APAC Channel Round-Up – October 2026

Distribution consolidation led the month, with Dicker Data's move into Southeast Asia the standout deal, alongside a run of senior ANZ and APJ channel hires.

At a glance

• Dicker Data agreed to buy distributor Sektor for A$111m, adding Thailand and Malaysia operations.
• Cognizant agreed to buy Australian SAP Platinum Partner DyFlex Solutions.
• SoftwareOne completed the integration of Crayon's APAC channel business.
• Zoom is adding an MSP specialisation to its Up Partner programme by December.
• Cohesity, Hitachi Vantara, LogicMonitor and Zoom all made senior ANZ/APJ channel appointments.

M&A and consolidation

Dicker Data to buy Sektor (announced 6 Oct). A$111m (NZ$138m) for 100% of Sektor Group, a distributor with about 230 staff in Australia, New Zealand, Thailand and Malaysia. Sektor reported NZ$440m revenue and NZ$22.7m unaudited EBITDA for the 12 months to 31 August 2026. Completion is expected by 30 October.

Cognizant to buy DyFlex Solutions (22 Oct). DyFlex is an Australian SAP Platinum Partner with 300+ staff across ANZ and a delivery presence in the Philippines. Terms undisclosed; closing expected Q1 2027.

SoftwareOne completes Crayon channel integration (19 Oct). Crayon's APAC channel business now runs under the SoftwareOne brand. Partners keep existing customers and local teams and gain access to Partner Connections and Cloud-iQ.

Distribution

Leader named exclusive Australian distributor of QSAN (20 Oct). Covers QSAN's XCube storage lines, aimed at MSPs and resellers, with plans to bundle alongside Acronis.

Leader to distribute viaim in Australia (19 Oct) and Unfold adds ClickUp to its A/NZ portfolio (16 Oct).

Partner programmes and vendor strategy

Zoom updates its Up Partner programme (22 Oct). Points move to net MRR growth (one point per $1,000), an MSP specialisation arrives by December 2026, and self-service NFR licences follow by Q1 2027. The changes appear to be global.

Everpure A/NZ doubles down on MSPs (19 Oct), citing sovereign-cloud demand.

Datadog's channel play centres on customer AI-readiness (19 Oct).

People moves

Date	Person	New role	From
21 Oct	Tom Allan	CEO, Murdoch Webster	Former COO, CyberCX
21 Oct	Garry Gray	ANZ VP, LogicMonitor	Red Hat
20 Oct	Matthew Johnston	Senior director, partner sales APJ, Cohesity	CRO, Odaseva
20 Oct	Yasser Elgammal	ANZ channel and alliances director, Hitachi Vantara	Dicker Data
19 Oct	Kelly Johnson	Datacom PSG division	Pax8
13 Oct	Andrew Hindmarch	APAC channel head, Zoom	Not stated

Worth watching

• Dicker Data–Sektor completion, expected by 30 October, giving Dicker Data a distribution base in Thailand and Malaysia.
• Zoom's BPO programme, due to launch later in October, ahead of the MSP specialisation in December.