as well as agentic assistants that can help teams reason across data, identify patterns and accelerate troubleshooting. For channel partners, Lin said the opportunity is significant. Customers need help bringing together data sources, building the right observability foundation and applying AI in practical ways. Partners can play a key role in making agentic observability real for customers by helping them move from disconnected monitoring tools to a more unified, intelligent operating model. The goal, Lin said, is not just more data. It is a “much, much smaller war room” when incidents happen. For Cisco Partners, that message is timely. As customers modernize applications, adopt AI, expand hybrid environments and depend on increasingly distributed infrastructure, observability becomes more than an IT operations tool. It becomes a business resilience capability. Learn more about Cisco Splunk at: https://www.splunk.com/ Learn more about Cisco at: https://www.cisco.com/

Ryan Rose of Learn with Cisco outlines refreshed CCNA, CCIE and Cisco U. programs designed to prepare networking professionals for AI-driven infrastructure “I get to help people grow their careers,” says Ryan Rose of Learn with Cisco. “I get to help people learn new things.” In this Technology Reseller News podcast, Doug Green speaks with Ryan Rose of Learn with Cisco about Cisco's latest updates to its certification and training portfolio, including refreshed CCNA and CCIE programs, expanded Cisco U. learning resources, and new AI-focused training designed to help networking professionals stay current as infrastructure evolves. Rose describes his role at Cisco as one of stewardship. Cisco's certification program has been a fixture in the networking industry for roughly 30 years, and Rose says the goal is to make sure the program continues to reflect the skills people actually need in the field. “What we've done and what we announced is really our intention of how we evolve both CCNA and CCIE,” says Rose. A central theme of the conversation is that AI is changing the skills map for networking professionals, but it is not replacing the need for core networking expertise. Instead, Rose explains that professionals will need to understand how to use AI tools effectively, evaluate AI-generated recommendations, and combine automation with sound technical judgment. The updates include a refreshed CCNA blueprint, new AI-related training in Cisco U., and changes to the CCIE Practical exam that reflect how AI tools are beginning to show up in real-world network operations. For partners, MSPs, resellers and enterprise IT teams, the message is clear: AI fluency is becoming part of the networking skill set. Rose also points to Cisco U. as a practical learning platform for professionals who need to build new skills while continuing to work in the industry. Rather than treating certification as a one-time milestone, Cisco is emphasizing continuous learning, hands-on training and career development. For the channel community, the certification updates arrive at a moment when customers are asking more from their technology partners. AI-ready infrastructure, secure operations, automation and resilient networks all require people who understand both the fundamentals and the new tools entering the market. In this podcast, Rose outlines how Cisco is refreshing its learning and certification programs to help professionals prepare for that future. Learn more at Cisco U. and Learn with Cisco.

Qumulo and Cisco Launch Bridge-to-Cloud Architecture to Help Enterprises Beat the Flash Crunch at Cisco Live 2026 By Doug Green “Capacity extends to the cloud instantly. Users and applications never know that the systems have been extended into the cloud.” At Cisco Live 2026, Doug Green spoke with Brandon Whitelaw of Qumulo about the company's new Bridge-to-Cloud architecture with Cisco, a solution designed to help enterprises respond to one of the most urgent infrastructure challenges of the AI era: fast-growing data workloads, constrained flash supply, longer hardware lead times and rising demand for high-performance storage. Qumulo describes itself as an accelerated data company. In the podcast, Whitelaw explains that Qumulo helps organizations store and manage mission-critical file and object data across data centers, edge environments and the major public clouds. The goal is to unify those datasets into a consistent, AI-enabled data fabric that can support both today's high-performance applications and tomorrow's AI pipelines. Qumulo's customers include autonomous driving companies, media and entertainment organizations, special effects shops, sports broadcasters, life sciences organizations, genomic research teams, hospitals, public sector agencies and government entities. The common thread is data: large, high-capacity, high-performance datasets that must be available, protected and ready for use. The Cisco announcement focuses on Cloud Native Qumulo Enterprise combined with Cisco Unified Computing System through Qumulo's Cloud Data Fabric. The solution is designed to let enterprises extend file workloads from on-premises Cisco UCS infrastructure into the cloud without forcing a disruptive migration, application refactoring or a rebuild of existing workflows. For enterprise IT teams, the problem is practical. AI infrastructure demand is reshaping the market for memory and NVMe systems, creating pressure on traditional capacity planning. Instead of waiting months for new hardware or overprovisioning all-flash systems, Qumulo and Cisco are offering a bridge: keep trusted on-premises infrastructure in place while extending selected workloads into the cloud as needed. Whitelaw says the architecture gives enterprises a way to free up on-premises infrastructure for the most critical applications, while using cloud capacity to handle growth, burst demand and AI-readiness. The result is a hybrid model that is not simply about cloud migration. It is about operational flexibility. The solution also positions enterprise data for AI and analytics. Qumulo says CNQ Enterprise includes Cloud Data Fabric and NeuralProtect and can run on Cisco UCS on-premises as well as across AWS, Azure, Google Cloud and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. The architecture is intended to make enterprise datasets available for AI pipelines into services such as Microsoft AI Foundry, AWS Bedrock and Google Vertex AI. For Cisco partners, service providers and enterprise IT teams, the message from the podcast is clear: hybrid cloud is becoming a pressure-release valve for data infrastructure. The Bridge-to-Cloud model offers a way to gain capacity relief, preserve application continuity, support elastic scale and prepare data for AI without forcing customers into a disruptive replatforming project. Qumulo CNQ Enterprise is available now for deployment on Cisco UCS on-premises infrastructure and across AWS, Azure, Google Cloud and OCI. It is also available through Cisco for simplified enterprise procurement. Qumulo is exhibiting at booth 4018 at Cisco Live 2026 in Las Vegas. Learn more at: https://qumulo.com/product/cisco/

Smart Out-of-Band management gives IT teams secure access when the primary network is down, “The days of designing your network assuming that it's always going to be up and not fail are over,” Quirk says By Doug Green “Visibility without control is really just awareness,” says Patrick Quirk, GM of Opengear. In this Cisco Live podcast, Patrick Quirk joins Technology Reseller News to discuss how Opengear is helping enterprises rethink network resilience as AI, edge computing, hybrid cloud and cyber threats make infrastructure more distributed and more business-critical. Opengear provides Smart Out-of-Band management: an independent, secure path into critical infrastructure when the primary network is unavailable. That means IT teams can monitor, troubleshoot and restore systems even during outages, cyber incidents or other network disruptions. “The days of designing your network assuming that it's always going to be up and not fail are over,” Quirk says. The challenge is that many traditional monitoring and management tools depend on the same production network they are meant to protect. When that network fails, organizations may lose access at the exact moment they need it most. Opengear's platform is designed to preserve control, giving engineers a way to diagnose issues, reboot devices, push fixes and recover services remotely. Quirk says AI is raising the stakes. AI workloads are moving beyond centralized data centers into edge environments, regional sites and hybrid infrastructure. As a result, every connection point becomes more important. At the same time, AI-enabled threats are moving faster, increasing the need for secure, resilient recovery capabilities. For enterprises, resilience is no longer simply a backup plan. It is becoming part of the operating architecture for AI-era networks. At Cisco Live, Opengear is showing how Smart Out-of-Band management supports secure access, automation, centralized orchestration and faster recovery across distributed environments. Visit Opengear at Cisco Live booth 5023. Learn more at www.opengear.com.

Weave Brings AI Into the Front Office for Healthcare Practices, Podcast, Rather than replacing the human relationship between patient and provider, AI can help practices respond faster, capture missed opportunities and manage routine communications more efficiently. The result is a better experience for patients and a more sustainable operating model for busy practices By Doug Green “Healthcare always has this very interesting intersection between human care and technology,” says Doug Green, Publisher of Technology Reseller News, opening a conversation with Abhi Sharma, Chief Technology Officer at Weave, about how AI is changing the way small and medium-sized healthcare practices communicate with patients. In this Technology Reseller News podcast, Sharma outlines how Weave is helping healthcare providers use AI to reduce administrative burden, improve responsiveness and create a more connected patient experience. For many practices, the front office remains one of the most pressured parts of the business, balancing phone calls, appointment reminders, payments, follow-ups and patient questions while also trying to deliver a personal experience. Sharma explains that Weave's approach is focused on practical AI that supports the daily workflow of healthcare offices. Rather than replacing the human relationship between patient and provider, AI can help practices respond faster, capture missed opportunities and manage routine communications more efficiently. The result is a better experience for patients and a more sustainable operating model for busy practices. The conversation also explores how AI can help healthcare organizations modernize without losing the personal touch that matters so much in care delivery. For technology resellers and service providers, the discussion points to a growing opportunity around communications, automation and workflow tools designed specifically for vertical markets such as dental, medical, veterinary and other appointment-based healthcare services. Learn more at https://www.getweave.com/

