Australian Data Centres will look to grow its footprint outside of Canberra, with the hiring of former Microsoft international expansion lead for strategic missions and technologies Mark Pont.

As CEO, Pont has been tasked with “significantly” expanding ADC’s presence from its home territory by attracting global customers and industry partners.

He enters the role with 25 years of technical and technological experience. Aside from Microsoft, where he worked for more than four and a half years, Pont has also previously worked at DataMark Solutions, CDC Data Centres, Vault Systems, IBM, PwC Australia, Intelledox and CA Technologies, among other organisations.

His time at Microsoft saw him oversee the tech giant’s $5 billion two-year investment in expanding its hyperscale cloud computing and AI infrastructure in Australia.

ADC executive chairman Rob Kelly said Pont’s international and Australian credentials make him an ideal candidate to lead ADC’s next growth phase.

“He, supported by other yet to be announced highly credentialed members of his senior leadership team, will provide the industry capability and experience required to position ADC as a leader in specialised technical infrastructure and sovereign capability,” he said.

On his appointment, Pont said ADC’s past achievements attracted him to the company, as well its future potential.

“I saw an opportunity to join an agile, Australian organisation—one that is well positioned to respond to the rapidly evolving needs of AI and hyperscale cloud technology providers,” he said.

“With ADC’s deep industry expertise and focus on sovereign ownership, it is positioned to deliver next-generation data centre services at scale to meet the significant market demand.

“As for what is next, it really is a matter of watching this space.”

The Safepay ransomware gang has given IT distributor Ingram Micro until Friday to pay up or it will release 3.5TB of what it claims to be the company’s stolen data.

The threat appeared this week, listing the company on a countdown clock on the gang’s data leak site, according to Luke Connolly, a Canadian-based threat intelligence analyst at Emsisoft.

ARN reported earlier this month, the ransomware attack that started around July 3 triggered a multi-day outage at the international distributor.

Ingram Micro has been asked for comment on this development. However, no reply had been received by press time. In its most recent statement on the attack, Ingram Micro Holdings said on July 9 that it is now operational across all countries and regions where it does business.

According to Emsisoft’s Connolly, Safepay currently lists 265 victims on its dark web data leak site. That’s a large number for less than a year of operation, he said in an email. The gang was identified in September 2024.

Safepay has used LockBit ransomware in the past, but any other relationship with the LockBit gang is unclear, he said.

Its site carries a boast that the gang is not a ransomware-as-a-service operation, meaning it doesn’t have affiliates to identify or initially compromise IT networks.

“While some ransomware groups seek out publicity,” Connolly said, “Safepay appears to prefer a lower profile, possibly due to successful law enforcement activity to identify individuals behind prolific ransomware gangs.”

This may be one reason it doesn’t use affiliates, he added.

According to a recent report by NCC Group on cyber incidents in the second quarter of this year, Safepay was the fourth biggest ransomware player during the three-month period, behind Qilin, Akira and Play. But looking at May alone, it made 70 attack claims, which made it the most active threat group for the month.

Among its known victims, said NCC Group, was Microlise, a logistics technology firm that saw the exfiltration of 1.2TB of company data and the encryption of its virtual machines.

When it comes time to buying or selling a business, making as much profit as possible is important, however ensuring culture is maintained is key to guaranteeing lasting success, said an EDGE 2025 panel on mergers and acquisitions (M&A).

During a panel discussion on The Realities of M&A, Ericom CEO Kyle Page said in his opinion, culture is “much more important” than money when it comes to selling a business.

“I’m at an age where I’m not going to change another job. It’s gonna be my last two years of work, and I totally want to enjoy my last two years of work,” he said. “Therefore, when advisors came in do the due diligence, as a CEO, your eyes are taken off the ball on running your company, and that then has a big [effect], because they’ll say, ‘What does your figures look like for next year, in two years’ time?’; It’s a very stressful time to be in.

“Sometimes … people knock on my door again, and I go,’ No, not just yet.’ Then they go, ‘Oh, I got keen buyers.’ I’m going, ‘No, not yet,’ because I want to go through the culture check — tell me who they are. I’m interested in the money, but not interested in the money.”

Blackbird IT director Richard Stafford agreed with Page’s sentiments, adding that failing to align cultures, particularly if one business is buying another, is the quickest way to wreck a deal.

“If the company that you acquire [has its] current owner staying on, don’t screw the seller, because if you do, they’re going to become a culture terrorist in this business that you’ve just bought,” he said.

“So, really pay attention and buffer that in but make sure that you’re structuring a deal that enables the existing culture to remain, assuming that you’ve done that comparison of a cultural alignment.

“Also, make sure that the seller isn’t going to turn bad, because you’ve decided to bang a heap of management fees on the business that you just bought. It’s very important.”

Stafford added that he’s particularly proud of Blackbird’s previous acquisitions, noting a 90 per cent staff retention and 100 per cent customer retention, which he said came down to having integrity around people and culture.

While he didn’t mention specific company names, Blackbird IT acquired Calvert Technologies in August last year and Autonomous IT in 2022.

Go big or go specialised

When it comes to selling a business, it’s important to maximise earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) to look as attractive as possible. If it’s not however, then partners should tap deep into a specific niche.

These insights were delivered at EDGE 2025 by Latimer Partners principals Mark Nesbitt and Hugh Richards during their presentation M&A Trends and Market Insights: Shaping the future of M&A deals in A/NZ.

“It’s a weak market for smaller and lower growth companies; the same thing you see in a small market. It’s not a uniquely Australian phenomenon, it’s very much a global phenomenon,” Richards said.

“The good news is global tech markets are strong, despite the significant global uncertainty and geopolitical uncertainty we see around us. AI, I think, is a major driver of that.”

To make use of that strength, Nesbitt said sellers should keep in mind that buyers are looking for scale.

“They want businesses that build out their capability, but at scale. So, they’re not really interested in really small businesses unless they have a very specialised capability,” he said.

If businesses want to scale their operations, Nesbitt recommended the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) as one potential avenue, noting that tapping into supportive shareholders “can be a fabulous way to scale a business”.

One example of this in action, he continued, is Atturra.

“So, its business IPO was December 2021 with an enterprise value around $70 million, so it wasn’t a big business when it when it came onto the market,” Nesbitt said.

