D&H Distributing, a major provider of SMB, midmarket, and consumer technologies to the North American channel, hosted 600-plus channel partners and more than 75 vendor partners at its four-day THREAD Strength in Connections event last week, held at the Hershey Lodge and Convention Center in Hershey, Pa. The tech conference, which ran June 13-16, was D&H’s first live event since 2019 and featured numerous educational sessions, workshops, and main stage presentations, with dedicated tracks for D&H’s three main customer bases: VARs and MSP partners, its Partnerfi engagement community, and retail/consumer partners.
During the June 15 THREAD for solution providers, Co-Presidents Michael Schwab and Dan Schwab (pictured above) offered welcoming remarks, and Microsoft’s Mitch Doctor, U.S. commercial master trainer, presented a “THREADTalk” on how Microsoft Surface serves the modern hybrid workforce.
In addition, Jason Bystrak, D&H’s vice president of Modern Solutions, updated attendees on the distributor’s new Modern Solutions Business Unit, introduced in May. According to D&H, the unit is designed to help channel partners develop practices and have the ability to bundle applications, infrastructure, collaboration, and security solutions. A week prior to THREAD, D&H announced it added HPE GreenLake and Configure-to-Order (CTO) capabilities to its Modern Infrastructure initiative, a subcategory of its Modern Solutions Business Unit, creating new ways for MSPs to benefit from consumption-based cloud.
The June 15 THREAD featured two keynote speakers: channel pioneer David Allen, director of distribution sales and marketing and broad channel sales at Intel; and Kate Swanborg, senior vice president, technology communications and strategic alliances at DreamWorks Animation.
D&H also held its inaugural Partnerfi Community Event from June 13 to 15. Launched in December 2021, Partnerfi is a new peer-to-peer community for VARs and MSPs that offers an expanded enablement program, discounts, and incentives. The Partnerfi track included business roundtables and solution sessions from ASUS, Cisco, CyberPower, Dell, Ergotron, HP, Intel, Lenovo, Logitech, Vertiv, and more, as well as keynote presentations from Google and Samsung executives.
The RetailTHREAD program on June 15 and 16 for a select group of D&H’s retail and consumer electronics partners featured one-on-one vendor meetings, educational sessions, and a tour of D&H’s new Harrisburg warehouse, which opened in March.
At the vendor showcase, specialized D&H THREAD booths included: Modern Solutions, with vendor partners such as AvePoint, Avaya, Vade Secure, BitTitan, Jabra, Sophos, and ViewSonic; and e-sports, which featured gamers playing live and manufacturers like AMD Commercial, Cooler Master, Cyber Acoustics, Razer USA, Seagate, Tripp Lite, and Verbatim. There were also booths dedicated to ProAV; networking and connectivity; and consumer retail. Representatives from D&H’s new Tech Drive Creative Studios marketing services arm were also on hand.
D&H’s next THREAD event is planned for October 19 in Anaheim, Calif.
Images: Courtesy D&H