MetTel's Max Silber discusses how connected laptops, multi-carrier SingleSIM connectivity, and lifecycle management can reduce endpoint friction for enterprise IT teams. By Doug Green, Technology Reseller News In a Technology Reseller News podcast, Doug Green speaks with Max Silber, Vice President of Mobility and IoT at MetTel, about a growing enterprise challenge: keeping laptop fleets connected, secure, and manageable as employees work across offices, homes, customer sites, and the road. The conversation centers on MetTel's Connected Laptop as a Service, or CLaaS, a new offering designed to help enterprise IT teams reduce the time, labor, and complexity involved in laptop deployment and ongoing management. MetTel announced the service as a multi-carrier, agnostic connected laptop offering powered by SingleSIM, giving organizations a way to deliver connected devices without forcing every endpoint into a single-carrier model. Silber explains that the connected laptop has become more than a convenience feature. For many organizations, it is now part of a larger mobility and security strategy. When users depend on public Wi-Fi, hotel networks or unsecured local connections, the enterprise inherits risk and inconsistency. By delivering laptops with always-on cellular connectivity, MetTel is positioning CLaaS as a way to improve both user experience and IT control. A key theme of the podcast is lifecycle management. Instead of asking internal IT teams to image, ship, activate, track and replace devices manually, MetTel's approach uses the MetTel Customer Portal and fulfillment capabilities to move more of that work into a managed service model. Devices can be requested through the portal, shipped directly to users and provisioned with connectivity and customer-specified management tools. For channel partners, MSPs and enterprise technology advisors, the discussion points to a broader opportunity. Laptop management is often treated as a hardware procurement issue, but Silber frames it as a mobility, connectivity and operational resilience issue. As hybrid work matures, the need for secure, predictable and centrally managed endpoint connectivity is becoming part of the larger managed services conversation. MetTel's SingleSIM approach is designed to support data-only devices across carrier networks, devices and geographies. That matters for distributed organizations because a single network may not perform consistently in every region, facility or remote-work location. A multi-carrier model can give enterprises more flexibility while reducing the friction of managing multiple carrier relationships. The podcast also highlights the practical pressure on IT departments. Enterprise leaders are asking for faster deployment, better security and greater employee productivity, while IT teams are already managing large numbers of endpoints. CLaaS is presented as one way to relieve that burden by combining device logistics, activation, connectivity, support and replacement into a more streamlined service. Silber also discusses the role of virtual warehousing and fulfillment. MetTel stages and ships connected laptops from its facilities, helping enterprises standardize configurations and accelerate deployment at scale. The result is a model that treats laptop connectivity as part of the enterprise network, not as an afterthought added after purchase. For Technology Reseller News readers, the key takeaway is that enterprise mobility is moving beyond phones and tablets. The laptop itself is becoming a managed, connected endpoint, and that creates new conversations for service providers, channel partners and advisors serving distributed enterprises. Key takeaways Connected laptops are becoming part of the enterprise mobility and security stack. MetTel's CLaaS offering is designed to reduce the operational burden of laptop deployment, activation, support and replacement. SingleSIM gives enterprises a multi-carrier approach for data-only devices across locations and networks. The service can help organizations reduce dependence on unsecured public Wi-Fi. For channel partners and MSPs, connected laptops create a new managed mobility conversation with enterprise customers. Learn more Visit MetTel's Connected Laptop as a Service announcement: https://www.mettel.net/press/mettel-delivers-connected-laptop-as-a-service/

Convoso Brings Outbound Sales, Compliance and Spam-Risk Management to Salesforce, Podcast, Convoso works with several hundred businesses across industries including insurance, home services and lead generation. Hakimi says the company's goal is to help these organizations connect with leads faster, improve conversion rates and reduce customer acquisition costs By Doug Green “You have the NICEs of the world, Five9s, Genesys, and they all do it. Great companies. The only challenge is they're not really purpose-built for outbound and for sales,” says Nima Hakimi, CEO of Convoso. In this Technology Reseller News podcast, Nima Hakimi joins Doug Green to discuss Convoso's new app for Salesforce AppExchange and the gap the company is working to fill for revenue teams, business development centers and contact centers that depend on outbound calling for customer acquisition. The story is really about the changing outbound calling environment. For companies that rely on the phone to acquire customers, success is no longer just about dialing more leads. It is about reaching the right prospects, avoiding being mislabeled as spam, protecting caller reputation and staying compliant while still giving sales teams the speed and visibility they need. Hakimi describes Convoso as an outbound sales platform built for BDC revenue teams and contact centers. The platform brings together high-performance dialing, campaign management and number management into what he calls a revenue-generating engine for organizations that rely on calling to reach and convert leads. Convoso works with several hundred businesses across industries including insurance, home services and lead generation. Hakimi says the company's goal is to help these organizations connect with leads faster, improve conversion rates and reduce customer acquisition costs. The Salesforce connection is central to the conversation, but the larger issue is what happens after a sales team decides to call. Many organizations already use Salesforce, already have a contact center platform and already run outbound campaigns. The challenge is that outbound sales has become more complicated. Teams must reach prospects efficiently while avoiding spam labeling, protecting caller reputation and remaining compliant in an increasingly scrutinized calling environment. That is where Convoso sees its opportunity. By integrating with Salesforce, the company is positioning its platform as a purpose-built outbound layer for teams that need more than basic click-to-call or CRM logging. For sales-driven contact centers, the challenge is not simply making more calls. It is managing campaigns, improving answer rates, maintaining clean number practices, staying within compliance requirements and turning outbound activity into measurable revenue. For resellers, service providers and technology advisors working with revenue teams, the message is clear: outbound sales still matters, but it requires a different toolset than traditional inbound support. Convoso is making the case that Salesforce users need a platform designed specifically for that environment. Learn more: https://www.convoso.com/  

Julie Thiel of TTS Company explains why MSPs need to treat retention as a business-building discipline, not a last-minute response to resignations “Turnover doesn't start when someone leaves,” says Julie Thiel of TTS Company. “That's just when you get the wake-up call.” In this episode of Technology Reseller News, Doug Green is joined again by Julie Thiel of TTS Company for the latest conversation in an ongoing series designed to help MSPs understand the human resources side of building a stronger business. The discussion focuses on a common issue for growing MSPs: employee turnover. But rather than treating turnover as something that begins when an employee gives notice, Thiel argues that the warning signs often appear much earlier. Retention, she explains, is tied to leadership, employee experience, culture, communication, expectations and whether team members see a future inside the organization. For MSPs, the stakes are especially high. Losing a strong technician, account manager or operations leader can disrupt customer relationships, reduce service quality and put added strain on the rest of the team. Turnover is not only an HR problem. It can become a customer experience problem, a profitability problem and even a business valuation problem. Thiel says MSP owners should think about retention as part of building equity in the company. A stable, engaged team helps create better customer outcomes and a stronger operating model. That means leaders need to pay attention before someone starts looking elsewhere. The conversation also explores the limits of compensation alone. Thiel notes that while another employer can always offer more money, pay is not the only factor that keeps people in place. “Anyone can offer more money,” Thiel says. “I've gone to jobs where I made a lot more money and it was a terrible experience. It was combat pay.” Her point is that MSPs need to make it harder for good employees to leave by building an environment where people feel valued, supported and connected to the mission of the business. More money may get someone's attention, but a healthy workplace can be the deciding factor in whether they stay. TTS Company, originally founded as Thiel Talent Strategy, works with businesses on the people side of growth. Thiel says her goal is to make HR less intimidating for business owners who may know they need help but are unsure where to begin. “I want HR to not seem so scary,” Thiel says. “We're non-scary HR.” Learn more at thettscompany.com.

Grokstream: Predictive and Agentic AI Moves IT Operations Toward Self-Healing, Podcast, Grokstream's platform is designed to operate from signals, not noise. The system fuses telemetry across domains, learns continuously from operational data and human feedback, and creates a unified source of truth for IT operations. That allows teams to move beyond correlation and toward understanding what is happening, why it is happening and what should be done next. By Doug Green Grokstream says the next generation of IT operations will not be built around more dashboards, more rules, or faster alert routing. It will be built around AI that can learn, reason, remember, recommend and eventually act with governed autonomy. “Agentic AI must be governed by design,” said Josh Kindiger, CEO of Grokstream. “Predictive intelligence is powerful, but safe, explainable autonomy is what drives real adoption.” In this Technology Reseller News podcast, Doug Green speaks with Josh Kindiger, Co-Founder and COO of Grokstream, about how the company is helping MSPs, CSPs and enterprise IT organizations move from reactive operations toward predictive, self-healing IT environments. The conversation comes as Grokstream advances its Grok L1 Agent, a new role-based agent designed for frontline IT operations teams. The L1 Agent is intended to reduce alert noise before incidents reach the queue, provide intelligent summaries, identify likely root causes, recommend next-best actions and trigger approved remediations inside tools such as Slack, Microsoft Teams and existing IT workflows. For service providers and enterprise operations teams, the problem is familiar. More tools often mean more alerts, but not necessarily more clarity. Traditional rules-based AIOps platforms can help with deduplication and routing, but they often stop short of true incident compression, causal reasoning and prevention. Grokstream is taking a different approach by combining classical machine learning, causal intelligence and generative AI into a single cognitive AI layer. Kindiger explains that Grokstream's platform is designed to operate from signals, not noise. The system fuses telemetry across domains, learns continuously from operational data and human feedback, and creates a unified source of truth for IT operations. That allows teams to move beyond correlation and toward understanding what is happening, why it is happening and what should be done next. A central theme of the podcast is the difference between AI that summarizes and AI that reasons. Grokstream argues that true agentic AI is not simply an LLM attached to a workflow. It requires memory, context, policy guardrails, procedural intelligence and the ability to improve over time. In Grokstream's model, agents begin as assisted tools, then move toward trusted operators and eventually toward predictive autonomous systems. The first practical on-ramp is the L1/NOC environment, where many organizations see the fastest measurable impact. Grokstream says its approach can deliver 2–3x more incident compression beyond traditional deduplication and rules-based correlation, while reducing L1 workload by more than 50% through noise compression, guided resolution and fewer unnecessary escalations. The timing is significant. Grokstream recently announced that Cirion Technologies selected the Cognitive Grok AI platform to support AI-driven predictive operations across Latin America's digital infrastructure. That deployment highlights the growing demand for systems that can detect emerging issues across network, transport and infrastructure layers before customer-facing impact occurs. For MSPs, CSPs and enterprise IT leaders, the message is clear: operational scale cannot be achieved simply by adding more people or more monitoring tools. The next step is an intelligence layer that can unify data, predict impact, explain cause and support governed automation. Grokstream is positioning Grok as that layer: a predictive and agentic AI platform that helps operations teams reduce noise, prevent incidents, improve engineer experience and move toward self-healing IT operations. Learn more at https://grokstream.com/ Related Grokstream Stories on Telecom Reseller Grokstream's Cognitive Grok® AI Platform Selected by Cirion Technologies to Power AI-Driven, Predictive Operations Across Latin America's Digital Infrastructure https://telecomreseller.com/2026/05/20/grokstreams-cognitive-grok-ai-platform-selected-by-cirion-technologies-to-power-ai-driven-predictive-operations-across-latin-americas-digital-infrastructure/ Grokstream Announces Grok® L1 Agent to Advance Predictive and Agentic AI for IT Operations https://telecomreseller.com/2026/04/06/grokstream-announces-grok-l1-agent-to-advance-predictive-and-agentic-ai-for-it-operations/ More Grokstream coverage on Telecom Reseller https://telecomreseller.com/?s=grokstream/