“Since December 2021 to today, three and a half years later, [it] raised $170 million through the ASX. This is all equity that’s been put into Atturra at increasingly high share prices. [It] used that to make 13 acquisitions. So, in three and a half years, their enterprise value has gone from $70 million to $250 million. It’s very hard to do that as a private business on your own.

“That said, the market’s now saying to them, ‘Look, guys, you’ve got to a decent scale now, you’ve almost got $400 million of revenue, you’ve almost got $40 million EBITDA, we want to see you start to grow organically. We want to see you slow down on the acquisitions. We want to see some organic growth.’ Until they really prove that out, the share price has come off.”

Funding sources

As for who’s funding IT M&A activity, one major player is traditional banks – particularly Westpac and Macquarie, according to Nesbitt, with the latter having a particularly strong presence in the market.

“[Traditional banks] are still keen to lend, they like IT services, they like recurring revenues, but they’re still fairly conservative,” he said.

“So, you might be able to borrow two, maybe three, times EBITDA at a low single digit interest rate. It’s good if it fits, but it doesn’t fit everyone.”

Nesbitt also said there is an emergence of private credit – non-traditional lenders, family offices and funds that have raised capital – which are lending either as debt or debt with equity instruments.

“They’re typically less restrictive around who they’ll lend to, but they charge higher interest rates, so you’ll see rates of 12, 14, 15 per cent, but they’re not going to be as restrictive as a big bank, and sometimes that’s less dilutive than raising capital.

“There’s a huge pool of money for the ASX, but it’s very, very fussy and very picky, as you saw with Atturra.”

Nesbitt also said that a lot of current M&A activity is stemming from private equity.

“Historically, when we looked at who were the serial acquirers for IT businesses, it used to be the ASX – it used to be the Tesserents and Spirits and all the highly valued ASX listed companies.

“Then that shifted to big consulting. So, when cloud came along, big consulting went, ‘We needed to build practices.’ They were out there paying big valuations for specialised businesses.

“They’re still out there, but by far and away, the most activity from the buyer universe right now is private equity backed companies.”

Global technology service provider DXC Technology will look to artificial intelligence (AI) and human expertise to help self-insured organisations better support employee health and wellbeing throughout claims handling processing. 

With the launch of DXC Assure Risk Management, self-insured organisations will be able to use their own funds to cover employee insurance claims instead of purchasing traditional insurance.  

Because of this, these organisations often face a distinct set of challenges from delivering effective employee care, navigating complex and time-consuming regulations, managing escalating healthcare costs, and improving return-to-work outcomes. 

The DXC Assure Risk Management offer is a flexible platform that helps address these challenges. This includes human expertise at the core; AI-enabled processes; software-as-a-service (SaaS) technology and generative AI. 

The platform represents a shift toward treating workers’ compensation as an integral part of the employee experience, rather than merely a matter of operational compliance, said DXC Technology managing director Australia and New Zealand insurance software claims management and BPS Michael Neary. 

“By combining experienced claims professionals with AI, this new service helps self-insured employers streamline processes, stay compliant, and – more importantly support, when it matters most,” he said.  

DXC has previously told ARN it has been tapping into AI for decades, but the recent iteration of the technology is seen as a means of accelerating its work even further, said Howard Boville, executive vice president at the service provider. 

At the time, he said the tech has been helping it improve its projects across both the public and private sectors. 

“Essentially, any undertaking is a series of processes and every industry has its established processes as to how to service markets, build products, deliver capabilities or meets the needs of its citizens,” he said. 

“AI is a huge accelerant in the ability to remove the calcification and atrophy of those business processes.”

SAP partner DyFlex Solutions, backed by private equity firm Five V Capital, has acquired local SAP partner Bluetree Solutions to further its SAP capabilities. 

The acquisition follows Perth-based DyFlex Solutions entering a strategic partnership with Five V Capital to accelerate growth locally and across Asia, creating an opportunity to acquire a willing SAP partner in February. 

At the time, DyFlex chief financial officer Angus Knapp said it was looking to partner with “high-quality SAP consultancies that want to take their business to the next level”. 

In an interview with ARN in April, DyFlex co-CEO Jason Heaney said, “Part of our growth strategy was to get an investment partner to enable us to accelerate that growth and get more customers, more reach, more geographies.”  

DyFlex stated the combined brands and identity were already closely aligned, and the teams are already working closely to coordinate services, systems, and support. 

The combined business will have over 270 employees and is on track to surpass 300 by the end of the year.  

What drew DyFlex to Bluetree was the shared commitment to customer success in enterprise-grade outcomes with the agility and care of a specialist partner. 

The partnership will be strengthening the ability to support customers across the full SAP stack – including core S/4HANA, SuccessFactors and advanced analytics – with a strong and growing presence across both Australia and New Zealand. 

Bluetree’s deep expertise in SAP Datasphere and SAP Analytics Cloud complements DyFlex’s delivery capabilities. This will improve the Perth-based SAP partner’s capabilities and support its adaptation as SAP’s Business Data Cloud evolves. It will also contribute to its technical preparedness for AI. 

In April, Heaney said the partner was looking to acquire new customers “all down the … size pyramid and get them on Cloud ERP in the first instance”. 

“We’re heavily invested in trying to bring new customers to the SAP platform on Cloud ERP,” he explained. “For us to grow our business, [we] need to bring in the new customers … that is stream one; stream two is this large installed base they also need to move to the cloud.” 

Automated endpoint management platform NinjaOne, has appointed former Elastic regional vice president of commercial and enterprise sales Geoff Davies to grow its business across Australia and New Zealand (A/NZ).

As vice president and A/NZ country manager at NinjaOne, Davies is expected to bring his leadership style to the software vendor, which focuses on collaboration, teamwork and “delivering meaningful value”.

He comes to the role with more than 15 years of experience in leading high-performance sales teams across the region, with more than 11 years of this time spent at ServiceNow.

Davies has also worked at Planhat, HPE, Opsware, InfoVista, Esphion, 3Com and Foundry Networks.

“Geoff is a proven sales leader with a deep understanding of the A/NZ market and a passion for making his team and customers successful,” said NinjaOne chief revenue officer John Sapone.

“As we continue to grow our presence in the region and deliver best-in-class value to IT teams and MSPs, Geoff will bring a unique perspective that will help NinjaOne, our customers, and our partners thrive.”

