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Andrew Sage, Cisco’s vice president of global partners and distribution sales Artificial intelligence is beginning to change the way technology moves through the IT channel, and Cisco believes the impact on distribution could extend far beyond simply automating transactions. At Cisco Partner Summit 2026 in Vancouver, the company highlighted new agentic AI integrations with distributors designed to simplify the process of configuring, pricing, and ordering technology. But Cisco also sees an opportunity for distributors to take on a much broader role in helping partners deliver sophisticated solutions and services to customers. In this edition of In the Channel, ChannelBuzz.ca editor Robert Dutt sits down with Andrew Sage, Cisco’s vice president of global partners and distribution sales, to discuss how the company’s distribution strategy is evolving and what those changes mean for Canadian VARs, MSPs, and solution providers. One of the most immediate examples is Cisco’s new integration with Ingram Micro‘s Xvantage platform. Sage says the agentic workflow can reduce a process that previously took as much as a day — including network configuration, deal registration, pricing, and ordering — to approximately five minutes. Unlike traditional API-based integrations, which typically exchange information through predefined requests and responses, the new approach allows AI agents operating across Cisco and distributor systems to exchange information and recommendations as part of a more sophisticated workflow. And Ingram Micro isn’t the only distributor involved. Sage describes another integration already operating within TD SYNNEX’s U.S. presales organization, where a distributor-side AI agent can communicate with Cisco’s configuration agent to help turn customer requirements into proposed solutions and quotes. Human presales engineers remain involved in reviewing and refining the results. For Sage, however, the long-term opportunity goes beyond speeding up the sales process. Cisco is encouraging distributors to provide more capabilities on behalf of partners, including security assessments, infrastructure modernization planning, professional services, and software activation and adoption. That approach could be particularly valuable for smaller partners that lack the resources to develop every specialized capability internally. Sage points to sophisticated purchasing arrangements, including Cisco enterprise agreements, as an example of opportunities that smaller partners may be able to pursue with distributor support. And as Cisco continues expanding its use of agentic AI, Sage expects the next generation of distributor integrations to move beyond configuration and commerce into installed-base analysis, security recommendations, lifecycle management, and renewals. The conversation also explores the upcoming integration of distributors into the Cisco 360 Partner Program. Sage says distributors will begin prequalification in January 2027, ahead of the program’s planned launch on August 1, 2027. With AI driving demand for networking and security infrastructure while simultaneously reducing the cost of scaling channel operations, Sage believes Cisco distribution is entering a period of significant opportunity. In this episode, we discuss: How Cisco sees the role of IT distributors evolving beyond traditional fulfillment and transactions. Why Cisco is connecting its AI agents directly with distributor platforms. How the Ingram Micro integration can reduce configuration, deal registration, pricing, and ordering from as much as a day to approximately five minutes. How a separate agentic integration is already supporting TD SYNNEX’s U.S. presales organization. Why Cisco wants distributors to deliver more services and capabilities on behalf of smaller partners. How agentic AI could help smaller VARs and MSPs pursue more sophisticated Cisco opportunities. What’s next for agentic distribution, including installed-base analysis, security recommendations, and lifecycle management. How distributors will transition into the Cisco 360 Partner Program in 2027. Why Sage believes the distribution channel has several significant growth opportunities ahead. Listen to the full conversation with Andrew Sage, recorded at Cisco Partner Summit 2026 in Vancouver, in this edition of In the Channel. Read Full Transcript Robert Dutt: Hello and welcome to In the Channel from ChannelBuzz.ca, bringing you news and information for the Canadian IT channel for the last 16 years. I’m Robert Dutt, editor of ChannelBuzz.ca, and your host for the show. We’re continuing our coverage of Cisco Partner Summit 2026 in Vancouver, where one of the recurring themes has been the evolution of the partner ecosystem, and particularly the growing role of artificial intelligence in changing how partners, distributors, and Cisco itself work together. And when it comes to distribution, Cisco isn’t just talking about what’s possible. It’s already putting agentic AI to work. This week, we heard about an integration between Cisco and Ingram Micro that can reduce a process involving network configuration, deal registration, pricing, and ordering from as much as a day to just five minutes. And there’s similar work underway with TD SYNNEX, where AI agents are helping automate the presales configuration and quoting process. But the bigger opportunity may be what these technologies allow distributors and their partners to do next. Cisco is increasingly looking to distributors to provide services and expertise on behalf of partners, helping smaller VARs and MSPs offer more sophisticated solutions, develop new capabilities, and compete for opportunities that might previously have been out of reach. To explore what this means for the future of distribution, I sat down with Andrew Sage, Cisco’s vice president of global partners and distribution sales, here at Partner Summit. We discussed how agentic integration is changing the relationship between Cisco and its distributors, where the next wave of automation is heading, and why Sage believes these changes could significantly expand Cisco’s reach into the SMB market. We also get into the upcoming integration