TICE Group Turns Returns, Trade-Ins and Resale Into Recovered Value, ASCDI Podcast. TICE Group designs and operates recovery systems for brands and retailers running trade-in, returns, and resale programs at scale. “Any extra dollar I can bring them back is a dollar that goes to profitability — not actually profit, viability,” says Guennael “G” Delorme of TICE Group. “Those returns do have a cost, and we all pay those costs.” In this ASCDI podcast, Doug Green speaks with Guennael of TICE Group about the hidden economics of retail returns, trade-ins, and resale programs. The conversation explores how returns can damage already-thin merchant margins, how those costs ultimately flow back to consumers, and why recovery systems can make a material difference for retailers, brands, and the broader circular economy. Delorme argues that the issue is not simply what happens after a product comes back. It is how much value can be recovered, how efficiently the process can be managed, and whether returns become a margin drain or a strategic recovery opportunity. The discussion also marks TICE Group's growing involvement with ASCDI, as the association continues to expand its coverage beyond traditional ITAD into adjacent areas of recovery, reuse, resale and lifecycle value. For merchants and brands, the opportunity is clear: better recovery can protect value, support profitability and help build more sustainable business models. Learn more at https://tice-group.com.

Deterministic AI Sets the Roadmap for Safer Communications, ICA AI Podcast. Rather than sending every word of every conversation into a large language model, Christensen describes a model where much of the decision-making is based on known patterns, trusted relationships, keywords, context, policy, and call behavior. In sensitive verticals such as financial services, healthcare, legal services, and government, that can be especially important because communications may involve private data, personally identifiable information, account details, medical information, or other sensitive content By Doug Green “As AI gets more powerful, the question is not simply whether it can answer a prompt. The question is whether it can be trusted in the communications path,” says Gerry Christensen, associate founder of ICA AI. “For high-security communications, deterministic AI is not just different. In many cases, it is necessary.” In this Technology Reseller News podcast, Gerry Christensen of ICA AI joins Doug Green to define an important distinction that is becoming central to the future of AI-powered communications: probabilistic AI versus deterministic AI. The conversation is less about a single product announcement and more about setting out a roadmap. Christensen explains why most people experience AI through probabilistic systems, including large language models that generate answers based on patterns, probabilities and prompts. Those tools can be powerful, but they can also hallucinate, miss context, or create outputs that sound confident while being wrong. For communications providers, MSPs, UCaaS providers, MVNOs and telecom resellers, Christensen argues that this distinction matters because voice networks are entering an era where AI will be used on both sides of the call. Legitimate businesses will use AI in contact centers. Bad actors will use AI to scale fraud, spoofing, robocalls and deepfake-style attacks. Consumers and enterprises will increasingly need AI to help determine which calls should get through, which calls should be challenged, and which calls should be blocked. ICA AI, short for Intelligent Communications Assistant, is built around that problem. Christensen describes the platform as an AI-based assistant that can support outbound calling and, perhaps more importantly, inbound call handling. The goal is to allow trusted calls from colleagues, friends, family and legitimate businesses to pass through, while filtering unwanted or suspicious calls. The core idea is determinism. Rather than sending every word of every conversation into a large language model, Christensen describes a model where much of the decision-making is based on known patterns, trusted relationships, keywords, context, policy and call behavior. In sensitive verticals such as financial services, healthcare, legal services and government, that can be especially important because communications may involve private data, personally identifiable information, account details, medical information or other sensitive content. Christensen gives the example of a financial services call. A probabilistic AI system might need to listen broadly and process the conversation through an LLM to determine intent. A deterministic system, by contrast, can look for specific markers of trust or risk: whether the caller is known, whether the call matches expected behavior, whether suspicious phrases appear, or whether the interaction moves toward unusual requests such as gift cards, new account instructions or other red flags. That approach, Christensen says, also has implications for cost, latency and scale. If most decisions can be made deterministically, the system does not need to rely on a distant AI data center for every interaction. That can reduce exposure of sensitive data, lower dependency on token-heavy AI processing, and support faster call-handling decisions. Christensen says ICA AI's approach relies on deterministic AI for roughly 85% to 95% of transactions. He connects that idea to Zipf's Law, the linguistic principle that a relatively small portion of language often carries much of the meaning. In communications, that means many call-handling decisions may not require open-ended AI interpretation. They may require the right data, the right rules, and the right deterministic understanding of what matters in the moment. The roadmap Christensen lays out is not anti-LLM and not anti-probabilistic AI. Instead, it is a layered model. Probabilistic AI can still be used when needed, especially when a conversation falls outside known patterns or requires deeper interpretation. But for high-security, high-volume communications, Christensen argues that deterministic AI should carry more of the load. For MSPs, channel partners and telecom providers, the message is direct: AI call management may become a new category of value-added service. As agentic AI increases the volume and sophistication of automated calls, enterprises and consumers will need tools that can help them determine whether a call is authentic, legitimate and safe. Christensen compares the coming environment to an arms race. AI will make fraud more scalable, but AI can also make communications more defensible. The providers that begin testing, integrating and understanding these capabilities early may be better positioned to offer customers a practical answer to a growing trust problem in voice communications. “Everybody is going to need to have an AI-based solution for consumers to handle inbound calls,” Christensen says. “In the world of agentic AI, it is conceivable that networks could be plastered with AI-generated calls.” Learn more: ICA AI: https://icai.ai/

“When you need these systems, they have to work 100% of the time,” says Jake Jacoby, CEO of TELCLOUD. “Our solution doesn't just meet the old copper standard — it exceeds it.” In part 35 of the TELCLOUD POTS and Shots Podcast Series, Doug Green, Publisher of Technology Reseller News, speaks with Jacoby about the hardware architecture powering modern POTS replacement and why reliability remains the most important requirement for life-safety communications. The discussion focuses on TELCLOUD's purpose-built POTScast 8 and POTScast 2 devices, which support eight and two analog lines respectively. Designed specifically for POTS replacement, the units support applications including fire alarms, elevators, emergency phones, security systems, fax lines, SCADA systems, and other legacy communications still dependent on analog connectivity. Jacoby explains that traditional copper phone lines historically delivered both dial tone and power directly from the carrier's central office, making them highly reliable during outages. TELCLOUD's approach replaces that infrastructure with a more resilient, modern design featuring battery backup, multiple WAN paths, LTE and 5G connectivity, and remote monitoring capabilities. Each POTScast unit includes a built-in 24-hour battery backup with optional expansion capability, along with support for multiple WAN connections including fiber, satellite, and cellular. TELCLOUD also supports Power over Ethernet deployments, allowing cellular routers from providers including Digi and ATEL to be placed up to 250 feet away from telecom closets where signal strength is stronger. Jacoby noted that TELCLOUD originally relied on existing analog telephone adapters but ultimately engineered its own hardware platform after determining that available solutions did not meet the company's performance standards for mission-critical deployments. “These devices are designed to sit in that telco room for the next 20 years,” Jacoby said. The episode also explores how TELCLOUD combines hardware, platform services, monitoring, field services, and channel support into a fully managed POTS replacement offering delivered through reseller partners globally. The “Shots” segment of the podcast featured Casa 1560 Private Selection Extra Añejo, a tequila aged more than three years in oak barrels and described by Jacoby as having notes of dark chocolate, dried fruit, and oak. For more information, visit telcloud.com or call 844-900-2270.

iotum named the only Canadian key CPaaS provider by S&P Global on its worldwide list of 25 platforms as company, Helping UCaaS Providers Punch Above Their Weight with CPaaS, AI and Branded Communications, Podcast By Doug Green “Let us worry about it. Let the product people do what we're good at, and you can service your customers.” iotum has been named by S&P Global as the only Canadian key CPaaS provider on its worldwide list of 25 platforms, a recognition that comes as the company is launching a new softphone for UCaaS resellers. In this CCA podcast, I spoke with Jason Martin, CEO of iotum, about what the recognition means, how iotum is helping UCaaS providers expand their offerings, and why CPaaS, AI and branded communications are becoming more important to the next phase of the channel. The conversation centered on a familiar challenge in the communications market: many providers began as PBX companies, moved into UCaaS, and then continued adding services as customer expectations changed. Today, customers want messaging, video, branded applications, automation and AI-enabled communications experiences. For many resellers, the question is how to deliver those capabilities without having to build everything themselves. Martin said iotum is helping providers solve that problem through CPaaS capabilities and through its role in the Crexendo and NetSapiens ecosystem. For Crexendo partners, he said iotum can provide services that allow resellers to “punch above their weight,” offering advanced capabilities under their own brand. Those capabilities include A2P messaging, video and a new softphone that is becoming popular with NetSapiens users. The model is designed to let channel partners stay focused on customer relationships, while iotum handles the product and platform work behind the scenes. That is an important distinction. In a market where customers increasingly expect integrated communications experiences, smaller providers often need access to enterprise-grade tools without taking on the cost and complexity of developing them internally. iotum's approach gives those providers a way to extend their offerings while maintaining their own brand identity. The S&P Global recognition also points to a larger trend. CPaaS is no longer simply an enterprise developer category. It is becoming a practical way for UCaaS providers, resellers and channel partners to add communications capabilities that can be branded, integrated and delivered as part of a broader customer relationship. Martin also discussed how the communications industry is being shaped by regulation, global market changes and AI. iotum operates in highly regulated environments, including the U.S., Canada and Europe, and Martin noted that providers have to think carefully about compliance, customer trust and the requirements of different markets. Looking ahead, Martin said agentic AI will be “massive,” but he framed the opportunity in practical terms. Rather than replacing human communication, he sees AI adding to what communications providers already do. For iotum, that means an API-focused future in which AI agents can use communications tools to help people connect, collaborate and get work done. That point matters for service providers. As AI becomes more embedded in communications, the opportunity will not simply be to sell another feature. The larger opportunity will be to connect AI, voice, messaging, video and customer workflows in a way that helps businesses communicate more effectively. For channel partners, the message is clear: the next phase of cloud communications will reward providers that can combine trusted customer relationships with new technical capabilities. iotum is positioning itself as one of the companies helping partners make that jump. Learn more: https://www.iotum.com/