Davies added that he joins NinjaOne “at this pivotal moment in rapid growth” and the company’s leadership team is “relentlessly focused on continuing to identify and solve customer pain points”.

Last month, NinjaOne completed its acquisition of Melbourne-based cloud backup vendor Dropsuite for approximately US$270 million.

Optus has created an agentic AI tool designed to assist its existing frontline staff with real-time intelligence to deliver a streamlined customer experience. 

The Optus Expert AI was built using Agent Assist from Google Cloud’s customer engagement suite and leverages generative and agentic AI capabilities to analyse live customer conversations across channels in real time. 

It also provides contextual guidance, summarises insights, suggests optimal next actions and responses, and executes tasks across multiple backend systems to resolve customer needs. 

Optus Expert AI is purpose-built to support complex sales and service interactions, ensuring consistency, speed, and quality at every touchpoint.  

By combining natural language understanding with real-time orchestration, it marks a significant step toward Optus’ vision of improving its customer experience, where human and AI work together to deliver effortless and streamlined customer care for each individual. 

This is an example of how Optus was leveraging AI to champion “customers and elevate each interaction they have with us,” said Optus head of AI solutions and strategy Jesse Arundell.  

“Partnering with AI leaders like Google Cloud enables Optus to deliver AI solutions that are not only intelligent and effective, but also safe, secure and responsibly designed to support customer needs 24/7,” he said. 

Arundell said Optus has been leveraging AI for over five years, investing in next-generation technologies that make a real difference to its customers and employees.  

“The results reaffirm the value of equipping our people with AI tools that enhance confidence, clarity, and connection in every interaction,” he explained. “By augmenting our people with AI, we’re amplifying them, providing real-time insight, guidance and actions for faster, smarter and truly streamlined customer care.”

Google Cloud A/NZ Paul Migliorini said AI was helping to “drive a new era of customer service, transforming interactions between businesses and customers”. 

Atturra is set to acquire Blue Connections IT for upwards of $25 million in order to bolster its managed services offering.

Through its subsidiary Cirrus Network Holdings, Atturra is putting up $18 million in cash up front as part of the deal, with an additional $7.5 million in cash or shares is also on offer if Blue Connections makes audited earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) targets for the 2026 and 2027 financial years and retains key staff. Integration costs have been budgeted at $500,000.

The services provider’s CEO, Stephen Kowal, said the proposed acquisition will “significantly enhance Atturra’s credentials as a leading provider in managed services”.

“It will strengthen Atturra’s service capabilities, while expanding its client base and portfolio of offerings. Notably, Blue Connections’ client roster has minimal overlap with Atturra’s, providing an opportunity to broaden Atturra’s revenue streams and market reach.

“The proposed acquisition aligns with Atturra’s strategic focus on its commitment to scaling its managed services capabilities. It will also establish a key operational hub for the business in Victoria, supporting continued national expansion.”

The acquisition is expected to be completed on or around 31 August. If it is wrapped up by 31 August, Atturra said Blue Connections is expected to contribute more than $2.5 million in earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) during FY26 and over $3.5 million in EBITDA during FY27.

Founded in 1997 and based in Melbourne, Blue Connections offers IT procurement services across mid-market, enterprise and government sectors, covering end user compute, device lifecycle management, modern workplace, device as a service, bid management and warehousing.

It also operates an Australian-based 24/7 service desk to support customers, offering level 1, 2 and 3 engineers.

Earlier this month when Atturra announced its financial results for FY25, Kowal said that the financial year ahead would include an expansion of its portfolio, “particularly in managed services”, among other areas.

Meanwhile, in January, Blue Connections achieved ISO/IEC 27001:2022 certification for information security management systems (ISMS)  .

Partners from across Australia and New Zealand are on the hunt for new customers in the current financial year, valuing the need for fresh business ahead of all other priorities, including growing annuity revenue.

The finding was one of many as part of a partnership between EDGE Research and Tech Research Asia and was delivered by the latter’s executive consultant and industry analyst Mark Iles at the opening keynote of EDGE 2025 on Day 3.

This differs from research conducted last financial year, which saw annuity revenue growth ranked above all else, with new customers coming in third.

Meanwhile, annuity revenue growth in TRA’s latest research came in second place.

“I actually think this is a pretty healthy thing,” he said. “There’s an element here that says there’s only so much of that managed services style revenue you can you can generate, much as we love it.”

The need for AI and data skills

Additionally, the industry shift towards AI is likely to be a boon for consulting services, but Iles stated there is a noticeable lack of attention being placed on these service offerings.

“There’s a muscle there that we need to strengthen,” Iles said. “We’ve used this analogy previously, where we said it’s like skipping leg day in the gym. That consulting muscle is a muscle we’ve got to work.”

The AI shift also means that there needs to be more skills around data and analytics, as AI technology relies on data to function. However, Iles said there’s a slight disconnect in the strategic alignment of the usefulness of data skills between partners and customers.

Iles said when partners were asked what kind of solutions they were focusing on as a priority FY26, data and analytics came in 12th place out of 14 areas.

Essentially, this means that A/NZ partners overall are not valuing data and analytics highly compared to other solution areas, like managed services and cyber security, which were ranked first and second, respectively. In response, Iles said that data and analytics are “slightly undercooked,” with more demand than supply in the market.

When it comes to bringing in new talent into a partner, most said they were looking for AI-related roles, followed by field sales, pre-sales specialists, marketing roles, customer support, internal sales and industry specialists.

However, Iles flagged that partners may be better off rethinking their hiring aspirations while considering the role of AI, automation and industry specialists.

“Do you really need that many more field sales, and do you really need to be investing that heavily in customer support in terms of people — not AI, not automation, not workflow?” he said.

This brings up what Iles refers to as the “cobbler’s shoes” analogy; partners are great at selling AI and enabling automation solutions to customers to make them more efficient, but are “really terrible” at using these solutions internally.

“Most partners that I speak to don’t have an internal CIO, they don’t have an internal business improvement section,” he said.

“If they did have those skills, they’d end up being billable, because we’d sell them out to a customer, and we’d never end up working on our own stuff.

“If you’re … recruiting just additional sales capacity that isn’t specialised in solution consultants or industry, I think it’s worth a question to see whether you’re already focused in the right area.”

If partners are looking to dive deeper into AI, Iles added that the train hasn’t left the station yet, as the technology has a long opportunity attached to it.

He compared the concerns of AI lateness from today to those around cyber security from six years ago.

