Birch Communications Inc. has chosen its channel chief in the wake of finalizing the Cbeyond purchase, and it’s giving agents and dealers details about what’s next for their businesses.
Birch’s Brad Smith
Birch further has tasked Paul Masters, who served as president of Ernest Communications, which Birch bought last year, to work on indirect enterprise and multilocation sales. More information was not immediately available.
Smith’s title now is vice president of indirect sales; he was promoted to vice president of dealer sales earlier this year. Smith has worked for Birch since 2002, when the company was called Access Integrated Networks, with an eight-month stint at TEM provider Asentinel in between.
Meantime, Long confirmed to Channel Partners on Friday that July 18 marked his last day at Cbeyond. He will be able to announce his next role, which still will be in telecom and the indirect channel, in August, he said.
Zane Long
Long had served as Cbeyond’s vice president of indirect sales since April 2011. During those three years, he helped shape the Cbeyond 2.0 initiative that changed the provider’s go-to-market strategy from just connectivity to include cloud and managed services, mobile devices and other more sophisticated communications platforms. Partners also know Long from the channel programs at GENBAND and Level 3 Communications Inc.
With Smith in place, Birch this week is reaching out to its dealers (a term the company uses interchangeably with “agent”) to keep them apprised of what happens next. In a letter to partners, Smith called the combination of Birch and Cbeyond “a long-term commitment to your clients to provide a broader array of services priced and designed to make their businesses successful. After this transaction closes, your client’s business will be served by a company with strong financial resources and an expanded network that will provide them with access to more communications, cloud and managed IT services.”