01732 759725 20 Partnerships enhancing 5G wireless WAN leadership through our partners, helping them with secure private cellular networking, SD WAN and SASE, and 5G enterprise networking – that’s the main one – as well as international expansion.” The programme covers multiple options under one programme – MSP, resale, private cellular networking – and each partner gets to decide how they want to engage with Cradlepoint. “They can pick and mix, essentially. Our partner business managers, of which I’m one, handhold our partners through these options so they can decide how they want to manage their Cradlepoint practices.” In total, Cradlepoint has approximately 2,000 reseller partners across Europe. The majority will be managed by Cradlepoint’s regional distributors. However, the largest – referred to by Ralston-Good as ‘power partners’ – are managed directly by Cradlepoint partner managers. Power partner One of these is Softcat, the UK’s largest VAR, which has been a partner of Cradlepoint for a little over a year. Thomas Rowley, Chief Technologist for Networking and Connectivity at Softcat, is responsible for the company’s networking connectivity portfolio, for defining the technologies that are within that portfolio, the vendors that support those technologies and the services supporting them internally and through partner services channels. “I also help develop our go to market. My job is to evangelise partners’ technology, to look three to five years in the future to understand how the markets are changing, how our business challenges are changing, how technology is evolving, and how those worlds can come together.” He says Softcat decided to focus on wireless connectivity including Cradlepoint’s range of LTE and 5G wireless edge routers, providing permanent sites, temporary sites and vehicles with primary, hybrid or secondary WAN connectivity, for two main reasons. “One is pervasive connectivity – the idea that organisations shouldn’t be limited by where wires are in the ground or the time it takes to put them in the ground in the first place. Getting fibre to a building can take anywhere between six months and a year and a half or two years in some cases. It’s really not agile. So, the ability to set up connectivity quickly is a big benefit. “The other part of that is having connectivity wherever you want it. That’s what 5G starts to unlock – the ability to have connectivity in any location where there is a 4G/5G signal. And not only static connectivity, but mobile connectivity, so we can start to explore things like connected ambulances. What does that mean for a patient’s journey, going to the hospital or coming home from the hospital? Can we send them home with a little red bag, which is connected and replicates what goes on in a hospital ward, so doctors can keep an eye on the patient when they are at home.” He also cites the example of wireless networks built into police cars, connecting the edge, so that officers in the field can Sarah Ralston-Good, a Partner Business Leader at Cradlepoint Ericsson, joined the company 18 months ago, after Cradlepoint’s acquisition by Eriscsson, since when the leader in cloud-delivered LTE and 5G wireless network solutions has continued to expand its capabilities. This has been propelled by on-going advances like 5G and IoT and its own activities, notably the acquisition of cloud-based security company Eircom, which has enabled Cradlepoint to start simplifying and strengthening the security of hybrid wide area networks through a 5G-optimised Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) solution and other developments. In March, Cradlepoint launched a unified global partner programme, including a new MSP subscription model and training and certifications through Cradlepoint University (CPU), to lay the groundwork for further expansion and to help partners make the most of opportunities in enterprise wireless networking. “The two goals that we have at a regional level are to make Cradlepoint partners extremely profitable, and to become their trusted advisor for secure, cellular enterprise networking,” says Ralston-Good. “The big growth area for us is around Sarah Ralston-Good, a Partner Business Leader at Cradlepoint Ericsson, and Thomas Rowley, Chief Technologist for Networking and Connectivity at Softcat, tell Technology Reseller about the benefits of their growing partnership The turning point Sarah Ralston-Good
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