“I spoke to a few partners who were like, ‘I’m late to the cyber game. Is it okay?’ I was like, ‘It’s going to be the gift that keeps up giving. You’re fine. You’re a little bit late to the party’,” he said.

“I say if you’re going to show up late to a party, bring French champagne; If you’re late, make sure that your offering is really good, because there’s a bunch of people in before you.

“The same thing holds true here for AI. You’re not too late yet, but you probably want to really start thinking about what your role is here.”

Aussie IT service provider blueAPACHE has made changes to its management with the promotion of Michael Zuppa to the role of chief executive officer (CEO). 

Zuppa has been with blueAPACHE for the last 11 years, starting as a business development manager in July 2014. He was then promoted to the role of general manager technology in 2017 and has remained in that position until his recent promotion. 

Managing director Chris Marshall will continue in his role, although he will transition strategically to a focused function, leading blueAPACHE’s global growth strategy with particular emphasis on sales and marketing. 

Marshall said Zuppa has been instrumental in shaping blueAPACHE’s technology vision, spearheading initiatives that have strengthened the company’s position as a trusted IT partner.  

“Michael is just a phenomenal leader,” he told ARN. “He was our general manager of technology and operational delivery — so he’s been across both ops and technology for many years already.”

“He’s had the technology and operations teams reporting through to him.”

This step into the CEO role just brings in the corporate services aspect as well into his remit, noted Marshall. This means he can now connect all the dots across all of the provider’s lines of business from a finance perspective too.

Marshall said blueAPACHE has also appointed a new general manager of operations, Jordin Marks — blueAPACHE’s head of managed services. He’s been with the business for nine years.

This shift will enable Marshall to concentrate on expanding the company’s international footprint and driving customer acquisition while Zuppa oversees day-to-day operations. 

“This has been something that’s sort of been part of our planning for many years,” he said. “It’s really about allowing us to execute on our global growth strategy. For me, being able to focus purely on both the operational side and the sales, marketing, and growth side — it’s becoming quite a big role.

“I’ll be spending more time with our vendors and strategic partners, really getting alignment on how we can better execute together — market strategy not just for Australia, but also into the US and Asia as well.”

According to Marshall having the bandwidth to explore that strategy further, with acquisition being the ” certainly the “fastest one to market”. This will also give him the time and the opportunity — “to invest in building out that strategy”.

“FY26 for us is really about getting that foundation down,” he said. “The onus is on me now, to make sure that we put that plan endorsed for FY27. I think that’s when we start seeing some movement, and it’s exciting.”

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Zuppa said the changes will ensure acceleration with the provider’s global plans. 

“With Chris leading our global growth, sales, and marketing initiatives, we are well positioned to accelerate growth and continue delivering exceptional value to our clients,” he said. “This announcement comes as blueAPACHE celebrates 27 years of sustained growth and evolution.” 

Over the past 12 months, the business has advanced its trajectory, relocating both its Sydney and Melbourne offices to CBD locations and building its consulting and advisory capabilities. 

 Together, these milestones position the company for its next phase of expansion, underscoring its focus on market leadership and delivering long-term value to clients.  

This update reinforces blueAPACHE’s commitment to innovation, operational excellence, and global growth, now celebrating its 27th birthday on 30 July, said Marshall. 

IT professional services provider Avocado Consulting has hired former CPT Global managing partner Steven Zacharidis to lead its transformation portfolio.

In the position of managing client partner, Zacharidis will play a key role in “engaging senior stakeholders and advancing the company’s ability to shape and deliver impactful programs”, according to the provider.

He brings with him over 25 years of experience in technology leadership roles. In addition to his most recent position at CPT Global, he has also worked at ptp consulting group, DXC Technology and Bravura Solutions, among other companies.

Avocado CEO Gerardo Barranquero said the provider’s team plans to utilise Zacharidis’ industry experience and network to expand its portfolio of clients.

Barranquero also noted Zacharidis’ leadership will help Avocado scale its services, support more complex client environments, and “accelerate the shift to smarter, more secure ways of working”.

“His leadership strengthens our ability to engage senior stakeholders, expand into larger transformation programs, and convert high-value opportunities,” he said.

 “With our pipeline of legacy modernisation and observability initiatives growing rapidly, Steven brings the experience and credibility needed to scale our impact across key markets.”

Zebra Technologies has opened its new Australia and New Zealand (A/NZ) headquarters in Melbourne’s Hawthorn East, as well as expanding its Zebra Experience Centre (ZEC).

Moving away from its Glen Waverley hub, the data capture and automatic identification solutions vendor said it moved its headquarters in order to be closer to its partners and customers.

“Melbourne has always served as our headquarters for the Australia and New Zealand sub-region,” said Zebra sales vice president for A/NZ and India sub-continent Tom Christodoulou in a statement to ARN.

“We’ve now made the strategic decision to relocate from Glen Waverley to a more prominent location …  to foster stronger relationships and enable more frequent, meaningful interactions.”

Additionally, the updated ZEC is nearly twice the size of its previous centre, with it hosting demonstrations, workshops, and events.

The vendor also said the centre has been designed to “transform customer and partner engagements by showcasing Zebra’s industry-leading products and facilitating digital transformation”.

“To support the continued growth of our business in A/NZ, we also recognised the need to expand our ZEC,” Christodoulou said. “This enhancement will allow us to better showcase Zebra’s industry-leading solutions and drive deeper engagement through hands-on demonstrations that support our customers’ digital transformation journeys.”

Zebra senior vice president and general manager Ryan Goh added that the relocation and expansion of its ZEC reinforces its “dedication to providing exceptional service to our partners and customers, empowering businesses to enhance frontline efficiency with technology”.

The opening of its new facilities comes months after Christodoulou and chief product and solutions officer Joe White voiced their intent back in April to seek out partners in new verticals.

Nobody is better positioned to solve the problems of operationalising artificial intelligence (AI) for small to medium-sized businesses (SMB) than managed service providers, but the reality may be that they need help and clarity to offer real transformation. 

During the second day of EDGE 2025, Pax8 chief product officer Libby McIlhany said in her presentation Capitalising on AI to Grow into the Era of Managed Intelligence that today’s managed service providers are going to be providing the context for the AI that they’re going to be delivering to SMBs. 

