For the week ending Jan. 24, CRN takes a look at the companies that brought their ‘A’ game to the channel including Citrix, Aviatrix, ServiceNow, Dbt Labs and Qlik.
The Week Ending Jan. 24
Topping this week’s Came to Win list is Citrix for a strategic acquisition that will extend the Citrix platform for partners and customers.
Also making the list are Aviatrix for a significant upgrade to its channel program to help partners capture a bigger piece of the cloud networking market and ServiceNow for its own channel program enhancements – many focused on agentic AI.
Data transformation tech developer Dbt Labs is here for an acquisition that brings “SQL code comprehension” technology to the company while data analytics and data integration company Qlik makes the list for its own acquisition focused on data ingestion technology.
Citrix Buys Thin Client OS Supplier Unicon In Endpoint Push
Citrix this week acquired Unicon, a Germany-based provider of a lean operating system and management tool for virtual desktop endpoints.
With the acquisition Citrix, a leading provider of virtual desktop infrastructure and desktop-as-a-service technology, extends the Citrix platform for partners and customers to the endpoint OS.
The Unicon purchase is the latest of several Citrix acquisitions including DeviceTrust and Strong Network in December and Vast Limits in March.
Citrix Co-President Hector Lima told CRN that he sees the vendor’s recent acquisitions as moving it closer to its unified client goal, giving partners and customers access to virtual desktop infrastructure, virtualized applications, web apps, software-as-a-service and more.
“Bringing that all together is the holy grail,” Lima said in the CRN interview. “That will take a little bit more time, but that’s what the teams are going to strive for.”
Aviatrix Reformulates Channel Program To Help Partners Capture $30B Cloud Networking Opportunity
Cloud networking specialist Aviatrix makes this week’s Came to Win list by supercharging and relaunching its channel program as the company puts partners at the center of its strategy to capture a bigger share of the $30 billion cloud networking market.
Aviatrix today has more than 100 partners, but the company hasn’t necessarily treated the channel as valuable peers and strategic co-compatriots. It’s why Aviatrix over the last year has been “reformulating” its strategy – including investing heavily in partners and its channel program, Aviatrix CEO Doug Merritt told CRN.
The fully revamped Aviatrix channel partner program now offers aggressive incentives for channel partners, as well as dedicated senior channel headcount and resources and training and certifications to help partners nab their fair share of the “massive” cloud networking opportunity, especially as refresh cycles loom and networking market turmoil reshapes the industry’s incumbent networking players.
The current Aviatrix partner program groups all partners together, but partners can’t exist under one umbrella, said Anh Profiti, head of global channels for Aviatrix. The new program has multiple tiers that offer additional benefits as partners progress through the program, rewarding them with deal registration and net new opportunities that offer higher margins and price protection. And partners can “tier up” monthly, rather than quarterly or yearly, Profiti said.
The new program will also boast a new partner portal with marketing resources and support, as well as sales enablement resources and access to the Aviatrix Certified Engineer (ACE) program with continuing education for cloud networking professionals.
ServiceNow Launches Major Focus On Agentic AI With Emphasis On Channel Partners
Business transformation tech provider ServiceNow this week unveiled a major expansion of its global partner program with an eye on making it easier for its channel partner community to take better advantage of AI.
ServiceNow, which held its annual sales kickoff conference this week, also introduced new incentives for partners to increase their expertise and boost their credibility with the company’s Now Assist GenAI-powered application.
ServiceNow also expanded the specializations partners can earn across GenAI and now offers a series of free virtual enablement sessions on implementing AI agent capabilities around employee and developer productivity.
ServiceNow is looking to be a leader in providing agentic AI to its customers and partners, Jen Odess, vice president of partner experience, told CRN. “We’re going to put our partners at the forefront of that journey,” she said.
The company also unveiled general partner program updates including automatic approval for deal registration for net new customers, increased partner incentives and rebates, and a new partner growth incentive of up to $100,000 for increasing business year over year.
Dbt Labs Boosts ‘SQL Comprehension’ For Data Developers With Acquisition
Dbt Labs has acquired SDF Labs, a startup developer of SQL code analyzer tools, in a move to add “SQL comprehension” capabilities to dbt Labs’ data and analytics engineering platform.
Adding SDF Labs’ technology to the dbt Labs platform will improve the efficiency of developers and data engineers as they build data pipelines for analytical and AI tasks, according to the companies.
“The two teams are already working side-by-side to bring SDF’s SQL comprehension technology into the hands of dbt users everywhere. SDF will be a massive upgrade to the very heart of the dbt user experience moving forward,” said Tristan Handy (pictured), dbt Labs founder and CEO, in a blog post about the acquisition.
“We are acquiring SDF to bring SQL comprehension into dbt and usher in a new era of ‘what’s possible’ for analytics: supercharging developer productivity and heightening data quality, all while optimizing data platform costs,” Handy said.
Qlik Expands Data Lakehouse Capabilities With Upsolver Acquisition
Qlik wins kudos for acquiring Upsolver, a developer of real-time streaming and Apache Iceberg optimization technology, in a move that expands the data integration and ingestion capabilities of the Qlik platform.
The acquisition provides Qlik, a leading provider of data analytics and integration software and cloud services, with a stronger hand in marketing its offerings for data lakehouse systems based on the Apache Iceberg table format.
“With Upsolver’s real-time streaming capabilities and advanced Iceberg optimization, we’re building on Qlik’s proven enterprise solutions to drive even greater value for our customers,” said James Fisher, Qlik chief strategy officer, in a statement.
Qlik, a long-time player in the business intelligence and data analytics market, has been steadily expanding its technology portfolio in data integration, data transformation and data governance through acquisitions such as its May 2023 purchase of Talend and May 2019 acquisition of Attunity.
Upsolver develops data ingestion technology for data lakes using the open-source Apache Iceberg table format. Iceberg is used to organize huge data sets within data lake systems, streamlining data management and data processing for analytical tasks.
Qlik said that by integrating Upsolver’s expertise in Iceberg optimization and streaming data with the Qlik platform, businesses can simplify data management, enhance operational efficiency, and scale their AI-driven strategies.
