Monday Morning Impact – November 11

Published On: November 10, 2024Categories: Buzz

H.I.G. Capital and Thoma Bravo to Acquire CompTIA

H.I.G. Capital and Thoma Bravo have announced a definitive agreement to acquire CompTIA, which provides education, training, certifications, and market research, across areas including cybersecurity, emerging technologies, networking, cloud computing, and technical support. The organization has awarded more than 3.5 million globally recognized certifications to professionals across the full range of technology companies. It also maintains a strong global partner program with thousands of academic institutions, non-profits, job corps centers, and other organizations, focused on developing and certifying the next generation of technology talent.

“We are thrilled to be joining forces with two leading, experienced investors in the technology space, whose expertise and resources will allow us to expand our impact on the global IT industry,” said Todd Thibodeaux, President and CEO at CompTIA. “Through this transaction, we will be well-positioned to accelerate and expand the rollout of products and services to train the highly skilled workers of the future, and further strengthen our reputation across the industry as the leading provider of certifications and trainings.”

Terms were undisclosed. Following the closing of the transaction, which is expected in early 2025 pending customary regulatory approval, CompTIA will operate as a for-profit company under H.I.G. and Thoma Bravo’s ownership. Its existing membership-based, 501(c)(6) nonprofit organization will be separated from CompTIA and continue its mission of service to the IT industry on an independent basis.

Channel Impact^®
The transaction is expected to allow the association to chart an expanded course of service to the global IT industry while making a “substantial new commitment to charitable impact.”

New Cisco 360 Partner Program Expected to Accelerate Value and Innovation

Cisco has rolled out the next iteration of its partner program, promising an $80 million investment in how Cisco and its partners create and deliver value.

Three-fourths of that investment is expected to support partners with various benefits, including all-access Cisco U. subscriptions for skill development and certification. The remainder is earmarked to fund quarterly training events for all partners, focusing on AI, security, and networking through self-paced learning, hands-on labs, and continuing education credits.

The new program promises a simplified framework for measuring partner value within specific portfolios or across multiple portfolios, leading to categorizing channel companies as “Partners” or “Preferred Partners.” Partners can earn these designations for each portfolio, such as Security or Networking.

The new program will continue to shift from traditional architecture specializations to solution-based specializations, and ultimately to next generation specializations that will be accessible to Preferred Partners only.

Cisco also announced its first specialization focused on AI—the Cisco AI-Ready Infrastructure Solution Specialization—to position partners as experts in delivering AI-ready infrastructure, security, and observability solutions and services to customers throughout their AI adoption journey.

The transition is expected to be completed in February 2026.

Channel Impact^®
The revised program is expected to transform how Cisco and its Partners create, deliver, and capture value in the age of AI.

IDC: IT Distribution Revenues Remain Stable

Distributor revenues inched upwards to $20.2 B in the third quarter of 2024, according to IDC’s North America Distribution Tracker. Year-over-year growth was down a fraction of a percent with continued growth in Software, Personal Computing, and Security, but offset by declines in Network Infrastructure, Services, and AV.

“IT distributors remain a critical component of a successful strategy,” said Ruth Flynn, research vice president, IDC Tracker & Data Products. “The flexibility and product coverage of IT distributors helped balance factors like interest rates and political uncertainty with post-pandemic recovery in a challenging Q3. An example is PC growth of 2% through distribution where overall PC shipments were down 6% in preliminary Q3 reporting.”

Personal Computing sales for 3Q24 came in at $3.6B, which at 2% year-over-year is a second consecutive quarter of growth. The notebook market is showing a return to normalcy at 4.6% year-over-year post the covid volatility. The product mix continues to shift towards AI PC configurations with 24% of notebook revenue now derived from AI PCs, which is up 142% year-over-year.

Software saw 11.8% year-over-year growth settling at $4.4 B. All of the largest software categories grew, but most notably, Embedded Software grew 22.8% year-over-year driven by Cisco as the large amount of their network infrastructure hardware sold in 2023 gets deployed in 2024 and the associated embedded software is upgraded.

Additionally, the cybersecurity market grew nicely in 3Q24 with 7.4% year-over-year growth in security software, and 2.6% year-over-year growth in the security appliance market, driven by Palo Alto Networks which solidly holds the number one spot with almost 42% share of sales.

IDC’s North America Weekly Distribution Tracker and North America Monthly Distribution Tracker are built on the exclusive partnership between IDC and the Global Technology Distribution Council (GTDC).

Channel Impact^®
The report brings modestly encouraging news for all segments of the channel.

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