“You know your SMBs’ businesses as well as they do,” she said. “You’re going to be having those deeper conversations with them and you’re going to be providing the data and the information that AI agents need to be trained on.” 

McIlhany put to the MSPs that they were going to turn those abstract models into actionable business online systems. 

“You’re already going to lean into the two languages that you speak today — … the language of business and the language of technology,” she said. 

The industry is now at an inflection point between managed service providers (MSP) and managed intelligence providers (MIP), she noted. The MIP is different from traditional MSPs because they will have a higher labour force of humans and of human understanding. 

“You’re going to be overseeing agents or addressing clients,” she said. “You’re the one who’s going to help the clients understand how to embed AI into their workforce so that they can get not only more efficient, but also more capable. 

“You’re going to be delivering outcomes for their business, and you’re going to act as a strategic intelligence leader, because they don’t want to do it.” 

While Mcllhany painted a vision of the evolved channel partner, TSP Chief Strategy Officer James Davis said MSPs still faced gaps to getting there. 

The path to evolved MSP is not paved with gold 

Before an MSP even considers coming down this route, Davis said MSPs who have come from an end-user support and infrastructure management background, need to consider what their transformation looks like. Otherwise going straight into becoming an MIP was going to be a big leap. 

This is something that Davis has often spoken about. Previously he told ARN smaller MSPs need a “mindset shift” and start seeing the industry as a place for transformation and innovation, not just maintenance and support. 

The evolution of MSPs “started in as break-fix shops” then moved to infrastructure management, but now basic infrastructure and desktops are self-servicing, Davis said at EDGE Day 2 in an interview. 

“For decades, MSPs have specifically avoided the application layer in their clients’ businesses,” he said. “They don’t know that clients need advisory first to lead them, and they don’t actually know what they’re trying to solve. 

“They can’t see the wood from the trees — it’s not technology.” 

Davis noted that AI is a conversation that requires talking about productivity and efficiency. 

“However way we solve that for our clients doesn’t actually matter,” he said. “But they’re struggling to scale, struggling to recruit and retain talent, and they’re struggling to create profitability.” 

“We don’t — and can’t — come to the AI conversation with an off-the-shelf product for customers, trying to solve a problem that we don’t know.” 

“The way the AI is being positioned to MSPs is the wrong way around,” said Davis. While he doesn’t want to be pedantic, even the word ‘provider’ for Davis begs the question: what are they providing? 

“Not all partners are building solutions — they’re procuring — so automatically, we’re getting off on the wrong foot because we’re not understanding the business models,” he said 

Partners know they need to transform, but they don’t know what they should transform to. A lot of them are also in survival mode and are desperate because they are trying to keep their business profitable. 

“They don’t know what the steps of transformation are actually like,” he said. “They don’t have the capabilities. 

“They’re not doing anything like this themselves — and they haven’t even got cyber security.” 

The shift being discussed, along with the language used by vendors, noted Davis, misses the mark. 

“Vendors, even with good intentions, are focused on selling licenses rather than understanding the broader implications,” he said. “This misunderstanding is evident in how they talk about agentic AI. 

“Even if they’ve got the right intentions, they don’t actually understand the implications of all this.” 

True partnership takes time 

An average MSP is horizontal, explained Davis, and they can’t go deep in their verticals and their clients, because they have a variety of verticals that they have already to work with. 

“There are really good solutions across machine learning, edge devices, [and] specialised, intelligent AI that makes decisions based on a certain subset of data that’s trained very well and very specifically,” he said. “They exist, but that’s not what we — as an industry — are about. 

“That’s why the partners need to transform, because if you’re just following a commodity, their customers don’t need someone to come in and implement a commodity-grade solution.” 

Their customers need a partner that can understand their business practically, which requires potential solutions to help them implement AI and govern it, noted Davis. 

“It’s not about helping a partner understand whether they should be elevating to advisory status or getting very specialised in technology,” he said. “Even the term MSP to equal all partners — that’s a ubiquitous term and it loses all meaning. 

Partners might get a bit of buzz in the first place. However, as soon as they walk away after the implementation, the concept dies. 

“They don’t do anything — surprise, surprise — they don’t understand it and they don’t believe in it,” Davis said. 

Channel Guru founder Brad Clarke said partners need a community of experts that they can lean on to build competence that gives direct access to experts. 

“You can teach an old dog new tricks… if the dog wants to learn,” he said. “You’ve got the old dog who doesn’t want to learn, or doesn’t care to learn, is burnt out and over it — they’re your exits. 

“Then you’ve got those who want to transform — and there’s plenty of great communities out there who are focused on very much that.” 

However, they’ve got to want to transform, Clarke pointed out. 

“For example, it can take up to six months for someone like James [Davis] to help them understand what a modern version of that part of the business will look like — and they’re going to take another three or four months to implement,” he added. 

Partners should be paying attention to the IT landscape’s shift away from infrastructure and towards outcomes, with AI playing an important role, according to Google Cloud Australia and New Zealand (A/NZ) head of partners and alliances Gary Denman.

Denman spoke to ARN ahead of the vendor’s Summit event in Sydney on 30 July, noting that customers want their outcomes solved, and they’re looking for others to provide the technology to do so.

“They’re not looking to try and create infrastructure in the way that they were historically,” he said.

“They have this challenge now around needing to do more with less time and resources, so they don’t have the capacity to deal with thousands and thousands of services; they’re looking for platforms, and then what they’re really uncovering … is AI.

“There’s a really interesting opportunity for businesses around AI; the realisation is that you need to have your data at the centre of your business.”

As a result, Denman said Google Cloud is hearing demand from customers to become data centred who are desiring “true partnerships”.

“We need to spend a lot of time understanding the capabilities and the types of requirements that customers are looking for,” he said.

“Then we map that and spend a lot of time with our channel partners to identify where they are best placed to make their investments to be able to deliver the outcomes that they think they’re best placed to do.”

Denman also said Google Cloud’s sales teams spend time “really trying to understand how we can bring the most valuable partners to the request of our customers”.

The end result, he noted, was that customers get to their desired outcome as fast as possible, while service partners generate revenues quickly. In turn, Google Cloud starts to see the rewards on consumption.

Agentic AI is particularly in demand from customers, and Denman said it’s up to partners to make the most of this demand.

“One of the things we see is the more you use the tools, the more you understand how valuable they can be, so that’s certainly a very key theme — enablement of the channel for this agentic era,” he said.