of distributors into the Cisco 360 Partner Program and what Sage sees as an unusually strong set of growth opportunities for the distribution channel. Let’s get right into it. My chat with Andrew Sage. Robert Dutt: Andrew, thanks for taking the time. I appreciate it. Andrew Sage: Of course, Robert. Always great to see a fellow Canadian here in Vancouver. Robert Dutt: Speaking of that, you’ve spent so much of your career with global roles at Cisco. What’s it like having Partner Summit in Vancouver this year? And from your perspective, what is bringing Cisco’s global partner community back to Canada for the third time, may I add? Andrew Sage: For the third time, yeah. Well, you know, we move Partner Summit around North America, and I was patiently waiting to come back to the home country. I think it’s a perfect time to get partners together because there is so much going on right now in our business. We sat through a keynote today where Jeetu Patel, our president and chief product officer, walked through the innovation that Cisco is bringing to this moment we’re having with AI. And our CEO, Chuck, was comparing it to the Internet and how that changed how people thought about technology. The impact was underestimated at the beginning and ultimately became quite profound. I really feel like it’s exactly the same now, probably on steroids, if I can add that. So, yeah, we’ve got a lot to talk about, and we’re lucky enough to be in this beautiful convention centre. This place is just off the charts. Robert Dutt: And distribution has been such a hot topic. It always gets attention because it’s Partner Summit, and obviously distributors are a big part of that. But it feels like the subject of distribution is getting the love from the top executives on down at this week’s event. There’s a lot going on. We’ve heard a lot this week about the vision of an agile, increasingly AI-enabled partner ecosystem. And distribution has obviously been central to the channel strategy for obvious reasons. But how do you see the role of the distributor changing, both as a result of that vision becoming reality and as a result of the decisions the distributors are making about what they want to be going forward? Andrew Sage: Yeah, great question. Distribution remains hugely important to Cisco. About a third of our business goes through our distribution channels. More than two-thirds of our transactions go through our distributors. So they are very, very busy partners of ours in every corner of the world, and they continue to gain share in Cisco’s route-to-market mix. They become more and more relevant over time. And their business is changing. I have an AI agent that every morning gives me a summary of what’s been announced from our distributors, usually earnings announcements and things like that. Their businesses are growing really well, and they’re profitable. They’re in a good spot. But they’re being asked to do more and more by companies like ours who partner with them. Obviously, they still need to deliver that core value of scaling our business into every corner of the world, providing us with capillarity, enabling our partners, helping our partners do demand generation, and even the most basic things they provide, almost taken for granted: inventory, credit, those sorts of things. But now, more than ever, we’re really focusing on getting our distributors to help partners move fast, because this is all moving very fast. We have this concept we call “on behalf of,” where our distributors are building capabilities to do things on behalf of partners. In a community of partners that is pretty diverse, not every partner is going to be able to drive adoption, for example, and lifecycle services for their customers. Not every partner will be able to

Today’s headline news for Canadian IT solution providers includes a potentially significant new AI services opportunity from Cisco, an effort by N-able to accelerate vulnerability remediation, and expanded cybersecurity and resilience capabilities from Dell Technologies. Cisco Model Foundry opens new AI development opportunity for partners Cisco is giving partners access to specialized artificial intelligence models through a new service called Model Foundry, introduced at Cisco Partner Summit 2026 in Vancouver. The offering is part of Cisco Cloud Control and is designed to let partners use Cisco’s purpose-built models in their own applications and customer solutions. Partners can also customize those models using customer-specific data, creating opportunities for differentiated AI services. The initial catalogue includes models focused on networking, security, operational decision-making and time-series analysis. Among them are Cisco’s Deep Network Model for network troubleshooting, Antares for identifying software vulnerabilities, and a decision model designed to help AI agents determine which tools to use and when human intervention is necessary. Rather than requiring partners to develop specialized models from scratch, Cisco is positioning Model Foundry as a foundation for building customer-specific AI solutions. That could include AI-powered network troubleshooting, automated security investigations, operational assistants and applications trained on a customer’s infrastructure and support history. During Tuesday’s Partner Summit keynote, Cisco president and chief product officer Jeetu Patel explicitly encouraged partners to develop practices around the new capability. The business proposition is that Cisco supplies the underlying domain expertise and model infrastructure, while partners contribute their knowledge of customer environments, business processes and operational requirements. Cisco also presented early testing conducted with World Wide Technology. In a 12-scenario laboratory evaluation, a Cisco Deep Network Model fine-tuned using WWT troubleshooting data recommended the correct remediation in 11 cases, compared with eight for the frontier model used as a benchmark. The results suggest potential benefits from specialization, although the small evaluation does not establish how the models will perform across different customer environments. Model Foundry entered controlled availability with partners