By Doug Green “AI, cloud communications, and mobile-first design are reshaping what voice means in a retail setting, and why this shift represents a major opportunity for the telecom channel,” says Paul Birkin, Chief Technology and Product Officer at VoCoVo. In this Technology Reseller News podcast, Paul Birkin of VoCoVo discusses how retail communications are moving beyond the traditional telephone system and becoming part of a broader connected-store environment. In that model, voice is no longer just a way to make or receive calls. It becomes the real-time interface between frontline retail associates, AI platforms, inventory systems, customer service tools, security systems and store operations. Birkin explains that retail associates often need immediate answers while they are standing in front of a customer. A shopper may ask whether an item is in stock, whether a product is vegan-friendly, whether a garment is made of cotton, or whether a promotion applies. Traditionally, the associate might need to leave the customer, find a terminal, check with a manager, or search for someone with more experience. VoCoVo's approach is to bring that information directly into the associate's ear. The associate asks a question by voice. VoCoVo converts that voice into text, connects into the retailer's AI platform, receives the answer, converts it back into voice, and delivers it to the associate in near real time. The result is a more informed associate, a better-served customer, and a faster retail interaction. The conversation also explores how this same connected voice layer can support broader store operations. Birkin describes VoCoVo as sitting at the heart of the connected store, linking associates to call points, stock systems, automated alerts, refrigeration systems, cameras, and other store technologies. A failed fridge, a low-stock alert, a customer request, or a security notification can all be routed to the right person at the right time. For telecom resellers and channel partners, the opportunity is clear. Retailers are looking for ways to improve customer service, make frontline teams more productive, and integrate AI into real-world operations. VoCoVo shows how voice can become the practical bridge between AI systems and the people working on the shop floor. Learn more at www.VoCoVo.com

By Doug Green “You've got to be building with the future in mind, and experienced people will get you there,” said Julie Thiel, TTS Company. For many MSPs and growing technology firms, hiring often begins with a familiar question: should the company hire for potential, or should it bring in experienced people who can contribute immediately? In this Technology Reseller News podcast, I spoke with Julie Thiel of TTS Company about that question and why hiring decisions should be tied to the future direction of the business, not just the immediate need to fill a seat. Thiel said that while potential matters, companies should be careful not to underestimate the value of experience. Experienced people can often see around corners, help a company avoid common mistakes, and bring structure to areas where a growing business may still be informal or reactive. That is especially important for MSPs, where owners and managers are often wearing multiple hats. A smaller company may delay hiring an experienced HR, operations, sales, or technical leader because it feels expensive. But Thiel said that the right hire can help the business mature, scale, and serve customers more effectively. The discussion also focused on the risk of hiring only for the problem of the moment. A company may need help today, but the better question is what kind of organization it is trying to become. Hiring should support that larger vision. For MSPs, that may mean looking for people who understand process, customer relationships, compliance, service delivery, and long-term growth. It may also mean recognizing when a role needs someone who has already been through similar challenges. Thiel emphasized that experience does not mean ignoring culture or adaptability. A strong hire still has to fit the company, work well with the team, and understand the pace of a growing business. But when experience and fit come together, the result can be a hire who helps the company grow faster and with fewer missteps. As we closed the conversation, Thiel said MSPs and growing technology firms should think about hiring not only as a way to fill today's needs, but as a way to build for the future. “You've got to be building with the future in mind, and experienced people will get you there,” said Thiel. For MSPs and business owners who are beginning to think through hiring, HR questions, or long-term team building, Thiel offers free 30-minute discovery calls. Learn more at: https://thettscompany.com Julie Thiel can also be found on LinkedIn as Julie M. Thiel.

By Doug Green “We're really innovating the modern desktop, and this is just the beginning of the roadmap we've got planned,” said Matt Dargis, CRO of Plugable. In a Technology Reseller News podcast, I spoke with Lynn Murphy, CEO of Plugable, and Matt Dargis, CRO of Plugable, about how the company is expanding from its leadership in docking stations and PC peripherals into a larger channel opportunity built around the modern desktop, hybrid work, fleet refresh, and local AI. Plugable, founded in 2009 in Redmond, Washington, is best known as a leading third-party docking station provider in North America. The company has built its reputation around deep compatibility testing, especially in mixed environments where businesses may be supporting different laptop brands, monitor types, operating conditions, and end-user needs. Murphy said that mixed environments are now the norm. From 4K and 8K monitors to diverse laptop fleets and hybrid workplace setups, businesses need products that simply work. That has become a defining part of Plugable's value proposition: reducing complexity at the desktop and helping partners deliver reliable solutions. The channel opportunity is expanding as organizations refresh aging fleets, prepare for AI-enabled workstations, and rethink the desktop as a productivity platform. Murphy noted that Plugable's recent minority investment from Acer Gadget will help the company scale faster, expand internationally, and accelerate new product categories. One of the most important areas of focus is local AI. Plugable has launched a secure local AI enclosure with a software stack designed to enable plug-and-play AI at the desk. Murphy said this gives partners a way to help customers begin with proofs of concept and move toward broader adoption, especially where repetitive workloads, private data, or compliance concerns make local AI attractive. “There is going to be a portion of the spend that moves to local, and that is repetitive and private data,” Murphy said. For MSPs and channel partners, the opportunity is not only in hardware sales but also in integration, support, managed services, proof-of-concept work, and ongoing customer engagement. Murphy pointed to use cases in law firms, public sector organizations, federal environments, doctor's offices, and distributed enterprises where local AI may offer a practical complement to cloud AI. Dargis said Plugable is a channel-first company and is investing in resources to create demand for partners. That includes evaluation units, public sector and enterprise support, government vehicles, K-12 contracts, and partner selling motions designed to bring opportunities back to the channel. “We view it as our job to embrace and engage with the customers and help the channel versus rely on the channel to do all that work,” Dargis said. The company is also focused on making the category easier for partners to sell. Plugable sees peripherals not as simple accessories, but as part of a broader desktop strategy involving productivity, asset management, compatibility, and support. For partners that may not yet be comfortable selling in this category, Dargis said Plugable is inviting conversations. The company's roots in digital commerce, customer education, and compatibility-driven support give it a foundation for helping partners serve everyone from small offices to global enterprises. As the workplace continues to change, Plugable is positioning the modern desktop as a growth opportunity for the channel. The company's message is that docks, peripherals, fleet refresh, and local AI are converging into a new desktop conversation—one that partners can lead. Learn more at: https://plugable.com

By Doug Green “Recovery is only the last line of defense.” That comment from Rick Hebly, Senior Director of Platform Marketing at Acronis, captures the larger strategy behind Acronis Cyber Frame. This is not simply a new infrastructure platform. It is Acronis making a clear move to help MSPs and service providers build their own Partner Cloud — and keep ownership of the customer relationship. In a recent Technology Reseller News podcast, I spoke with Hebly about the launch of Acronis Cyber Frame and why Acronis believes service providers need a more profitable, reliable and protected way to deliver infrastructure-as-a-service. The key idea is control. For many MSPs, the cloud opportunity has too often meant reselling someone else's infrastructure, under someone else's brand, with someone else owning much of the customer experience. Cyber Frame changes that equation by giving service providers a way to deliver IaaS under their own relationship, their own service model and their own margin structure. Hebly explained that Acronis has evolved over the past 23 years from backup and recovery into a broader cyber protection company. The company moved from traditional software delivery into cloud platforms, then into a managed service provider model with multi-tenant delivery from data centers around the world. The next major transition, he said, was from data protection to cyber protection. That evolution matters because infrastructure is no longer just about compute, storage and networking. For MSPs, the opportunity is to create a cloud offering that is protected from the start, easier to manage and aligned with the way service providers actually go to market. Acronis Cyber Frame brings virtual machines, storage, networking, backup, disaster recovery, security, threat protection and management into a single platform. Rather than forcing MSPs to assemble multiple tools and vendors, Cyber Frame gives them a more unified foundation for delivering infrastructure services. The larger message is that MSPs do not have to surrender the cloud relationship to hyperscalers or legacy infrastructure providers. With Cyber Frame, Acronis is positioning the service provider as the center of the customer relationship — not just the reseller, but the trusted operator of the customer's cloud environment. That may be the most important part of the launch. Cyber Frame is about more than IaaS. It is about helping MSPs create their own Partner Cloud, protect it by default, and build recurring revenue around infrastructure they can own, manage and monetize. Learn more at: https://www.acronis.com/