“What we’re hearing from our customers is they’re going to make those agentic decisions and strategies, and they’re looking to Google — they see us as the pioneer in that. We’ve always had AI as the centre of our capability; partners need to be able to respond to that.”

Tapping into true partners

In regards to what makes a “true partnership”, Denman said in his opinion it comes from partners giving customers more than what they ask for and engaging in additional work following the culmination of an existing project.

“As they build, we talk about that flywheel effect you can have inside a customer. That is evidence of true partnership,” he said. “I don’t know many organisations that choose to spend with people that don’t deliver for them; they spend with people who do deliver for them. That, to me, is a symbolic way of partnership.

“You test the partnership at the point of a difficult conversation, and how you lean into resolution is always the best example of when a partnership is working well, whether that’s a change in strategy, whether it’s a change in situation inside an organisation where a project needs a little bit of refinement — that’s where you see true partnership.”

Denman also said these trusted partners are seeing a rise in long-term customers coming to them to take on new projects with Google Cloud.

“They’re coming with customers that they’ve already been serving for a number of years around different technologies into our portfolio,” he said.

“Our role there is to ensure that they build the capabilities and understanding of our technologies as associated from a differentiation from the technologies they’ve provided historically.

“What we’re seeing now with the demand in the market is that there is opportunity for partners, and I don’t think that creates a capacity overrun for us as we continue to accelerate and build backlog for delivery.”

As such, Denman added that Google Cloud is encouraging partners to collaborate with the hyperscaler during the sales cycle, coming together to cosell.

“It’s really important that we jointly, where appropriate, work together with the customer to deliver the outcome,” he said. “They’re leading that from a delivery standpoint.

“We want them to be successful and profitable so that they can reinvest and continue to build services and repeatability into other customers as well.”

BAI Communications has signed an agreement to acquire advanced communications engineering specialist Titan ICT in a move to boost its telecommunications solutions offering.

Both companies intend to expand their service offerings to the private mobile network sector and operational communications networks.

This would see the Australian communications infrastructure provider’s access to spectrum, financial strength and track record in managing mission critical networks combined with Titan ICT’s market positioning, capability and network designing and building experience.

ARN understands that if the deal is successful, which is expected to wrap up by the fourth quarter of the 2025 calendar year, Titan ICT will add more than 70 employees to BAI’s existing workforce of over 440 staff members.

Additionally, BAI will review the branding of the combined business post-acquisition. After the close of the deal, Titan ICT will be rebranded to “Titan ICT – a BAI Communications company” in the interim.

“Titan ICT is a respected and high performing player in the Australian market, with deep capability in LTE, Microwave, IP and radio networks and longstanding customer relationships,” said BAI CEO Peter Lambourne.

“This acquisition is an important step forward in BAI’s growth strategy, complementing our existing communications infrastructure and services expertise.

“It positions us perfectly to support the increasing demand for private mobile networks and operational connectivity from businesses in the mining, resources and energy industries plus others looking to harness the very significant benefits of increased worker safety and automation.”

Meanwhile, Titan ICT managing director Chris Upstone added that the alignment between both businesses would unlock “a range of opportunities to extend the services and support that we are providing our customers, positioning us to increase scale and leadership in the delivery of mission critical connectivity”.

“BAI’s heritage, proven track record for delivery and prioritisation of service make for a natural fit,” he said. “Combining Titan ICT’s established reputation and relationships around Australia and our expertise in deployment of operational networks with BAI’s capital capability, creates the perfect platform to capture the increasing private mobile network growth opportunity.”

Businesses across Australia and New Zealand are set to increase their tech budgets significantly in the next year, providing partners region-wide with a massive opportunity.

Speaking during the opening keynote of Day 2 of EDGE 2025, Tech Research Asia executive consultant and industry analyst Mark Iles said that customers are set on ramping up their technology budgets in the next 12 months.

In Australia, 62 per cent of businesses surveyed are looking to increase their tech budgets for the period, which is the highest per centage Iles said he has seen in nine years.

Similarly, 50 per cent of New Zealand businesses also flagged an increase in tech spend, which is the strongest numbers Iles has seen for the market.

Meanwhile, the businesses that aren’t planning to increase their technology budgets across the region are less clear-cut A/NZ wide.

For Australia, 24 per cent of businesses are looking to maintain their tech budgets in Australia, while the number in New Zealand is at 28 per cent per cent.

As for those looking to decrease their tech budget, the figures sit at 14 per cent for Australia and 21 per cent in New Zealand. Iles said the latter was a “relatively high number”, but it’s not due to a lack of demand.

“When we go through the data, it’s actually businesses that are really struggling,” he said. “It’s driven by businesses’ performance in terms of their own sales, their own revenue, their own profitability.

“It’s not symptomatic with their lack of focus on tech.”

Speed in the market

Iles also highlighted the need for partners to keep up with the accelerating speed of change in the technology market, noting that “it’s faster now than we’ve ever seen it”.

“The speed at which we need to realise that our businesses build new service offerings is faster than it’s ever been,” he said. “The customer already wants it but hasn’t actually figured out what the offering is yet.

“How long does it take you to build an offering? Most partners I talked to, it’s about nine months. By the time you figured out what’s the offering, can I deliver the right skills, what’s the vendor stack underneath it, what’s the packaging, pricing, how do I train our sales guys, how do I launch a different website? All of those things take time.”

Keeping up with that speed is all the more important when considering the accelerated pace of AI evolution. Customers know this, and they know they need the help of experts to maximise its usage.

“The good news for all things about AI is they’re looking into the partner ecosystem heavily. They know they can’t do it alone,” Iles added.

“They know they need the expertise, but that expertise needs business context, and that business context is industry related. We can connect the dots here.”

Iles’ presentation at EDGE 2025 was just one of many, with the channel’s most influential players coming together on Day 2 to also learn:

• 96 per cent of ransomware cases investigated by Arctic Wolf involve double extortion, with Arctic Wolf chief information security officer Adam Marrè;
• The need to shift from becoming an MSP to a managed intelligence provider, offering agent orchestration and automation, with Pax8 chief product officer Elizabeth McIlhany;
• The majority of digital first buyers involved in enterprise transactions valued at over $1 million are either Millennials or Gen Z, with Transcends CEO Ashleigh Vogstad;
• Partners should be helping customers to establish data trust and fully embrace AI readiness, with Quest Software Asia Pacific and Japan lead for channel and alliances Angela Maniscalco;
• The ways channel players can find profitable opportunities with AI, with Lenovo ISG head of solutions Julian Badell; and
• Companies looking for a high valuation either need to pull in EBITDA of over $10 million or have a very specialised capability, from Latimer Partners principals Hugh Richards and Mark Nesbitt.