first at Partner Summit. Cisco is targeting general availability in June 2027. For Canadian solution providers, the announcement raises an interesting question: Could developing, customizing and operating specialized AI models become a practical managed service, rather than a capability restricted to large organizations with substantial AI development teams? The opportunity will depend on pricing, implementation complexity, ongoing support requirements and whether partners can demonstrate meaningful improvements in customer operations. But it represents another step in Cisco’s effort to help partners build services businesses around its technology rather than relying primarily on product transactions. Read more from Cisco’s Model Foundry announcement and ChannelBuzz.ca’s coverage of Cisco Partner Summit 2026. N-able connects vulnerability discovery, patching and verification N-able has announced AI-accelerated Vulnerability and Patch Management capabilities intended to help MSPs reduce the time between identifying a security vulnerability and confirming that it has been remediated. The enhancements are part of the company’s Unified Endpoint Management platform. The approach brings vulnerability scanning, risk-based prioritization, patch deployment and post-remediation verification into a connected workflow. For MSPs, the objective is to reduce the manual work involved in moving between vulnerability assessment tools, patch management systems and reporting processes. N-able says the platform can prioritize vulnerabilities based on exploitability and other risk factors, apply appropriate updates and rescan systems to verify that remediation was successful. The company’s N-zo AI assistant can also provide information about failed patches and help administrators determine whether another deployment attempt is appropriate. N-able is positioning the enhancements as a way to reduce patching windows from days to minutes, although actual results will depend on the vulnerability, affected systems and operational environment. The announcement addresses a persistent challenge for MSPs managing multiple customer environments. Identifying a vulnerability is only the beginning. Service providers must also determine which customers are affected, prioritize remediation, coordinate changes and confirm that the vulnerability has actually been addressed. Bringing those activities together could help reduce administrative overhead and improve consistency. The opportunity for MSPs is not simply faster patch deployment, but a more complete and demonstrable vulnerability management service. Read N-able’s announcement. Dell expands cyber resilience across AI, identity and infrastructure Dell Technologies has expanded its cybersecurity and resilience portfolio with capabilities designed to protect AI environments, strengthen identity recovery and improve infrastructure resilience. Announced Tuesday at Dell’s AI Cybersecurity and Resilience Summit, the additions reflect the changing requirements of organizations deploying increasingly complex AI systems. The expansion includes new AI-focused services and PowerProtect capabilities intended to help organizations protect AI environments and recover from security incidents. Dell is also placing greater emphasis on identity resilience. Identity systems increasingly control access to applications, data and infrastructure, making them critical to business continuity. Compromising those systems can disrupt an organization’s ability to operate even when its underlying data remains intact. Dell’s new capabilities are intended to strengthen protection and recovery for critical identity platforms, alongside managed threat detection. The company is also expanding integration between PowerProtect and PowerScale and introducing additional capabilities intended to prepare infrastructure for emerging quantum-related security risks. For solution providers, the announcement reinforces the growing overlap between cybersecurity, data protection, identity management and business continuity. Customers adopting AI need more than protection for the models and applications themselves. They also need to consider the data those systems access, the identities controlling them and the infrastructure required to restore operations after an incident. That creates opportunities for partners delivering security assessments, resilience planning, implementation and ongoing management. The challenge will be integrating those capabilities into coherent services that customers can understand and justify. Read Dell’s cybersecurity and resilience announcement. Read Full Transcript Robert Dutt: Hello, and welcome to The Buzz from ChannelBuzz.ca. I’m Robert Dutt. Today is Wednesday, October 28, 2026, and here’s what’s happening in the channel today. We’re coming to you from Vancouver, where Cisco Partner Summit 2026 is underway. Yesterday, we took a broad look at Cisco’s efforts to help partners build more profitable businesses around artificial intelligence. Today, we’re going to start with something a little more specific. And potentially, a pretty interesting new business opportunity for partners. We’re also looking at new developments from N-able and Dell Technologies, both focused on helping organizations manage increasingly complex cybersecurity challenges. Let’s get into it. First, Cisco Model Foundry. During yesterday’s Partner Summit keynote, Cisco president and chief product officer Jeetu Patel introduced a new service intended to give partners access to some of the company’s specialized artificial intelligence models. And perhaps more importantly, to let them customize those models for individual customers. It’s called Model Foundry, and it’s part of Cisco Cloud Control. Now, Cisco has been developing AI models specifically for networking, security and infrastructure operations for some time. These aren’t general-purpose models designed to answer questions about everything from programming to pizza recipes. They’re models trained to understand particular technical domains. For example, Cisco’s Deep Network Model is designed to understand network configurations, telemetry and troubleshooting. Another model, called Antares, focuses on identifying