By Doug Green “What stands out in this research is not a lack of intent, but a gap between ambition and execution,” said Roary Stasko, CEO of Telstra International. A new Economist Impact study supported by Telstra International finds that organizations in the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany are materially underprepared for large-scale digital disruption. In this Technology Reseller News podcast, Roary Stasko, CEO of Telstra International, joined us to discuss what that means for enterprises, service providers and the wider technology community. The study's central finding is clear: the biggest weakness is not simply outdated technology. The deeper issue is that many organizations do not yet have the governance, coordination, visibility and partner readiness needed to respond when digital disruption spreads across suppliers, infrastructure and external dependencies. Stasko described Telstra International as the global arm of Telstra, with more than 75 years of experience in international connectivity and subsea infrastructure. The company operates more than 400,000 kilometers of subsea cable and plays a major role in connecting the U.S. to Asia, Asia to the U.S., and Australia across the wider global network. That global infrastructure role gives Telstra International a front-row view of digital resilience as a business issue, not just a technical one. The Economist Impact research found that only 25% of organizations across the surveyed markets say their responses to digital disruption go according to plan. The study also found that only 21% have a dedicated team responsible for delivering digital resilience initiatives. For technology resellers, MSPs, CSPs and enterprise technology leaders, the message is important. Resilience can no longer be treated as a periodic IT exercise or a narrow cybersecurity project. It needs to become a board-level business capability that is tested across the full ecosystem, including partners, suppliers, cloud platforms, communications networks and critical infrastructure. The research also highlights a major gap between internal confidence and external readiness. Organizations may feel relatively confident about their own cybersecurity plans or regulatory frameworks, but confidence drops sharply when disruption involves external dependencies. That is where weak information sharing, limited joint testing and unclear partner governance can turn a disruption into a larger operational failure. Legacy infrastructure remains another challenge. While many organizations have modernized parts of their technology environment, older systems still support large portions of enterprise operations. That makes it harder to design resilience into systems from the beginning and harder to recover quickly when disruptions occur. The rise of AI adds another layer of urgency. As AI workloads increase demand on networks, data centers, energy systems and water resources, resilience planning must account for more than cyber threats. Physical infrastructure, climate-related risk, power availability and communications continuity are now part of the same conversation. The podcast explores why digital resilience must move from intention to execution. The organizations that perform best will be those that assign clear ownership, test across their ecosystem, modernize infrastructure, and build resilience into the way they operate every day. Learn more at: https://www.telstrainternational.com/en/news-research/articles/organisations-in-the-us-uk-and-germany-unprepared-for-large-scale-digital-disruption

“These are purpose-built devices,” says Jake Jacoby, CEO of TELCLOUD. “They're UL listed, certified, tested, and designed specifically for this business.” In the latest episode of the TELCLOUD POTS and Shots Podcast Series, Doug Green, Publisher of Technology Reseller News, speaks with Jacoby about the hardware that makes modern POTS replacement possible. Jacoby showcases two TELCLOUD devices: the POTScast 8 LTE PC228 LTE, which supports eight analog lines, and the POTScast 2 LTE PC222 LTE, which supports two. Both are designed to support legacy and life-safety systems such as elevators, fire alarms, security systems, fax lines, SCADA applications, modems, and emergency phones as copper lines are phased out. The POTScast platform combines analog support with modern LTE and WAN connectivity, including broadband, Wi-Fi as WAN, satellite, and cellular. Each device includes 24-hour battery backup, helping ensure that critical communications continue even when building power fails. Jacoby also explains TELCLOUD's modular design. Because cellular signal is often weak inside telecom rooms, TELCLOUD supports Power over Ethernet, allowing routers from partners such as Ericsson, Peplink, Digi, InHand, ATEL, and Seego to be placed up to 250 feet away for better reception. The episode closes with the Shots segment, featuring Herencia Historico Grand Reserve Extra Añejo, a five-year-aged, small-batch tequila from Jalisco presented in a distinctive handcrafted bottle. For more information, visit telcloud.com or call 844-900-2270.

By Doug Green “Many companies don't even realize they're out of compliance until someone takes a close look at how customer interactions are actually being handled,” said Todd Chisholm, president of IFT Solutions. In a recent Technology Reseller News podcast, I spoke with Todd Chisholm, president of IFT Solutions, about the company's new IFT Fortitude program and why MSPs have an opportunity to bring compliance-focused customer service assessments to business clients in regulated industries. IFT Solutions operates as a business process outsourcing company, providing services that range from customer service and collections to front-end sales support. The company also brings a consulting practice to the table, helping organizations assess whether their customer-facing operations, whether handled internally or outsourced, are meeting compliance expectations in an increasingly complex regulatory environment. That consulting expertise is now being packaged into IFT Fortitude, a program designed to let MSPs offer a white-labeled compliance assessment to their end-user customers. The goal is to help businesses determine whether their in-house or outsourced customer service teams are adhering to data privacy and other regulatory requirements. The timing makes sense. MSPs are increasingly serving customers in verticals where compliance is not optional, yet many of those customers may not realize how exposed they are. A company might have solid intentions and good people in place, but still fall short because processes have evolved unevenly, vendors have changed, or customer interactions are not being reviewed through a compliance lens. In many cases, risk builds quietly in day-to-day operations until an audit, complaint, or incident reveals the gap. Chisholm explained that this is where the MSP can provide more than technology support. By working with IFT, partners can bring a practical assessment service into customer accounts and help identify weaknesses before they become business problems. That creates a new advisory conversation for the MSP while addressing a real operational need for the customer. The Fortitude program is especially relevant in markets where customer communications are tightly tied to privacy, documentation, and process controls. Financial services is an obvious fit, but the broader opportunity extends to any organization handling sensitive customer information or operating in a regulated environment. Healthcare, insurance, and other service-intensive verticals are also likely candidates. For partners, the program offers a way to add value without having to build a compliance practice from scratch. IFT provides the assessment framework and expertise, while the MSP can position the service under its own brand and bring it to existing customers as part of a broader trusted advisor relationship. The larger message from the conversation is that compliance is becoming a business operations issue as much as a legal or technical one. Customer service processes, scripts, escalation paths, and outsourced workflows all matter. MSPs that help customers see that more clearly may find a strong opening for new services and deeper client engagement. For channel partners looking to expand beyond traditional IT support, IFT Fortitude points to a useful direction: practical, white-labeled services that help customers reduce risk while strengthening the MSP's role in the account. Learn more: https://telecomreseller.com/2026/04/21/integrated-financial-technologies-launches-ift-fortitude-to-assess-customer-service-compliance/

By Doug Green “We started our business to help these independents, give them the technology not just to compete but to level the playing field.” In a recent Technology Reseller News podcast, I spoke with Ellie Katz, CEO of National Retail Solutions, about a shift that is opening new opportunities for independent retailers. The conversation focused on how kiosks and delivery platform integrations with services such as DoorDash, Uber, Uber Eats, and Grubhub are helping bodegas, tiendas, corner stores, and other neighborhood retailers reach customers in ways once associated more with larger chains and restaurant brands. What stood out in the discussion was the scale of the opportunity. Katz noted that many smaller retailers are generating meaningful business through these platforms, showing that digital commerce is no longer reserved for national brands or big-box operators. For local stores, the combination of ordering technology, delivery access, and customer convenience is changing what is possible. Katz framed this as part of the original mission behind National Retail Solutions. The company, he said, was built to equip independent retailers with tools that help them operate more competitively in a changing market. That now includes much more than traditional point-of-sale functionality. It means giving store owners access to the kinds of commerce, fulfillment, and customer-engagement tools that can help them serve modern buying habits. The discussion also highlighted an important change in how people should think about small retail. Consumers increasingly expect convenience, digital ordering, and delivery options everywhere. As Katz explained, independent stores are proving they can meet those expectations when the right technology is put in place. That is helping smaller operators strengthen customer relationships and participate more fully in the on-demand economy. For the channel, the message is clear. There is a real opportunity in helping independent retailers adopt practical, revenue-producing technology. What once may have seemed out of reach for a neighborhood store is now becoming part of a broader digital toolkit. National Retail Solutions is positioning itself at the center of that change, helping independents use technology not simply to keep up, but to compete on a far more level field. Learn more: https://nrsplus.com/

AudioCodes' Gidi Adlersberg on VOCA CIC, Customer Experience, and the Practical Path to Better Service, Podcast, For the channel, that creates a meaningful opportunity. Partners and MSPs are looking for ways to bring AI to market in forms customers can understand, deploy, and measure. AudioCodes is making the case that conversational AI can be monetized when it is tied to practical use cases, clear service improvements, and better day-to-day communications performance. @Doug Green “Let's empower them to be confident in being able to provide good service,” said Gidi Adlersberg, Head of the VOCA CIC business line at AudioCodes. In a recent Technology Reseller News podcast, I spoke with Adlersberg about how conversational AI is being applied in real enterprise environments and how channel partners and MSPs can monetize AI while improving both customer experience and employee experience. AudioCodes is well known in the market as a voice company with deep roots in enterprise communications infrastructure. As Adlersberg explained, the company spans everything from connectivity to AI, serving enterprises, service providers, and channel partners with both traditional voice infrastructure and newer voice AI solutions. That broad background gives AudioCodes a practical perspective on where AI fits and where it can deliver measurable value. A key theme in the discussion was that many customer service journeys today are still frustrating by design. Too often, callers are routed through systems intended to keep them from ever reaching a live person, even when the recorded prompts suggest otherwise. That disconnect between what companies say and what customers actually experience creates friction, dissatisfaction, and missed opportunities. Adlersberg said AudioCodes is focused on addressing those pain points step by step. Rather than claiming to solve every behavioral issue directly, the company's approach is to remove the obstacles that keep employees from delivering the service customers actually need. The goal is to make teams more confident, more responsive, and better equipped to handle the calls that matter. That is where the broader value of VOCA CIC comes into view. The platform is not simply about adding AI for its own sake. It is about helping organizations improve outcomes in both CX and EX, customer experience and employee experience, by using AI in ways that are grounded in the reality of business communications. For the channel, that creates a meaningful opportunity. Partners and MSPs are looking for ways to bring AI to market in forms customers can understand, deploy, and measure. AudioCodes is making the case that conversational AI can be monetized when it is tied to practical use cases, clear service improvements, and better day-to-day communications performance. This conversation is part of an ongoing series with AudioCodes on conversational AI and the customer calling experience. What continues to stand out is that AudioCodes is approaching the market not as an AI newcomer, but as a company extending long-established voice expertise into a new generation of intelligent communications. Learn more: www.audiocodes.com

