Cross Channel: Citrix Summit 2017, New HPE Channel Chief

Welcome to Cross Channel, a weekly round up of the most pertinent stories from our sister site ChannelBiz, where you can find out all the latest developments, views and strategies from the world of the channel.

Citrix: back to basic strategy is paying off

Citrix’s global sales chief says the vendor’s “back to basics” approach paid off in 2016 resulting in a host of new customer wins and the expansion of its footprint within its existing customer base.

Speaking to almost 2000 partners at the vendor’s Citrix Summit in Anaheim, California, Sartorius said the vendor picked up 4476 net new customers in 2016, generating $82m revenue in additional revenue. Out of these, 995 were new cloud customers, with Citrix claiming wins over VMware and F5 Networks.

Citrix announced on Friday that it has set a date of January 20, to spin out its GoTo family of service offerings. The business will become a separate subsidiary called GetGo, which will merge with a subsidiary of LogMeIn.

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HPE Appoints New Channel Chief

Denzil Samuels – who takes on the role of worldwide indirect sales organisation for HPE’s enterprise group next week – was previously global head of channels, alliances, business development and ventures for GE Digital at GE Electric (GE).

According to a memo from Peter Ryan, HPE’s chief sales officer, Enterprise Group, Samuels will be responsible for accelerating execution of the vendor’s strategy around hybrid IT and the ‘Intelligent Edge’ in collaboration its partner ecosystem.

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Comms-care promotes Microsoft Surface in the enterprise

Comms-care has launched a new service to promote the use of the Microsoft Surface in the enterprise.

The company will offer a range of services supporting the rollout of the device to businesses, including from pre-configuration of devices to support and maintenance.

The services are designed to extend set-up and maintenance support of the Surface Pro 4 and Surface Book beyond the current five day return to base repair service provided by Microsoft.

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