potential software vulnerabilities. And there’s a decision model designed to help AI agents determine which tools they should use, whether they have enough information to make a decision, and when they should escalate a problem to a human. What’s changing with Model Foundry is that Cisco wants partners to be able to use those models directly in applications and services they develop for customers. And they can go a step further. Partners can fine-tune those models using information specific to a customer’s environment. Think about a managed service provider that has years of information about a customer’s network, including configurations, support tickets, troubleshooting history and operational data. Instead of relying entirely on a general-purpose AI model, that provider could potentially build an assistant that combines Cisco’s networking expertise with detailed knowledge of that particular customer. That could create opportunities for more sophisticated troubleshooting, operational automation and ongoing managed services. And Cisco is trying to reduce the technical barriers involved. Model Foundry provides access to the models through APIs, along with tools for testing, customization and evaluation. Partners don’t necessarily have to build or operate the under

Alex Pujols, vice president of solutions engineering for Cisco’s Global Partner Organization Artificial intelligence isn’t just changing the technologies Cisco partners deliver. It’s changing the kinds of businesses they can build. That’s a central theme of this episode of In The Channel, recorded at Cisco Partner Summit 2026 in Vancouver, where Alex Pujols, Cisco’s vice president of sales solutions engineering, joins us to discuss the opportunities emerging as AI becomes increasingly embedded in enterprise infrastructure and operations. Pujols identifies security as perhaps the most immediate opportunity. He discusses Cisco’s five-stage Vulnerability Operations Maturity Model, designed to help partners assess their capabilities and develop the increasingly sophisticated services customers require. He also offers his assessment of how quickly partners are progressing through those stages. The conversation turns to infrastructure, including emerging edge AI use cases, before exploring how Cisco Cloud Control could simplify managed services delivery. Pujols confirms that Canada is among the next markets targeted for Cloud Control availability, although no specific date has been announced. Another major theme is partner-developed intellectual property. Cisco’s AI Studio and Model Foundry aim to make it easier for partners to build AI agents and specialized solutions, potentially creating new opportunities for recurring revenue. But if AI agents become easy to create, how do partners differentiate their offerings and protect their intellectual property? Pujols discusses the importance of customer trust, creativity and the commercial protections Cisco is developing for its marketplace. Finally, Pujols reflects on how AI is transforming Cisco’s Partner Innovation Challenge, with AI-related submissions rising from fewer than 20 percent just a few years ago to more than 95 percent today. It’s a look at how Cisco sees the channel evolving from selling technology to building solutions around it. Read Full Transcript Robert Dutt: Hello, and welcome to In The Channel from ChannelBuzz.ca, bringing news and information to the Canadian IT channel for the last sixteen years. I’m Robert Dutt, editor of ChannelBuzz.ca and your host for the show. We’re coming to you today from Cisco Partner Summit 2026 in Vancouver, where Cisco is laying out its vision for how partners can capitalize on the next wave of artificial intelligence. And while there’s no shortage of technology announcements this week, one of the more interesting themes is how those technologies are changing the kinds of businesses Cisco partners can build. We’re talking about partners moving into increasingly sophisticated security services, building and managing AI-powered infrastructure, and developing their own AI agents and applications. Cisco is also making a significant push to lower the barriers to creating those solutions, potentially opening up opportunities that were previously limited to partners with substantial development resources. But making technology easier doesn’t necessarily make it easier to build a differentiated business around it. That’s one of the questions I put to Alex Pujols, Cisco’s senior vice president of sales solutions engineering in its global partner sales organization, when we sat down here Monday at Partner Summit. We also discussed Cisco’s new Vulnerability Operations Maturity Model, which is helping partners assess their capabilities and develop more sophisticated security practices; the implications of Cisco Cloud Control for managed services providers; and the opportunities emerging around specialized AI models and edge computing. And Alex shared some interesting observations about how quickly Cisco’s partner community is evolving, including a dramatic increase in the proportion of Partner Innovation Challenge submissions involving AI. It’s a conversation about where Cisco sees the channel heading and what partners need to do to take advantage of the opportunities ahead. Let’s get right into it, my chat with Alex Pujols. Robert Dutt: Alex, thanks for taking the time. I appreciate it. I’m sure this is a busy week for you. Alex Pujols: Happy to be here, of course. Robert Dutt: You talked this morning about the three major shifts you’re seeing in the market: securing agentic AI, scaling infrastructure for AI, and bringing agentic AI into business operations. From a partner’s perspective, which of those shifts do you see creating the most immediate opportunity today? Like, the right-now opportunity? Alex Pujols: I think there’s an opportunity for all of them right now. It’d be really hard to ignore the role that security is playing within AI, not even just for agentic operations, but just more broadly. We also talked about this whole post-Mythos era that we’re in, and defending at machine speed, at machine scale. And so I think, 100 percent, the agentic opportunity. If I’m a partner right now, and