By David Sims, TMCnet Contributing Editor

Checking in with the master agent industry news, as of July 11, XO Communications (News - Alert) named Shane McNamara, currently general manager of carrier services for value-added reseller CDW, as its channel chief to replace Brian Law, who resigned in April and who was named national vice president of indirect services in February 2010 to replace Jim Delis.

According to industry journal Channel Partners Online, prior to heading up the carrier services division at CDW (News - Alert) for the last four years, McNamara was director of indirect channels for Global Crossing. At CDW, McNamara grew the carrier services group 40 percent over the last three years.

“Shane has a track record of being very successful at what he does but he's also uniquely qualified for this position as he's worked for a large agency and for a carrier which gives him a perspective and experience that few in the industry posses. We think this a big win for the XO channel," said Patrick Oborn, VP of Marketing at Telarus (News - Alert), in a statement.

TMCnet’s Peter Radizeski that XO's CMO, Mike Toplisek, said “with more than 14 years of sales experience in the telecommunications industry, Shane is a seasoned indirect channel sales leader and known entity among our valuable partners in the indirect channel in the telecommunications industry. Shane brings both a deep knowledge of the industry and key relationships and will be a great addition to our sales leadership team.”

Earlier this year, TMCnet reported that that XO is dipping into the cloud communications market as it announced that it will help businesses transition to IP communications and achieve better cost savings across their enterprise with a new offering. XO Enterprise Cloud Communications is a scalable, enterprise-grade, IP communications service allowing businesses to accelerate the deployment of IP and unified communications, simplify the management of their IP communications needs, and reduce the capital investments and operating costs of their enterprise-wide communications.

 XO’s Chief Marketing Officer, Mike Toplisek, concluded, “I think the past four years at CDW and what he has been able to accomplish there just gives him that much more of a perspective. We are excited about what he can do for us to keep the momentum going in the channel as it is today," he said.

David Sims is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of David’s articles, please visit his columnist page. He also blogs for TMCnet here.

Edited by Jamie Epstein