By Doug Green “Deterministic is more black and white, and we feel that it's a much better approach, not only from a scalability and cost perspective, but also it has a lot greater efficacy.”  In this CCA podcast, I spoke with Gerry Christensen, associate founder of ICA AI, about the company's approach to AI-driven communications and the growing interest it is seeing following the MVNO show in Miami. The conversation offered a useful look at how ICA AI is positioning itself in a crowded AI market by focusing on a more structured and predictable model for communications technology. Christensen began by explaining that ICA stands for Intelligent Communications Assistant. At its core, ICA AI is a technology and infrastructure company applying AI to communications in a way that is designed to be practical, scalable, and dependable. Rather than leaning on the probabilistic models that dominate much of today's AI conversation, Christensen said the company is focused on deterministic AI. That distinction is central to ICA AI's message. Christensen described deterministic AI as more “black and white,” arguing that it provides clearer and more reliable outcomes than systems based primarily on probabilities. In his view, that creates important advantages not only in cost and scalability, but also in overall effectiveness. For communications environments, where trust and accuracy matter, that difference can be significant. The point becomes even more relevant in industry verticals where privacy and security are essential. Christensen cited areas such as financial services and healthcare, where organizations need communications technologies that can operate with a higher degree of certainty and control. In those settings, AI is not simply about automation or novelty. It must support real business processes while meeting serious operational and compliance expectations. The discussion also reflected growing market interest in ICA AI's approach. Coming out of the MVNO show in Miami, Christensen suggested that the company is seeing momentum as service providers and industry participants look for practical AI solutions that fit within real telecom infrastructure. That is an important signal in a market that is still working to separate useful, deployable AI from broader hype. What makes ICA AI's story worth watching is that it points to a different framing for AI in telecom. The opportunity is not just to make systems more automated. It is to make communications systems more trusted, more predictable, and better aligned with the requirements of industries where errors and ambiguity carry real consequences. This podcast continues an important conversation about where AI is headed in telecom and why the next phase may be defined less by flashy claims and more by dependable outcomes.

Chitra Nawbatt, author of The CodeBreaker Mindset™ and creator and host of The CodeBreaker Mindset™ show, spoke with Doug Green, Publisher of Technology Reseller News, about how artificial intelligence is reshaping the workforce—and why leaders need to rethink long-held assumptions about jobs, productivity, and human potential. Nawbatt challenged the common narrative that AI alone is responsible for job displacement, suggesting instead that many workforce changes were already underway and are now being accelerated by technology. “AI isn't creating the disruption—it's exposing and accelerating decisions that were already in motion,” she explained. The conversation focused on the need for a new mindset—what Nawbatt calls the “CodeBreaker Mindset”—which encourages individuals and organizations to adapt, question assumptions, and embrace continuous learning. Rather than viewing AI as a threat, she emphasized the importance of understanding how to work alongside it, leveraging its capabilities while strengthening uniquely human skills such as creativity, judgment, and empathy. Nawbatt also discussed how businesses must rethink talent strategies, moving beyond traditional roles and job descriptions to more fluid, skills-based approaches. This shift requires leaders to invest in upskilling and to create cultures that support experimentation and innovation. As AI continues to transform industries, Nawbatt's perspective offers a clear message: success will depend less on resisting change and more on developing the mindset to navigate it effectively. Learn more about The CodeBreaker Mindset™: https://www.chitranawbatt.com/

“Think of it as the easy button—if you don't want to deal with the complexity, we can take care of it for you,” says Jake Jacoby, CEO of TELCLOUD. In the latest episode of the TELCLOUD POTS and Shots Podcast Series, Doug Green, Publisher of Technology Reseller News, speaks with Jacoby about a critical but often overlooked element of POTS replacement: billing, compliance, and selling the service—not just the infrastructure. As legacy copper lines are phased out globally, businesses must replace POTS lines that support life-safety and mission-critical systems such as fire alarms, elevators, security panels, and emergency phones. While much of the conversation has focused on technology and deployment, Jacoby explains that billing and regulatory compliance can be just as important—and just as complex. Because POTS replacement services fall under telecommunications regulations, partners who wish to bill customers directly must meet strict requirements, including registering as a 499 filer with the FCC and implementing sophisticated tax and billing engines capable of calculating and remitting federal, state, and local telecom taxes correctly. Jacoby notes that many partners initially underestimate this complexity. “You can't just mark it up and bill it,” he explains. “You have to be a registered telco, and you have to get the taxes right.” For organizations not prepared to take on this responsibility, TELCLOUD offers a streamlined alternative. Through its full-service, white-label model, TELCLOUD acts as the registered telecom provider, handling billing, tax compliance, and reporting on behalf of the partner. This allows MSPs and trusted advisors to focus on customer relationships while remaining fully compliant. For partners already operating as telecom providers, TELCLOUD also supports a wholesale model that allows them to manage billing independently. The approach reinforces TELCLOUD's core strategy: enabling partners to sell a fully managed service, rather than navigating the complexities of infrastructure, regulation, and billing on their own. At the same time, the partner retains full ownership of the customer relationship, ensuring continuity and long-term account growth. As copper shutdowns accelerate, Jacoby emphasizes that the opportunity extends across the entire channel—from experienced telecom providers to MSPs entering the space for the first time. With flexible engagement models and built-in compliance support, TELCLOUD is helping partners quickly bring reliable POTS replacement solutions to market. The episode concludes with the series' signature Shots segment, where Jacoby highlights Cenote Reposado, a traditionally crafted sipping tequila praised for its quality and accessibility—continuing the series' blend of telecom insight and tequila appreciation. For more information, visit telcloud.com or call 844-900-2270.

By Doug Green “V70 is the kind of release that shows how fast business communications is evolving—and how Vodia is evolving with it.” In this Technology Reseller News podcast, I spoke with Eric Altman of Vodia about the company's new PBX V70 release and why it matters for partners, service providers and the broader business communications market. Vodia develops phone system software and sells through the channel, with partners combining the software with SIP trunks, phones and related services to deliver complete solutions to customers. The platform can be deployed in the cloud or on premises, although cloud deployment continues to be the dominant direction for the market. What stands out about V70 is that this is not just another version update. Vodia is positioning it as a major redesign, led by a completely revamped Admin Portal built for speed, clarity and easier day-to-day management. The company says the new interface is designed to help administrators find settings faster, make changes more confidently and manage one tenant or hundreds with less friction and fewer errors. The AI story is also central to the release. Vodia says V70 brings built-in AI capabilities into the core platform experience, including AI-assisted PBX administration, AI voice agents and automation designed to reduce repetitive setup work. On the V70 page, the company describes AI as a way to turn routine configuration into a more conversational process, while also improving call handling through digital receptionist capabilities and intelligent workflows. That is an important point for the channel. The value proposition around business communications is no longer only about voice. It is increasingly about visibility, automation and control. V70 adds real-time dashboards, customizable wallboards, agent activity views, queue analytics and call recording and transcription tools that give partners and customers more insight into system performance and user activity. There are also practical enhancements aimed squarely at operational efficiency. Vodia says V70 includes smarter alerts, multicore and multithreaded performance improvements, centralized provisioning, system snapshots, cross-tenant presence and WhatsApp integration as an additional messaging channel. Taken together, those additions show a platform that is being shaped not just for core telephony, but for broader communications management in modern customer and business environments. For MSPs, resellers and service providers, that makes this release especially relevant. A platform that is easier to administer, stronger under load and increasingly infused with AI gives partners more ways to differentiate their offers and support customers at scale. The larger takeaway from my conversation with Altman is that Vodia sees the PBX evolving into something more intelligent and more operationally valuable than the traditional phone systems of the past. Learn more at: https://web.vodia.com/pbx-v70

“Some of them have been around for over a hundred years and it's antiquated technology.” That was how Rob Garry, founder of The POTS Box, described the legacy POTS line problem in a recent Technology Reseller News podcast with Doug Green. It was a concise way of capturing both the age of the infrastructure and the urgency of the opportunity now facing partners and customers alike. Garry made clear that this is not a narrow or fading issue. Instead, he presented POTS replacement as a broad-based managed services opportunity for resellers and partners serving organizations that still depend on legacy copper lines for critical functions. As he explained, “We've put together a managed service for replacing old POTS lines… and we've put a program in to enable resellers and partners to do it with their end user customers.” That combination of need and enablement is what makes the market significant. Many businesses and facilities continue to rely on old analog lines for systems that cannot simply be ignored or switched off. In many cases, the infrastructure behind those services is not just old, but rooted in an earlier era of communications. As Doug Green noted during the interview, some of these systems reflect technologies that date back nearly a century. The conversation positioned The POTS Box as a practical answer to that reality. Rather than treating POTS replacement as a one-off hardware transaction, the company has built a managed service approach designed to simplify the transition away from copper while helping partners deliver that change to their customers in a structured way. That matters for the channel. POTS replacement is not just a matter of removing obsolete technology. It is an opportunity to solve a real operational problem for customers while creating ongoing value through service, support, and modernization. For partners, that means a chance to step into a pressing need with a solution that is understandable, necessary, and tied to long-term infrastructure change. The interview also served as a useful reminder that, while much of the technology industry's attention is currently focused on AI and cybersecurity, there are still major opportunities in helping customers address older foundational systems that no longer fit current realities. POTS replacement remains one of those opportunities: concrete, urgent, and widely relevant across many customer environments. For partners looking for a broad-based opportunity with real-world customer impact, Garry's message was straightforward. The need is still here, the infrastructure is still aging, and the market for replacement remains active. Learn more: The POTS Box: https://thepotsbox.com/