I’m looking at these shifts, and I have to invest in a single area, I would certainly look there because the demand that we’re seeing from customers is overwhelming. The activity from a compliance and legislative perspective means there’s probably going to be even more opportunity around this moving forward. And then, selfishly, I feel that we have an amazing portfolio to address the opportunity. And so I certainly would say the security side of it. Robert Dutt: I have to imagine that’s accelerating, too. AI has been the priority for a while now, but over the last six months or so, drip, drip, drip — Mythos, [unclear], OpenAI — all of that is just adding to the awareness, the appetite, all of it. Alex Pujols: A hundred percent. And it’s interesting. It’s to the point where family members who know nothing about technology are asking me, “Is it over? Is the end near?” And so, in between therapy, I also just do a little bit of education and kind of help them understand where things are. But the point is, it’s mainstream. It’s mainstream. And so Mythos did that. The news reports of AI autonomously attacking other AI and stealing secrets have people spooked. But while I think, in my opinion, a lot of that is inflated, what’s not inflated is the opportunity more broadly around security. And so I think it certainly is real, and it’s going to continue to grow. Robert Dutt: You talked a bit today about the Vulnerability Operations Maturity Model, helping partners understand where they are today and what capabilities they need to develop. Can you give me that kind of elevator pitch on that? Just the real quick walkthrough of it: how it works, and what it tells a partner about how and where they should be investing right now? Alex Pujols: Yeah. So how the maturity model came about was initially a little bit before Mythos, but certainly as the news dropped, we really accelerated the conversations we were having with partners. And in my conversations, I was just noticing that everyone was on a different journey, or they were at different stages of that journey. And so a lot of partners, we’d say, “Hey, how can we help?” They’d say, “Get out of the way. We’re rocking and rolling. We’re cooking. We’re good.” Then we had a lot of partners that said, “I have no earthly idea how to have a conversation with my customer about this. I have no idea what capabilities I need to build out. I’m not sure how to build them out.” And so, “I’m struggling with just understanding the gravity of the situation and how I should respond.” As we saw so many different levels, we said, “Look, let’s put this into a model, and as part of that, we can help partners get from one stage to the next.” And so the model has five stages. You could say Level 1 is probably partners with the least amount of sophistication around their practice. And then Level 5, which is our most advanced partners, have full-fledged, what we’re calling Vulnerability Operations practices. And so they can manage customer vulnerabilities really at machine speed, instantly. They have super-advanced capabilities, like being able to go out and proactively scan customer networks, almost leverage AI to create automated patching on the fly, even when the vendor hasn’t supplied patching on their end. So, super-advanced capabilities. But ultimately, that’s not needed for every customer. And so the idea isn’t that every partner has to develop that capability. They need to find out where on that maturity model their customers need them to be, and then build to that. So if your customers need you to be at a three, and you’re at one, then you can move to Stage 2 and Stage 3. From a vendor perspective, what we want to do is equip them with the skills and the capabilities and the tools, and ultimately the guidance, so that they understand clearly how to get from one level to the next and build out the practices their customers need. Robert Dutt: Especially for those partners who are finding they’re at the Level 1, perhaps, and their customers are saying, “Maybe two or three would be more representative of what we need, what we want from a partner.” Are there any common threads or common first steps that you find work best for helping them move up that? Alex Pujols: Yeah, I think there’s a couple of things. Number one, of course, even though we’re talking about this more in the context of agentic AI and post-Mythos and things like that, what is just the fundamental understanding of AI at the organization? Generally, for our Level 1 partners, AI means that a few people have ChatGPT subscriptions or something. And so it’s kind of tapping into, where are you? What are the specific skills and capabilities that you need to build? And then also, how do you apply them? Because a lot of partners maybe work with a specific subset of customers, or customers focused on a particular vertical. And so there are different flavours of what those customers need. Can you provide those base-level capabilities to those customers in that pa

VANCOUVER — Cisco’s message to partners at Partner Summit 2026 is about more than the opportunities created by artificial intelligence. It’s about how partners can turn those opportunities into profitable businesses. In this special edition of The Buzz, we’re reporting from Vancouver with a closer look at the announcements and strategy emerging from the opening day of Cisco’s annual partner gathering. A central piece is the continued evolution of Cisco 360, including new incentives intended to reward partners for more of the value they contribute throughout a customer relationship. That includes Ecosystem Deal Registration, designed to recognize partners that influence customer decisions even when they aren’t the ones completing the transaction. Cisco is also expanding incentives tied to adoption, customer growth and recurring revenue. The changes reflect a broader reality: As customer technology environments become more complex, the partner creating the opportunity, the partner delivering the solution and the partner providing ongoing services may not be the same company. Cisco is also expanding its AI infrastructure opportunity, including making rack-scale infrastructure developed with Supermicro