ChannelVision Sept-Oct 2017

SEPTEMBER - OCTOBER, 2017 Emergent 8 VR, wearables for partners 8 Smart locks 12 Smarter Partnering AI gets real in the channel By Tara Seals 16 Communications Full Circle Moving back to a voice-first world By Jack Jachner Virtual Reality 20 SD Voice 20 Hybrid SMBs 22 The Early Returns on SD-WAN Not exactly what we expected By Martin Vilaboy Mobile & Wireless 26 The Race is On But are we ready for 5G? By Robin Kent Zettabytes 30 Deep Fiber Dilemma Analysts say we desperately need deep fiber, but the economics are tough By Martin Vilaboy 40 Fast and Furious Gigabit rollouts enabling business transformation By Tara Seals International Agents 44 Restoration on demand 44 Five9 targets multinationals 46 Ready-Made Solution Prefabricated data centres for emerging markets By Sybrand Pretorius 52 Global Video Conferencing Blossoms By Tara Seals Cyber Patrol 56 Attacking the Surface Opportunities on the IoT battlefield By Tara Seals Channel Management 64 The Many Roles of the Channel Manager By Peter Radizeski 66 Hiring with Purpose By Bruce Wirt 68 9 Reasons CRMs Don’t Work for Indirect Sales By Dave R. Taylor Core Communications 70 Microsoft Is Serious About Voice Third in a series on partner opportunities with Skype for Business By Greg Plum 74 Ooma Evolves in the Business Market By Tara Seals 76 Trends in Conferenci ng Revolve Around Voice Contributed by Yealink At Your Service: XaaS 78 Star2Star Puts Innovation at the Center of Its Channel Strategy By Tara Seals 6 Editor’s Letter 80 ICYMI 82 Ad index CONTENTS 4 Channel Vision | September - October, 2017