The channel market is ripe with opportunities this financial year, intensified by the overwhelming desire to embrace AI for more innovative, agile, productive, and ultimately profitable businesses. More pragmatically, those same IT leaders also recognise the need to ensure resiliency amid an increasingly sophisticated cybersecurity landscape. Meanwhile, at the most foundational level, Windows 10 is going out of service. This sparks a flurry of hardware refreshes to maximise the potential of Windows 11.

All of this underpins why IT services spending in Australia is expected to increase by 7.2% in 2025, according to Gartner.

With this growing demand comes an opportunity for the channel to evolve, move up the stack, and embrace services. Traditional license margins are shrinking, and the days of relying primarily on license reselling for profitability are rapidly coming to an end. Those who can transform their business and become an MSP will find enthusiasm for their services.

The flipside to that opportunity, however, is that channel partners have to grapple with the unprecedented complexity in their customers’ environments. Keeping pace with innovation while managing a skills shortage can be incredibly difficult to deliver to the technical and strategic objectives of their clients.

Further compounding this challenge is the rising cost and often low ROI of hiring specialised resources in-house. For smaller partners in particular, bringing on AI architects, cybersecurity experts, or other niche specialists represents a significant financial commitment that may not deliver immediate returns.

There’s a gap in the market; partners need access to deep technical expertise and a strategic support that complements their strengths. This reality is prompting channel partners to look beyond traditional tech stacks and seek added expertise from their distributors.

The expertise imperative

This shift towards expertise-driven partnerships reflects a fundamental change in how the channel operates. As technology becomes more sophisticated and the pace of innovation accelerates, channel partners are discovering that success depends not just on having access to products but on having the knowledge and support to implement them effectively.

More critically, as licensing margins continue to compress, partners must differentiate themselves through expertise and strategic value delivery rather than competing on price alone.

Stephen Swavley, Director at Navigatum articulates this perfectly. “What is important to us is having a partner that we can lean on when we have technical issues that need to be escalated,” he says. “That relationship we have with Crayon gives us the ability to reach out and get the problem solved, and this is crucial for our success.”

Crayon has made significant investments in building its expertise to support channel partners. The company’s commitment extends far beyond quick licensing sales to focus on delivering long-term value through strategic and technical guidance. Thanks to those investments, partners can plug into Crayon’s deep bench of experts on-demand, rather than needing to build capabilities in-house.

The Technology Advisory Group, for instance, boasts a team of over 100 in-house specialists who provide direct access to expertise in areas like cloud, security, and AI. It is this ability to go beyond that has been core to Navigatum’s ability to deliver on its promises to the market.

“We’ve invested heavily in building our expertise, so our partners don’t have to,” explains Rhonda Robati, Executive Vice President for Crayon APAC. “Our goal is to take the complexity out of modern IT. Whether it’s cloud architecture, cybersecurity, cost optimisation, or AI adoption, our team is here to help partners move from selling software to delivering strategic value.”

The true test of any partnership comes during critical moments. “A good example of that is when my lead engineer was on holiday and one of our major clients had a significant Azure issue,” shares Swavley.

“It was on a Saturday morning, and everybody was out doing things. I sent an e-mail to Crayon and told them that the guy who would normally fix the issue wasn’t available. Within two hours. They had a solution for us.”

A different approach to channel partnership

Tristan Ellett, Director at Bigfish Technology, echoes these sentiments, highlighting how Crayon’s approach differs from traditional distributor models.

“A lot of vendors you work with, you feel like they’re just trying to sell to you. They just want you to go and buy their newest stack. What we’ve found is that Crayon really goes out to understand us and put us in conversations in partnership with other vendors,” says Ellett. “As a result, we’re actually having a value-adding conversation that goes beyond recommending that we take the latest product to market.”

As partners like Navigatum and Bigfish Technology demonstrate, when distributors invest in building genuine expertise and making it accessible to their channel partners, the result is stronger, more sustainable business relationships that drive real outcomes for end customers.

Learn more about the value Crayon brings to the channel here.

Managed database, consulting, and data analytics specialist DataSentinel has appointed data platform entrepreneur Peter Ward as a strategic advisor based out of the company’s first Australian office in Brisbane.

New Zealand-based DataSentinel said it was building a local Australian team and partner ecosystem due to rapid uptake from Australian enterprises.

“Peter’s track record building Wardy IT Solutions into Australia’s leading SQL Server consultancy, and guiding multiple technology ventures since, will be invaluable as we deepen our relationships with Australian partners and customers,” DataSentinel CEO Paul Capstick said.

Ward founded Wardy IT Solutions in 2004 and was acquired by ASX-listed MOQdigital in 2019. He has since held leadership and advisory roles at MOQdigital and Dijital Team, among others.

A long-standing Microsoft Data Platform MVP, Ward is recognised for his thought leadership on data modernisation and analytics strategy.

DataSentinel’s reputation for practical, outcomes-driven database and analytics services was already resonating in Australia, Ward said.

“Together we can help more organisations modernise their data estates and use insights to accelerate growth,” he added.

Founded in 2019, DataSentinel began serving Australian customers in 2022 and established DataSentinel Pty Limited earlier this year. The company already supports several Australian enterprises across the commercial and public sectors.

“We are building a partner‑led ecosystem in Australia by collaborating closely with MSPs, system integrators and cloud,” Capstick told Reseller News.

“Our focus is on delivering managed database and analytics solutions through those partners. Initially our focus is on recruitment and enablement, and we will progressively introduce more services and types of support as partner needs evolve.”

DataSentinel’s partner‑first model empowered resellers to own the customer relationship while tapping into a deep bench of data and database managed services expertise.

“Combined with our regional A/NZ [Australia and New Zealand] focus and outcomes‑driven delivery, this approach lets partners scale complex data services without recruiting their own specialists,” Capstick said.

DataSentinel also recently achieved ISO/IEC 27001:2022 certification for its information security management system (ISMS).