available through its global price list. But the more significant profitability opportunity may lie beyond the initial infrastructure sale—in networking, security, observability and services. That theme extends to Cisco IQ, Cisco’s evolving customer experience platform, and new Cisco Powered managed services built around Splunk and Duo. For MSPs, those developments could create new ways to build recurring revenue. They also raise questions about how Cisco’s increasingly integrated platform strategy fits with partners’ existing technology stacks. Distribution is another important part of the picture. Cisco plans to bring distributors into the Cisco 360 Partner Value Index in February 2027, while continuing to invest in AI-assisted partner workflows intended to reduce administrative complexity. The bigger question is whether these changes can deliver meaningful improvements in profitability across Cisco’s diverse partner ecosystem—not just for large global integrators, but for smaller partners serving Canadian businesses. That’s the focus of today’s special edition of The Buzz from Cisco Partner Summit 2026 Read Full Transcript Hello, and welcome to The Buzz from ChannelBuzz.ca. I’m Robert Dutt.  Today is Tuesday, October 27, 2026. And here’s what’s happening in the channel today. We’re coming to you from Vancouver, where Cisco Partner Summit 2026 is underway. We’re doing something a little different for this edition of The Buzz. Rather than our usual roundup of industry news, we’re dedicating the entire episode to the announcements, conversations and bigger themes emerging from the opening day of Cisco’s annual partner event. And while there’s certainly plenty of AI technology to talk about, I think the more interesting story here is about how Cisco wants its partners to make money. Because the company is making a fairly ambitious argument: That the AI era isn’t simply going to create more opportunities to sell infrastructure, networking and security products. It’s going to change the kinds of services partners deliver, the ways they participate in customer relationships, and ultimately, how they’re compensated. And Cisco is trying to adjust its partner program, its technology portfolio and its own processes to support that transition. The question, of course, is how much of that ambition translates into real business opportunities for partners. Let’s get into it. First, Cisco 360. Cisco’s new partner program has been a major focus of the company’s channel strategy, and Partner Summit brought another round of changes intended to address how partners actually create value. One of the more interesting is something called Ecosystem Deal Registration. Traditionally, deal registration has been built around the partner that identifies an opportunity and ultimately transacts the sale. But that’s not always how technology projects work anymore. A consultant might help a customer develop its AI strategy. Another partner might design the architecture. A systems integrator might build the solution. And a different partner could ultimately handle the transaction or provide ongoing services. Cisco wants to recognize more of those contributions, including from partners that influence a deal without necessarily selling the products themselves. That’s a meaningful change in philosophy. And it reflects something Tim Coogan, who leads Cisco’s global partner sales organization, has been emphasizing: The partner ecosystem increasingly includes companies that don’t fit the traditional reseller model. Cisco is also expanding incentives around customer adoption, growth and recurring revenue. The company says adoption incentives are nearly doubling, and it’s introducing additional opportunities tied to Enterprise Agreement activation and the use of Cisco IQ. There are also new incentives intended to reward partners for growing customer relationships over time, rather than simply closing the initial transaction. Now, there’s an important distinction between creating more incentive categories and creating more profitable partner businesses. Partners will ultimately judge these changes by whether they can understand the rules, qualify for the incentives, and receive predictable payments. Cisco says it’s working on those issues, including better visibility into potential earnings and more predictable program administration. But the real test will come when partners start using these programs in the field. And there’s another question worth watching with Ecosystem Deal Registration: Does recognizing more participants create additional revenue opportunities, or does it sometimes mean dividing the economics of an existing opportunity among more companies? That’s something we’ll be watching as the program develops. Next, the AI infrastructure opportunity. Cisco’s technology announcements this week reinforce its ambition to play a larger role in the infrastructure supporting enterprise AI. Among the developments is the availability of rack-scale AI infrastructure developed with Supermicro through Cisco’s global price list. That gives Cisco partners another route into AI infrastructure projects, with associated deal protection and opportunities to attach networking, security and services. But there’s a useful distinction here between selling AI infrastructure and building a profitable AI business. During the opening-day presentations, Cisco’s leadership repeatedly returned to the idea that the strongest economics aren’t necessarily in the compute hardware itself. They’re in everything surrounding it. The networking required to move data. The security required to protect increasingly complex environments. The observability tools needed to understand what’s happening. And the services required to design, deploy, operate and optimize the whole thing. Cisco’s leadership made the point that margins follow the platform. That’s an important way to understand what the company is trying to accomplish. Cisco doesn’t simply want its partners to participate in the next wave of infrastructure spending. It wants them to capture a larger share of the work surrounding those investments. And Cisco has some numbers suggesting customers are going to need help. In a survey of seventeen