By Doug Green “Culture over capital wins.” That was one of the defining ideas in my recent Technology Reseller News podcast with Tyler Merritt of UneeQ, and it captures a major shift now underway in AI. The conversation took place as UneeQ announced new internal results that point to an estimated 127x return on its AI investment and a broader operating framework for companies looking to turn AI into measurable business value. In the podcast, the discussion centered on something many companies are still trying to figure out: how to move beyond AI experimentation and actually monetize it. UneeQ's announcement argues that the winners in this next phase will not necessarily be the largest or best-funded organizations, but the ones that can adapt fastest and build AI into daily operations. According to UneeQ, the company has achieved these results with fewer than 50 employees, while unlocking an estimated $4.2 million in annual capacity revenue. The point, however, is larger than the numbers alone. UneeQ is making the case that AI changes how work gets done, how teams are structured, and how quickly a company can move when it is no longer limited by traditional workflow boundaries. The company points to several specific operational gains. These include 30 to 50 percent faster structured document production, up to a 90 percent reduction in manual reporting effort, and engineering output gains that UneeQ estimates at three to ten times through AI-augmented workflows. Just as importantly, UneeQ says non-technical team members are now able to build functional automations, reflecting a broader shift in capability across the organization. UneeQ has also formalized six internal principles to guide adoption across the company: AI competence, personal growth ownership, critical thinking, output accountability, ethical use, and data protection. That part of the announcement is especially important. It suggests that the company sees AI not as a replacement for judgment, but as a force multiplier that still requires human responsibility and discipline. For the Technology Reseller News audience, the message is clear. AI is moving from demo to operating strategy. Organizations that can connect AI to workflow, accountability, and revenue may be in a much stronger position than companies that are still treating it as a side project. As Tyler put it, “The companies that win in the AI era will not be the biggest, they will be the fastest to adapt.” That may be the defining lesson here. The competitive edge may no longer go automatically to the largest enterprise. It may go to the company that can change its culture, move quickly, and make AI part of the way work actually gets done. Learn more: https://www.digitalhumans.com/blog/uneeq-reveals-staggering-ai-roi-2026

David Turner, Vice President of Global Number Intelligence at TransUnion, spoke with Doug Green, Publisher of Technology Reseller News, about the company's new Digital Business Profile solution and its role in helping small businesses improve visibility, accuracy, and trust in an AI-driven search environment. Turner explained that while large enterprises have long benefited from sophisticated SEO and digital presence tools, small businesses have lacked affordable, easy-to-use solutions. TransUnion's Digital Business Profile addresses this gap by providing a centralized portal where businesses can input and manage their core information—hours, services, locations, and more—and distribute it across approximately 80 platforms. “It really comes down to simplicity and affordability—giving even the smallest business the ability to be properly represented,” Turner said. The conversation highlighted how the rise of AI-driven search is reshaping digital discovery. Instead of relying on a handful of major platforms, AI systems now pull data from a wide range of sources, making consistency across all listings critical. TransUnion's platform ensures that verified, trusted data is distributed broadly, improving both search accuracy and business rankings while reducing the burden on business owners. Trust and security are central to the solution. Turner noted that inaccurate or fraudulent listings—such as keyword stuffing or fake business identities—can harm both consumers and legitimate businesses. By verifying business identities and maintaining trusted integrations with major platforms, TransUnion helps protect users while preserving business reputations. This approach also aligns with the company's broader trusted communications initiatives, including branded calling and robocall mitigation. TransUnion is bringing the solution to market through both direct channels and partnerships, including telecom providers and MSPs that can bundle the service into their offerings. By combining identity management, search visibility, and trusted communications, the Digital Business Profile represents a new step in extending enterprise-grade capabilities to the small business market. Learn more about TransUnion: http://www.transunion.com/business

By Doug Green “The question is no longer whether an attacker gets in—it's how far they can go.” In a recent Technology Reseller News podcast, I spoke with Doug Merritt, CEO of Aviatrix, about the company's latest platform launch and a broader shift in cybersecurity strategy he calls the “Containment Era.” Aviatrix operates at the architectural layer of cloud environments, focusing on how systems, applications, and workloads communicate—where security outcomes are ultimately determined. As Merritt explains, the industry is moving beyond the assumption that breaches can always be prevented. Instead, the focus must shift to controlling what happens after a breach by defining exactly what each workload is allowed to reach and enforcing those boundaries consistently. The result is a model where lateral movement is restricted and risk is managed by reducing blast radius rather than relying solely on detection. A major driver behind this shift is the rapid rise of AI. According to Merritt, AI has dramatically accelerated both vulnerability discovery and exploitation, shrinking the window between exposure and attack and making traditional response models less effective. At the same time, attackers are increasingly using legitimate credentials, trusted code, and authorized pathways, blending malicious activity into normal operations and making detection far more difficult. Compounding the issue, autonomous AI agents can now operate across systems, increasing both scale and risk. This combination defines the Containment Era—a model where the key question is not whether an attack gets in, but how far it can spread. The Containment Era represents a shift from detection-first security to containment-first architecture. When threats are indistinguishable from legitimate activity, the defining variable becomes lateral movement—how far a compromised workload, identity, or AI agent can reach. Containment addresses this by enforcing strict communication controls so that systems can only access what they are explicitly permitted to reach. Even if a breach occurs, its impact is limited by design, requiring enforcement to move into the network and infrastructure layer rather than relying solely on edge or endpoint tools. To support this shift, Aviatrix has introduced new capabilities within its Cloud Native Security Fabric. The platform delivers workload-level containment by enforcing precise communication policies across cloud environments without requiring agents or code changes. Key capabilities include consistent enforcement across clouds, regions, and compute environments; Zero Trust controls for AI workloads; default-deny policies to eliminate shadow AI and unauthorized connections; AgentGuard visibility into AI workloads; and integration with partners to secure both AI behavior and access. The goal is to reduce blast radius while maintaining flexibility for modern, distributed applications. For enterprise and service provider leaders, the takeaway is clear: AI has fundamentally changed the threat landscape. The first step is understanding exposure—specifically, how far a compromise could spread—followed by measuring and managing blast radius as a core security metric. Architectural controls that limit workload communication need to become standard in cloud design, and security and infrastructure teams must align around containment as a shared responsibility. As AI adoption accelerates, governing how systems connect and interact will become increasingly critical, and the organizations that move early will be best positioned to harness AI while keeping risk contained. Learn more: https://aviatrix.ai/  

By Doug Green “AI is ready to enforce decisions at scale—but it's not ready to make them.” In a recent Telecom Reseller podcast, I spoke with Chris Bonavita, Vice President of Strategy and Technology Adoption at GTT Communications, about one of the most important—and often misunderstood—shifts happening in AI-driven cybersecurity. As enterprises move aggressively toward autonomous AI inside the Security Operations Center (SOC), Bonavita argues the industry is getting ahead of itself. The problem isn't whether AI is powerful—it clearly is. The problem is where that power is being applied. Today's AI is exceptionally good at ingesting massive volumes of data, identifying patterns, detecting anomalies, and executing defined tasks at machine speed. In the SOC, that translates into real, measurable value. AI is already improving threat detection, accelerating response times, and reducing the burden of repetitive operational work. But there is a line—and according to Bonavita, the industry is starting to cross it too quickly. AI, he explains, does not understand intent. It does not understand business context. And it cannot reliably distinguish between what is technically possible and what is operationally appropriate. That distinction matters in cybersecurity, where decisions carry financial, operational, and reputational consequences. This is where the concept of “AI should enforce, not decide” becomes critical. In this model, humans define policy, intent, and acceptable risk. AI then executes—consistently, continuously, and at scale. It becomes the enforcement engine, not the decision-maker. When that boundary is ignored, new risks begin to emerge. Bonavita points to issues like policy drift, where AI systems begin to deviate from original intent over time, and agent conflict, where multiple automated systems act on overlapping or contradictory instructions. In a dynamic environment without clear human control, these issues can compound quickly, creating unintended disruptions or even new vulnerabilities. At the same time, the threat landscape is evolving just as rapidly. Attackers are now using AI to develop threats faster, automate reconnaissance, and adapt in real time. Defenders are responding with AI-driven detection and remediation. The result is an environment where both sides are operating at machine speed—forcing organizations to rethink how security decisions are made and executed. Compounding the challenge is the disappearance of the traditional network perimeter. Data, users, and applications now exist everywhere, and access is no longer confined to a controlled environment. In this perimeter-less world, both threats and defenses are distributed—and AI is embedded across both. For enterprises, the takeaway is not to slow down AI adoption—but to rethink how it is deployed. The goal is not autonomy. The goal is scale with control. That means building architectures where human intent remains central, and AI is used to enforce that intent across increasingly complex environments. It also aligns closely with GTT's broader strategy, including its Envision platform and SASE-based approach to networking and security, where orchestration and policy consistency are foundational. Looking ahead, the question is not whether AI will play a central role in cybersecurity—it already does. The real question is whether organizations can maintain control as AI capabilities continue to expand. As this conversation makes clear, the most effective model may not be AI replacing human decision-making—but human-directed AI operating at a speed and scale no human team could match. Learn more: https://www.gtt.net/

