Microsoft’s commercial VP Judson Althoff outlined a glorious five areas for partners  which he expects them to focus on in the coming Aeon.

Talking to the assembed throngs at Vole’s Inspire partner conference in Las Vegas he said there there five areas that partners should focus – culture, enterprise accounts, customer acquisition, customer retention and learning.

Althoff explained that he wants partners to mimic the atmosphere that Microsoft has developed internally. While many might think this was fear, he claimed it was one of having a growth mindset.

“You cannot bring solutions like the ones that you’ve seen and the ones I’ve talked about today… without investing in your own potential and investing in the fact that all potential can be nurtured. For us inside the company, it’s about operating as one Microsoft and being obsessed over our customers. It’s also about diversity and inclusion, and I slow down to say each of those words separately because each of them are important”, he said.

Vole wants to focus on deepening its reach into enterprise accounts by building out specialist capabilities in different industries.

This process, he said, will see Microsoft call for more bespoke solutions developed by independent software vendors and partners.

Althoff claimed that the vendor will be investing in helping partners develop their own learning capabilities.

“We’re going to invest heavily in learning and readiness because, once again, if you don’t do these things, you can’t nurture your potential”, he said.

“I’m really excited that we’ll be rolling out a brand new learning platform this year, and we’re rolling it out simultaneously internally and externally because, once again, you are an extension of everything we do.

“We’re going to revolutionise role-based learning like no company has ever done before in quick and nimble ways, across sales readiness as well as hands-on technical.”

Althoff also praised Microsoft’s wider commercial strategy, following an overhaul of the structure last year.

For those who did not know, Althoff said that Vole’s crown jewels were its One Commercial Partner Programme.

“It really enabled us over this last year to build more with you – in fact, five times as many solutions are available today versus one year ago in our commercial marketplace.  That’s all of your hard work and effort building code, investing in intellectual property, differentiated by industry to make a difference for our customers.

“We then took those solutions to market – tens of thousands of wins across these new solutions sold with you, effectively, to deliver more for our customers.

“This commercial model is resonating and it’s going to remain steadfast and be a consistent part of our strategy moving into FY19.”

UKFast has set up a cloud subsidiary to gain public cloud offerings to market to run alongside its own hybrid and private operations.

The big idea is to set up ClearCloud as a subsidiary using AWS and Azure and its own eCloud hybrid and private options.

It is being run by former AWS global architect Matt Bibby who is joining as managing director of the subsidiary with a brief to build on the growth that the firm managed to generate with its hybrid and private cloud solutions in the last year.

UKFast CEO Lawrence Jones said that last year the company grew 18 percent and its eCloud revenue rocketed by 43 percent of the companies overall turnover.

“By widening our offering to organisations needing multi-cloud solutions we are able to attract even more businesses to UKFast”, he said.

Jones said that while WS and Azure were public platforms that had wide distribution its high service levels would set it apart from rivals.

Managed service provider EACS has acquired London-based disaster recovery specialist and Cisco and Microsoft partner Sentronex.

Kevin Timms, CEO at EACS, said the acquisition comes as the firm prepares to hit £30 million revenue for its 2018 financial year.

EACS previously reported a revenue of £16.1 million in the year ending 31 March 2017.

Timms said: “Sentronex has built a well-deserved reputation for great service within the financial services sector over many years.

“This acquisition enables us to add a fantastic set of clients to our business from a base in London of high-quality technical resources.

“Significantly, Sentronex’s disaster recovery services adds an important new dimension to our managed services portfolio and Sentronex customers will have the advantage of EACS’s end-to-end cloud and business consultancy portfolio.”

Sentronex will continue to trade as a separate business but will be fully integrated into EACS.

Sentronex CEO Mark Parnell-Hopkinson, who will exit the business following the acquisition said that it was a great move for Sentronex and its clients.

“Sentronex customers gain an important level of scale and breadth of service provision that will be a big advantage to them and our employees”, he said.

DCC Technology, which trades as Exertis, has made its US debut by writing a cheque for a 210 employee audiovisual distributor.

DCC Technology has acquired Stampede, a New York-based AV distributor which also owns projector lamp brand Just Lamps.

The move starts to make it clear why former Dell-EMC UK boss Tim Griffin was recently appointed to the post of DCC Technology managing director. Stampede will add a new brand to the DCC Technology stable that complements UK and European brand Exertis, Griffin explained in a statement.

“By establishing a presence in North America, we will be strategically positioned to leverage all of the new opportunities we expect to develop as a result of this acquisition”, Griffin said.

Based in Amherst, New York, Stampede carries over 150 AV vendors and also owns Just Lamps, which it claims offers the world’s largest selection of replacement projector lamps.

It also has offices in Canada, Europe, Asia and Australia, and boasts a network of 20,000 reseller globally.

Kevin Kelly, Stampede, president and CEO, said: “Supported by the resources and long-term commitment of DCC, our employees, resellers and vendor partners will see an exciting evolution in how we go to market and the level of investment we can now make to grow our business. For our vendors, this means greater reach and scale. For our resellers, this means more investment in inventory and more, new, product categories than ever before.”

French Exclusive Group has bought Dublin-based VAD NextGen for an undisclosed sum providing the company with an Irish base.

NextGen has been in business since 2009 and counts Palo Alto Networks, Proofpoint, Arbor Networks and A10 Networks among its vendor partners. NextGen’s management team will remain in place, with country manager Gerry Sheldrick charged with leading further expansion in the Irish market.

Exclusive Group’s COO Barrie Desmond said that the acquisition has trebled his outfit’s customer base in Ireland.

He said that while the company did a lot of Irish business, it needed a footprint.  We had a pod of people working in the territory, but this is the first time we’ve had a physical presence. The plan is to take on the existing vendors they have in Palo Alto Networks and Proofpoint and customers.

Exclusive Group is not the only one making a play in Ireland  Computacenter and Softcat are doing the same thing. This is likely as there is a huge amount of datacentre and cloud activity [in Ireland] and a huge amount of investment.