The accreditation validated DataSentinel’s security framework and underpinned its partner-centric approach, giving channel partners confidence they were collaborating with a provider committed to the highest standards of data protection.

“Achieving the ISO/IEC 27001:2022 certification assures our partners that they’re working with a managed database provider whose controls are independently audited against the latest global security benchmarks,” Capstick said.

It also streamlined due diligence for partners and reinforced end customers’ trust in the solutions delivered.

“Our ISMS is a living framework – subject to ongoing risk assessments and external audits – so partners know we never stop raising the bar on data protection,” Capstick added.

Managed service providers (MSP) are in the middle of a disruptive era as they were called on at EDGE 2025 to adapt business models to artificial intelligence (AI).

During the first day of the event, keynotes, panels, and discussions urged partners to provide innovative solutions and to understand the significance of customer needs. 

With the rapid growth of AI, there was a need for change management, ethical frameworks, and continuous learning to stay relevant in the AI era. 

Former Facebook Australia and New Zealand (A/NZ) CEO and current Omniscient Neurotechnology CEO Stephen Scheeler kicked off the opening keynote with his presentation: The Impact of AI on Tech Buying and the Changing Buyers, telling a full room of channel partners that everything was changing quickly. 

“There’s one thing I would capture about logistic AI, which really kind of sums it up for me,” he said. “It gets me [my people] to what matters faster, because bullshit takes the friction out of so much stuff.” 

“The challenge is, it’s not just me that’s using [AI]. It’s customers that are using this now.” 

Scheeler said the buying landscape has changed, and nobody cares about the product or having a relationship with sellers when they’ve got the internet and AI. 

“They don’t care about you talking about your product,” he said. “They care about self-exploration and understanding for themselves.”

The buyers’ journey showed they don’t care about engaging with suppliers, said Scheeler. 

“They’re making all the decisions based on what they find and what they do … using AI,” he said. “The truth is that more than half the time, buyers prefer not to talk to you in their decisions and gather information.” 

Microsoft global black belt for Copilot and Microsoft 365, Stuart Moore, took Scheeler’s keynote speech further in his discussion: Microsoft: AI-Powered Business Transformation: Partnering for Opportunity and Growth. 

Moore said Microsoft’s research in the A/NZ market showed 68 per cent of the Australian workforce said they struggle to have enough time and energy to do work; they’re tapped out.  

But at the same time, 64 per cent say they’re willing to adopt AI to help get work done. While 75 per cent of Australian leaders think they’ll tap into agentic workforces in the next 12 months — using digital assistants to help with low-value or delegated tasks 

“Customers are asking me for AI strategy and agentic frameworks — how to build an agent, improve call handling times, get faster customer response, and improve first call resolution,” he said. “They want partners to help build frameworks that bring agents into organisations and scale them.  

“They also want agentic solution development, responsible AI assurance and advisory for governance and ethics, and help with adoption and workforce upskilling.” 

However, for partners to capture opportunity in the AI era, there needs to be a shift from service provider to solution provider. 

The panel From Services to Solutions: The AI-Powered Partner shift, SixPivot founder Faith Rees, PartnerElevate chief partnership officer Desmond Russell, The TSP Advisory chief strategy officer James Davis, and Truis managing director Norm Jeffries highlighted the importance of partners bringing solutions that address customer problems. 

“Today, customers want us to come up with solutions to problems that they already know they have, but they don’t know how they’re going to address them,” Rees said.  

PartnerElevate’s Russell said he didn’t believe that AI would “actually destroy business” but the shift in models that was causing disruption and traditional ways of making money was being challenged, “driving down costs” and “exposing weaknesses in current models”. 

“For the partner, it’s the business model and looking into action now, before you start to think about actually getting something for a customer,” he said. 

For Davis, this means there needs to be deep introspection from the partner about where they want their business to go. 

“They hold onto the old vision of who they are, even as clients evolve,” he said. “Instead of clearly communicating their voice, they’re still either clinging to a past identity or feeling completely lost. 

 “It’s a major transformation step, with the most successful partners learning that the key was simply to reach out — even if it’s just to share something positive.” 

Truis’ Jeffries added that partners should be consistently more aligned with customers because they are important. 

Six months after its splashy debut at a White House press event, the US$500 billion Stargate project is said to be going nowhere and is now being forced to scale back its lofty ambitions.

A US$500 billion project was unveiled at the White House with much fanfare this past January to kickstart artificial intelligence Projects in the US to make the country more competitive with foreign initiatives.

According to a Wall Street Journal report, the newly formed company charged with making the project happen has yet to complete a single deal for a data center and that SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman are butting heads over crucial terms of the partnership, including where to build the sites. Oracle was the third partner in this alliance, but it does not appear to be playing a role in this clash. Though, according to Axios, this week Oracle and OpenAI agreed to develop 4.5 gigawatts of additional Stargate data center capacity in the US.

And whereas the trio promised to invest US$100 billion “immediately,” the project is now setting the more modest goal of building a small data centre by the end of this year, perhaps in Ohio.

Such problems hardly come as a surprise. None of the principal partners in this initiative have any serious experience in building hyperscale data centres. Most of Oracle’s Oracle Cloud Infrastructure network is based on colocation, not its own data centers and Oracle is an also-ran in this business. It has just 3 per cent market share of the cloud market.

Cloud titans AWS, Microsoft, Equinix, Digital Reality, Google, Nvidia, and Meta have yet to join the partnership, and their omission makes it hard to take the project seriously because they are the ones with the experience in doing this type of work.

Analysts aren’t surprised at the news. “Big IT projects have a long history of dramatically overpromising and it appears that trend is quickly moving into the world of AI data center-based projects as well. The Stargate project, in particular, also seems to have more of a political bent to it than many other projects so that’s likely complicating matters as well,” said Bob O’Donnell, president and chief analyst with TECHnalysis Research.

“There’s little doubt we will see massive investments by many different organisations to build out AI infrastructure here in the US, but I’m not convinced that individual projects will end up mattering that much in the long run,” he added.

“I have always been skeptical about the huge number that was projected. In the hundreds of billions,” said Patrick Moorhead, CEO & chief analyst with Moor Insights & Strategy. “The only problem was that only a few billion in new funding was raised. And now there’s strife between OpenAI and SoftBank. To be fair, Oracle is part of Stargate now and OpenAI will soak up many GPUs in the Texas facility, but this was already in process when the Stargate announcement happened.”