By Doug Green “Some of these AI-driven attacks are the kind that can stop you in your tracks.” In this Technology Reseller News podcast, I spoke with Chip Witt, Principal Security Evangelist at Radware, about a rapidly emerging challenge: how AI is introducing new, often invisible, security risks into enterprise environments. Witt outlined a fundamental shift. As organizations adopt AI tools across workflows, they are also creating new attack surfaces—many of which are not yet fully understood or monitored. One of the biggest concerns is the lack of visibility. Enterprises often don't know what data AI systems are accessing, how it's being used, or where vulnerabilities may exist. This creates blind spots around data access, compliance, and operational stability. In regulated industries like finance and healthcare, those blind spots can quickly turn into real business risk. A key issue discussed was prompt injection attacks, where malicious inputs manipulate AI systems into exposing sensitive data or performing unintended actions. These attacks are particularly dangerous because they don't look like traditional threats—they operate inside trusted workflows. Witt emphasized that many organizations are still applying legacy security thinking to a fundamentally new paradigm. AI doesn't just expand the attack surface—it changes its nature. Security teams must now account for dynamic, context-driven interactions rather than static perimeters. The takeaway is clear: AI adoption without AI-aware security introduces risk at a pace faster than most organizations can track. For service providers and enterprises, this represents both a challenge and an opportunity. Those who can build visibility, governance, and control into AI deployments early will be far better positioned as these risks evolve. Learn more: https://www.radware.com/

Simphonic Highlights “SIM – The Nerve Center of Operations in the Age of AI,” Revealing Hidden Drivers of Telecom Churn, Podcast, More than 40% of negative subscriber experiences never show up in traditional network-side metrics @Doug Green “Over 40% of negative subscriber experiences are completely invisible to traditional network metrics.” In a recent Technology Reseller News podcast, I spoke with Chris Drake, CEO of Simphonic, about a critical blind spot in how telecom operators measure subscriber experience—and why it's directly tied to churn. At the center of the discussion is new research by Chetan Sharma, CEO of Chetan Sharma Consulting, titled “SIM – The Nerve Center of Operations in the Age of AI,” which analyzed thousands of real-world mobile interactions across North America. The findings are clear: more than 40% of negative subscriber experiences never show up in traditional network-side metrics. Even more important, the majority of these undetected issues occur in the environments that matter most—at home and at work—where customers ultimately decide whether to stay with or leave their carrier. New research by Chetan Sharma, CEO of Chetan Sharma Consulting, titled “SIM – The Nerve Center of Operations in the Age of AI,” which analyzed thousands of real-world mobile interactions across North America. The findings: more than 40% of negative subscriber experiences never show up in traditional network-side metrics. Drake explained that traditional network monitoring tools focus on infrastructure performance—signal strength, latency, and uptime—but fail to capture the real-world user experience at the device level. This creates a disconnect where operators believe service is performing well, while customers are silently encountering problems. That gap is where churn begins. The report reframes the role of the SIM. No longer just an authentication tool, the SIM is emerging as a distributed intelligence layer—what the research describes as the “nerve center” of operations—capable of capturing device-side quality of experience (QoE) and delivering what the user actually experiences in real time. This SIM-based intelligence provides visibility into issues that network tools cannot detect, including application performance, indoor coverage challenges, and repeated service instability that erodes trust over time. For operators, the implication is significant. Network KPIs alone are no longer sufficient to understand or manage customer experience. To reduce churn and improve service quality, carriers must incorporate device-side intelligence that reflects lived experience, not just network intent. As Drake emphasized, this shift is not just about better analytics—it's about protecting revenue. Operators who fail to detect and address these hidden issues risk losing customers without ever understanding why. Learn more: https://simphonic.com/ Report: https://simphonic.com/request-report/ Press Release: https://wp.me/p2Q636-Ouj

Carlos da Silva, Chief Product Officer of Unibeam, discusses SIM-based authentication technology with Don Witt from Channel Daily News a TR Publication. Carlos explained Unibeam’s SIM-based authentication technology, which uses information stored in SIM cards to provide enhanced security against account takeover and fraud, particularly addressing the limitations of traditional SMS OTP authentication methods. He discussed how their solution works through cellular networks rather than the internet, making it more secure while maintaining ease of use for users. Carlos DaSilva Mr. Carlos da Silva also shared some insight on the following topics: The top cybersecurity threats facing customers of mobile operators today Why passwords, traditional MFA, and other authentication methods are no longer effective in this threat landscape. SIM-based authentication, and how is it making a difference. Additional insight about Unibeam. SIM-based authentication is being adopted in a few markets For more information, go to: https://unibeam.com/

By Doug Green “If someone can do it 70% as well as you—you need to let go.” At the close of the Channel Partners Conference & Expo and MSP Summit, I spoke with Julie Thiel of TTS Company about a theme that stood out amid a week dominated by AI and technology: the human side of growth. Thiel shared that many of the leaders she spoke with during the event are energized by opportunity—new customers, new services, and new technologies—but also feeling the weight that comes with scaling a business. Growth brings complexity, and ultimately, it brings more people. For many leaders, that translates into longer hours and a deep sense of responsibility for their teams. Against that backdrop, Thiel outlined three practical leadership principles that she sees as essential for companies looking to scale successfully. First, leaders must hand off results—not just tasks. Delegation is not about assigning activity; it's about transferring ownership and accountability for outcomes. Without that shift, leaders remain bottlenecks in their own organizations. Second, she emphasized the importance of “tell, show, do” as a framework for developing people. It's not enough to explain what needs to be done—leaders must demonstrate it and then create space for employees to execute. This structured approach to training builds confidence and capability across the team. Third, and perhaps most challenging, is the idea that if someone can do a task 70% as well as the leader, it is time to let go. For many executives and founders, this represents a significant mindset shift. However, without it, organizations struggle to scale because too much remains dependent on a small number of individuals. In a week filled with discussions about automation and artificial intelligence, Thiel's perspective underscored a critical point: technology may enable growth, but people determine whether that growth is sustainable. For MSPs, channel partners, and service providers, the takeaway is clear. Scaling a business requires not only the right tools, but also the willingness to invest in people, develop leadership capabilities, and step back to allow teams to take ownership. Learn more at: https://thieltalentstrategy.com/

By Doug Green “Last year, AI was being talked about like candy. This year, it's under the hood—and that's where it belongs.” At the close of the Channel Partners Conference & Expo 2026, I spoke with Dean Manzuri of UniVoIP about what changed from last year to this year—and what that means for partners navigating the evolution of AI and voice. Manzuri's perspective reflects a broader industry shift. A year ago, AI dominated the conversation as a headline feature. Today, it's becoming embedded—less visible, but far more impactful. Instead of being marketed as a standalone capability, AI is increasingly integrated into platforms and workflows, quietly improving performance, automation, and user experience. That shift aligns closely with UniVoIP's core mission: to be the best voice provider for Microsoft Teams. The company's value proposition is straightforward—help organizations migrate their phone systems into Teams seamlessly, while ensuring reliability and a strong user experience. From a channel perspective, the event delivered what many providers were looking for: new partner engagement and clearer signals on where the market is heading. Manzuri noted that UniVoIP connected with a range of new partners and used the event to validate its direction, particularly around Teams voice and integrated communications. The AI conversation reinforced that direction. As AI becomes embedded within platforms like Teams, the opportunity shifts from selling “AI features” to delivering better outcomes—smarter routing, improved call handling, automation, and enhanced customer interactions, all happening behind the scenes. For partners, this changes the sales motion. Instead of leading with AI as a buzzword, the focus moves to business results: smoother migrations, better call quality, more efficient operations, and tighter integration with the tools customers already use. In that sense, AI isn't replacing the core value of voice—it's strengthening it. And as the show wrapped up, that may have been the most important takeaway: the future isn't about adding more technology on top. It's about making the technology already in place work better, more intelligently, and more seamlessly than before. Learn more at: https://www.univoip.com/

By Doug Green “The challenge for partners today isn't just technology—it's choosing the right model in a market full of options.” At the Channel Partners Conference & Expo 2026 in Las Vegas, I spoke with Kevin Huang, North America Sales Director at Yeastar, about how the company is helping partners navigate an increasingly complex UCaaS landscape. Yeastar, founded in 2006, has built its business around delivering unified communications solutions that span PBX, contact center, and now AI-driven capabilities. With nearly two decades of experience, the company is positioning itself as a flexible, partner-focused alternative in a market that has become crowded—and, in many ways, confusing. According to Huang, one of the biggest challenges facing partners today is the sheer number of choices. Over the past five years, the UCaaS market has seen rapid expansion, consolidation, and constant innovation. While that growth has created opportunity, it has also made it harder for partners to determine which platforms and business models best fit their customers—and their own long-term strategies. Many partners, he noted, have become dependent on specific vendors or ecosystems, limiting their flexibility. At the same time, evolving technologies and shifting pricing models are forcing partners to rethink how they go to market. Yeastar's approach is to simplify that decision-making process. The company has developed its own business model designed to give partners more control, flexibility, and margin opportunity, while still providing a full stack of communications capabilities—from traditional UC to contact center and AI-enhanced services. A key part of that strategy is unification. Rather than requiring partners to piece together multiple solutions, Yeastar aims to deliver an integrated platform that reduces complexity for both the partner and the end customer. This becomes especially important as AI enters the mix, adding both new capabilities and new layers of decision-making. Huang emphasized that AI is not just an add-on, but a natural extension of unified communications. By embedding AI into the platform, Yeastar is working to help partners deliver more value without dramatically increasing operational complexity. For channel partners, the takeaway is clear: success in today's UCaaS market depends less on chasing the latest feature set and more on aligning with a platform and model that can adapt as the market continues to evolve. Learn more at: https://www.yeastar.com/