Top 10 Pod2112 Episodes of 2018

10. Pax8’s Ryan Walsh on Evolving Anti-Distributors
Unlike traditional hardware and software products, cloud computing needs no warehouses, shipping and handling, or, in many cases, credit and financing. Consequently, many people have speculated that cloud computing will disrupt legacy pick, pack, and ship distributors. Some people go as far as saying that cloud computing could eliminate the need for distributors altogether. But a new class of cloud distributors is emerging from the fog of disruption to demonstrate that the two-tier model has value in the services era. Pax8’s chief channel officer and co-founder Ryan Walsh joins Pod2112 to talk about the emergence of what some call “anti-distributors” paving a new path in distribution.

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9. Microsoft’s Perry Lea on Fog-Edge Computing in a Connected Future
In a world where tens of billions of Internet-enabled devices communicate with one another, we can now do things we never could before. Think home automation, self-driving cars, advanced industrial applications, and telemedicine. By leveraging IoT and fog and edge computing, today’s businesses can identify KPIs and extract immense value from the data that’s generated and shared by connected devices. Perry Lea, principal technologist at Microsoft and the co-founder of Rumble, joins Pod2112 to discuss the growth path of these technologies, how Moore’s Law is impacting their evolution, why fog computing is the clear route to our future, which industries will flounder and excel, and how systems integrators can tap the fog to add value to systems and solutions.

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8. Cisco’s Andrew Sage: The Vendor Perspective on Distribution
Distribution is a valued resource for the technology industry and channel. For decades, distributors have provided vendors and partners with the logistical support they need to get products into the hands of customers. While distributors continue to provide valuable services and support to vendors, the market is changing rapidly as vendors, partners, and customers shift their models to services, and many vendors are questioning what role distribution will play in the services era. Will distributors, many of which have developed services arms and added more support mechanisms, continue to provide the value-add support that vendors rely upon today? Andrew Sage, vice president of Americas distribution at Cisco Systems, joins Pod2112 to discuss the evolving role and value of distribution from a vendor perspective.

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7. Citrix’s Carlos Blanco on Making CAMs Cloud Business Development Managers
A funny thing happened on the way to the cloud: The way we conduct business and sales changed. No longer is the technology market merely a series of transactions and box shipments. Fixation on quote retirement doesn’t do much to help partners develop books of business that result in stable and predictable recurring revenue streams. Partners need support in business transformation and maturation, and they need it from their channel account managers. Getting CAMs to act more like business development managers takes more than changing job descriptions. Vendors need to provide CAMs with direction, training, and resources. They also have to change their compensation plans. Carlos Blanco, senior director of Worldwide Cloud Service Providers at Citrix, joins Pod2112 to talk about the need for transforming the role of channel account managers in the cloud computing era.

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6. HP’s Andrew Bolwell on the Huge Blockchain Potential Beyond Bitcoin
Aside from the excitement of Bitcoin, blockchain isn’t a widely understood technology. Yet blockchain has the potential to revolutionize whole industries. It’s already impacting currencies, insurance, financial services, and logistics. It could soon become part of the fabric of daily life, making the Internet more open and more secure. Andrew Bolwell, global head of technology vision and resident futurist at HP, joins Pod2112 to talk about the huge potential of blockchain that lies just over the digital horizon.

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5. Erwin’s Adam Famularo on Growth through Acquisition
A vendor can grow two ways: organically, exerting effort to find customers and expand sales, or through acquisitions, by purchasing technology, capacity, and customers from complementary companies. The management team of data governance software vendor Erwin decided from the beginning that their company would grow largely through acquisitions. In the past two years, Erwin has grown by leaps and bounds in terms of capabilities and revenue through the purchase of companies whose technology offerings complement its own. The strategy is paying off, and, as CEO Adam Famularo shares, it shows how positive the results of strategic acquisition planning can be.

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4. Informatica’s Balaji Subramanian on the Challenges of Data Management
Businesses want the benefits of Big Data, as they see data-driven decision-making as a means for making better choices that generate higher returns with less risk. At least that’s the promise. Before businesses can leverage the power of Big Data, though, they first need “the data.” Each day, businesses generate terabytes of structured and unstructured data from traditional endpoints and network systems, mobile devices, and an increasing volume of Internet of Things devices. Collecting, cataloging, and managing that data for use in analytics is a huge challenge. Informatica’s Balaji Subramanian shares insights on how to gain control over the piles of bits and bytes that are the raw fuel for Big Data.

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3. Kaseya’s Fred Voccola on One-Stop Shops for Managed Services
Consolidation is rampant in the managed service segment, with vendors building and acquiring multiple capabilities to enable MSPs to provide wide arrays of managed, security, and backup services. The goal of these vendors is to create one-stop shops for MSPs so they need not go anywhere else for their tools. While this sounds like a good strategy, it flies in the face of a decade in which MSPs built their technology capabilities through a best-of-breed approach. The question: Is the one-stop-shop approach better than the best-of-breed method for building managed service practices? Kaseya CEO Fred Voccola joins Pod2112 to talk about how his company is finding success with the one-stop-shop approach and how that model will sustain continued growth.

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2. Management Expert Tom Peters on ‘The Excellence Dividend’
Management guru Tom Peters spent the past five decades studying operational effectiveness in public and private organizations around the world. He rose to fame with his first book, “In Search of Excellence,” in which he first posited the notion that the pursuit of excellence is an underlying attribute in successful organizations. In his new book, “The Excellence Dividend,” Peters tells readers to try more things, screw more things up, hang out with more interesting people, and – above all – not settle for anything less than excellence. Peters joins Pod2112 to talk about “The Excellence Dividend,” why soft skills are more important in business than hard skills, why execution is more important than analysis, and how managers and companies need to slow down to truly reach their potential for excellence.

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1. Crowdstrike’s George Kurtz on What It Takes to Build a Unicorn
Silicon Valley is where technology dreams are made. Tech entrepreneurs are like the forty-niners of the California Gold Rush; they’re flocking to the tech centers in hopes of hitting the mother lode with their innovative ideas. But building a business is hard. It takes vision, planning, hard work, money, and determination. Not every tech venture makes it, and very few make it big. But those few start-ups that are extraordinarily successful have a special name: unicorns. A unicorn is a start-up valued at $1 billion or more. What does it take to build a unicorn? Crowdstrike co-founder and CEO George Kurtz joins Pod2112 to talk about what it took to start his innovative endpoint security company and get it to that unicorn status.

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