Channel Brief: Deepwatch Names New CEO. Have Broadcom Changes Caused ‘Devirtualization’?

It’s Wednesday, people! This week is going at its own pace.

Gartner has released its 2024 data center infrastructure hype cycle and has come up with an interesting conclusion: the analyst firm assumes Broadcom’s VMware licensing changes have sparked a small wave of “devirtualization.” Devirtualization is the migration of workloads back to physical infrastructure from virtual, and while it currently only affects one percent of organizations, Gartner believes it’s about five to ten years away from maturity. We’ll have to wait and see!

This week saw a number of executive appointments: Managed security platform company Deepwatch named John DiLullo as its new CEO following the retirement of Charlie Thomas, and cloud communications and collaboration company Avaya named Kamilah Thomas as senior vice president and chief people officer.

IT management services firm Kyndryl has a new CIO and announced leadership changes in two key areas: Applications, Data and AI and Cloud. Kim Basile has been named Kyndryl’s new CIO, replacing Michael Bradshaw, who is leading Applications, Data and AI. Additionally, Nicolas Sekkaki has been named Kyndryl’s Cloud practice leader. Congratulations!

This week, we launched our Top 250 Vertical Market MSPs Survey. Many of the most successful managed service companies (MSPs) specialize in vertical markets—maybe your vertical is healthcare, financial services, retail, government, education, or something else. To honor your success in one or more of these markets, ChannelE2E conducts an annual MSP survey to identify and promote the top companies in each of these verticals. (Check out previous years’ lists here .) Don’t miss your chance to be recognized! Here’s the link to enter.

As always, write to me at (email protected) If you have any news to share or just want to say hello!

Grab a coffee. Here’s what you need to know today.

Today’s news from the world of technology, channels and MSP

1. Gartner says Broadcom VMware changes could usher in ‘devirtualization’: In its 2024 Hype Cycle for Data Center Infrastructure Technologies, analyst firm Gartner has added virtual-to-physical migrations — also known as “devirtualization” — to its list of ideas that are set to evolve, The Register reports. The “trend” is partly due to changes in Broadcom’s licensing following its acquisition of VMware. “As on-premises virtualization projects transition from (enterprise licensing agreement) ELA and perpetual licenses to new packages, socket-to-core ratios, and consumption models, costs and prices could double or triple,” the Hype Cycle reports. “These costs are hard to justify for some large workloads, which Gartner says ‘don’t benefit from the same density gains and cost savings as consolidating small workloads.’” So devirtualization could help, Gartner says — with a lot of caveats about the cost and complexity of acquiring and operating bare-metal systems that offer the same resiliency as a virtual environment,” according to The Register. What do you think?

2. Deepwatch Names DiLullo CEO: Managed security platform company Deepwatch has named John DiLullo its new CEO, succeeding Charlie Thomas. Thomas is retiring and will assume the role of chairman of the board of directors, effective immediately, the company announced. DiLullo has more than 30 years of experience leading global technology teams. He most recently served as CEO of LiveVox, which was acquired by NICE Systems in December 2023. Before LiveVox, DiLullo was CEO of network threat detection company Lastline, which was acquired by VMware in 2020. DiLullo has also held executive positions at Forcepoint, F5 Networks, Cisco, HP/Aruba Networks, and Sonicwall. DiLullo holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Villanova University and two U.S. patents in signal processing. He will be based in Silicon Valley. Congratulations!

3. Avaya names Kamilah Thomas as senior vice president and chief product officer: In other executive appointment news, cloud communications and collaboration company Avaya has named Kamila Thomas as senior vice president and chief human resources officer. Thomas will oversee Avaya’s global human resources organization, grow their Destination Place to Work journey and continue to strengthen their leadership in customer experience solutions, the company said in a statement. She brings more than 20 years of human resources and transformational leadership experience in both private and public companies. Congratulations!

4. Kyndryl announces CIO and other leadership changes: Kyndryl has named Kim Basile its new Chief Information Officer (CIO) and also announced leadership changes in two key areas: Applications, Data and AI and Cloud. Kim Basile has been named Kyndryl’s new CIO, replacing Michael Bradshaw, who is leading the company’s Applications, Data and AI business. As Kyndryl’s new CIO, Basile will be responsible for building on the technology foundation that Kyndryl’s CIO team has developed over the past two years. She will also focus on continuously improving and enhancing the employee experience. Basile’s background includes positions of increasing responsibility at Lockheed Martin, Leidos and Vanguard before joining Kyndryl. In her role as Senior Vice President and Global Practice Leader for Applications, Data and AI, Bradshaw will work closely with Kyndryl Consult, the company’s strategic alliance partners and other areas of the business to prioritize and focus on helping clients modernize their complex technology environments and implement AI. He most recently served as CIO at Kyndryl, and previously held executive positions at NBCUniversal Media, Lockheed Martin, and IBM. Additionally, Nicolas Sekkaki has been named Cloud Practice Leader at Kyndryl. As Senior Vice President and Global Cloud Practice Leader, Sekkaki will help Kyndryl clients modernize and transform their cloud footprint. He most recently served as Global Applications, Data, and AI Practice Leader at Kyndryl. Prior to Kyndryl, he held several executive positions at CMA CGM, IBM, and SAP. Congratulations!

5. Opening of the survey among the top 250 SMEs in the vertical market: Many of the most successful managed services companies (MSPs) specialize in vertical markets—maybe your vertical is healthcare, financial services, retail, government, education, or something else. To honor your success in one or more of these markets, ChannelE2E surveys MSPs annually to identify and promote the best companies in each of these verticals. (See previous years’ lists here.) Today, we opened the 2024 survey. Here’s the link to enter.

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