hundred partners, ninety-one percent reported customer concerns about the operating costs of AI. And forty-one percent identified on-premises AI as a growth opportunity. Those findings point to a market that’s still working through some fundamental questions about where AI workloads should run, how much they cost, and how to manage them securely. For partners, those questions create opportunities for assessment, consulting, integration and ongoing management. But they also mean AI infrastructure isn’t necessarily an easy sale. Customers are going to want a credible business case, not just a collection of expensive new hardware. And partners that can help customers answer those questions may be better positioned than those focused primarily on moving products. That brings us to security and managed services. One of the most consistent themes across the opening day was that AI is changing the security conversation. It’s not just about protecting employees using AI applications. It’s increasingly about protecting the infrastructure supporting AI, understanding what AI agents are doing, and managing the identities and permissions those agents need. That creates opportunities for partners to develop more sophisticated security practices. And Cisco is trying to make some of those opportunities easier to package and deliver. The company announced two additional Cisco Powered managed services: One built around Splunk for security operations, and another using Duo for identity and access management. For MSPs, that’s particularly interesting. Managed security is already an established business opportunity, but the complexity of delivering advanced security services can be a significant barrier. If Cisco can make it easier for partners to build repeatable offerings around these platforms, that could open opportunities for partners that haven’t traditionally operated at that level. Cisco IQ is another part of the strategy. Cisco is positioning the platform as a way to give customers and partners better visibility into their environments, while supporting more proactive management and customer experience services. And it’s backing that strategy with additional partner incentives. There’s a twenty-five-hundred-dollar Cisco IQ adoption incentive, along with opportunities associated with higher support tiers. Cisco has also announced a one-million-dollar Builders Challenge intended to encourage the development of new services using Cisco IQ. The broader idea is that partners should be able to build m

Today’s headline news for Canadian IT solution providers: Oracle commits $1 billion to partner growth Oracle has announced a $1 billion commitment to its partner ecosystem over four years, including technical training, skills development, migration resources, demonstration environments and go-to-market support. The investment is intended to help partners build capabilities and deliver more Oracle-based cloud and AI solutions. It’s a substantial commitment, but not a billion-dollar pool of unrestricted partner payments. Individual benefits depend on eligibility, and Oracle hasn’t disclosed a Canadian allocation. For Canadian solution providers, the important questions are how accessible those resources will be, which partners can benefit, and whether they translate into profitable customer engagements. Read Oracle’s announcement. Kiteworks names Matt Marlier global channel chief Kiteworks has appointed Matt Marlier vice president of global channels and alliances, bringing in a veteran of Red Hat, NGINX, HashiCorp and Software AG to expand its partner ecosystem. The company is targeting distributors, resellers, MSPs, MSSPs and technology alliances, with an emphasis on partner recruitment, enablement and sales support. The appointment raises interesting questions about how Kiteworks intends to expand its secure data exchange and compliance business through different types of partners, particularly those looking to develop ongoing managed services. Read Kiteworks’ announcement. Portal26 looks to turn AI governance into managed services Portal26 has introduced its Managed Intelligence Platform and Point2 Academy, combining technology for discovering and managing customer AI usage with training intended to help MSPs develop service offerings. The company sees opportunities in AI governance, advisory services, cost management and licence optimization. But the distinction between having a platform and operating a profitable managed service remains important. Partners will need to establish how those services are priced, delivered and measured. Read Portal26’s announcement. In Brief Canadian cloud distributor Sherweb has added DNSFilter to its marketplace, giving MSPs DNS-layer threat protection and visibility into shadow IT and AI usage. Sherweb announcement. Cork Cyber has expanded automated vulnerability remediation for MSPs, reporting more than 50,000 remediation runs and an estimated 5,100 technician hours saved, according to original reporting by Channel Insider. Channel Insider report. Mailprotector has launched Shield Blueprints, allowing MSPs to apply standardized email security configurations across multiple customer environments. Mailprotector announcement. Read Full Transcript Robert Dutt: Welcome to The Buzz from ChannelBuzz.ca. I’m Robert Dutt, and today is Monday, October 26, 2026. Let’s start with Oracle, and a pretty substantial number. The company announced Friday that it’s committing one billion dollars over the next four years to supporting its partner ecosystem. Now, whenever a vendor puts a number that large into a partner announcement, it’s worth asking exactly what the money represents, and how much of it is actually going to be available to partners. In Oracle’s case, we’re talking about a broad investment in partner development and enablement, rather than a billion dollars in direct grants or payments to solution providers. The commitment includes technical training, skills development, resources for building and demonstrating solutions, support for customer migrations, and assistance with joint go-to-market activities. In other words, Oracle is investing in the infrastructure around its partners, with the aim of helping them develop more capabilities and pursue more customer opportunities. And there are a couple of reasons that’s interesting right now. First, Oracle has been investing heavily in its cloud and AI businesses, and it’s going to need partners that can help customers make use of those capabilities. It’s one thing to provide the underlying infrastructure or software. It’s another to help a customer migrate existing workloads, integrate new services, build applications and manage the environment over time. That’s where the channel comes in. And second, as the industry shifts toward more complex AI and cloud projects, the cost of developing the necessary skills can become a significant barrier for partners. Training people, maintaining certifications, building demonstration environments and developing repeatable service offerings all require investment, often before a partner has a customer ready to pay for the work. If Oracle can help reduce some of those upfront costs, that could make it easier for partners to pursue opportunities they might otherwise leave alone. But there’s an important distinction between announcing a billion-dollar commitment and demonstrating that the investment is making a difference to partners. Eligibility matters. So do the terms of individual programs, the resources available in a particular market, and how difficult it is for partners to actually access them. Oracle hasn’t specified how much of the commitment will be directed toward Canada. And for Canadian solution providers, that’s going to be one of the questions worth asking. Are these resources readily available to Canadian partners? Are they aimed primarily at large integrators with substantial Oracle practices, or is there a meaningful opportunity for smaller and mid-sized firms? And perhaps most importantly, can a partner turn the available support into a profitable customer engagement? Because the goal isn’t simply to get more people certified or add another logo to a partner’s website. The real measure of success is whether that investment helps partners win business, deliver projects successfully, and develop ongoing customer relationships. We’ll be watching for more detail on how Oracle intends to put that commitment to work, particularly in Canada. Our second story is about a new face at the top of a security vendor’s channel organization. Kiteworks has appointed Matt Marlier vice president of global channels and alliances. The appointment was announced last Wednesday, and it’s an interesting one because Kiteworks operates in a part of the cybersecurity market where the channel opportunity isn’t necessarily as obvious as it is in endpoint protection or firewalls. Kiteworks focuses on securing the exchange and handling of sensitive information. That includes situations where organizations need to move confidential files, collaborate with external parties, or demonstrate that sensitive data is being handled in accordance with security and regulatory requirements. For customers in regulated industries, or organizations dealing with particularly sensitive information, those can be substantial business problems. And for solution providers, they can create opportunities that go beyond the initial sale of a security product. There may be consulting work around information governance, integration with existing systems, compliance requirements, deployment and ongoing management. But those opportunities don’t necessarily look the same for every type of partner. A large security integrator serving enterprise customers may approach Kiteworks very differently from an MSP serving smaller businesses. And that brings us back to the new channel chief. Marlier has held channel leadership roles at Red Hat, NGINX, HashiCorp and Software AG, giving him experience across enterprise software, infrastructure and developer-oriented technologies. His new responsibilities include expanding Kiteworks’ relationships with distributors, resellers, managed service providers, managed security service providers and technology alliance partners. He’s also expected to focus on the mechanics of the partner experience, including recruitment, training and sales support. Those may sound like fairly routine channel priorities, but they’re particularly important when a vendor is trying to expand into different types of partners. It’s one thing to recruit a partner. It’s another to give that partner a practical way to identify customer opportunities, build the necessary expertise and make money delivering the solution. And there’s an interesting question here about where Kiteworks sees its greatest opportunity. Is the growth primarily going to come from specialist security firms working with large and highly regulated organizations? Or does Kiteworks see a broader opportunity among MSPs and other solution providers that want to add secure data exchange and governance capabilities to their managed services portfolios? Those are different channel strategies, and they require different approaches to enablement, sales support and service delivery. It’s also worth watching how much emphasis Kiteworks puts on partners providing ongoing services, rather than simply reselling its technology. We’ve covered Kiteworks before, particularly around compliance and sensitive information. But a conversation with the company’s new channel leader would provide an opportunity to look more closely at its go-to-market strategy and where it sees the partner opportunity developing. And that’s something we’re hoping to explore on In The Channel in the coming weeks. Our third story takes us into another area where vendors are trying to help managed service providers build new practices. Portal26 has introduced what it calls its Managed Intelligence Platform, alongside a training initiative called Point2 Academy. The announcement came last week, and the basic proposition is that MSPs have an opportunity to help customers manage the growing use of artificial intelligence across their businesses. Now, that’s a broad statement, and we’re hearing versions of it from a lot of vendors right now. But Portal26 is trying to address a fairly specific problem. Many organizations are adopting AI tools faster than they’re developing policies and pro