Three hundred providers. No reason to prefer any one of them.

Vendor neutrality is easy to claim and hard to prove. The proof is structural: if an advisor can place your business with any of three hundred providers, there is no single one worth steering you toward.

MALA sources across more than 300 providers in connectivity, colocation, cloud, security, contact centre, unified communications and expense management. That reach is how we get current pricing, how we run a genuinely competitive evaluation, and how the engagement is funded without a fee to you.

It is worth being precise about what that does and does not mean. These are not exclusive MALA relationships, and we do not present them as such. They are the set of providers we can bring to your evaluation — which is the part that actually matters when you are deciding whether to trust a recommendation.

Why breadth is the argument

A reseller with three vendor agreements has three answers to every question. The incentive is structural and no amount of assurance removes it.

An advisor who can transact with three hundred providers has no such pull. If a regional fibre carrier is the right answer, we can place it. If the right answer is the incumbent you already have, on better terms, we can do that too — and frequently do. If the right answer is to buy nothing at all, that costs us the engagement and we will still say it.

Breadth does not make us disinterested. It makes us indifferent between the options, which is the useful property.

The portfolio, by category

A representative selection of providers we can bring to an evaluation.

Network & connectivity
AT&T, Verizon, Lumen, Comcast Business, Cox Business, Spectrum, Frontier, Windstream, Zayo, GTT, Arelion, Megaport, Telstra, Vodafone, Colt, Akamai, Cato Networks, Aryaka, Graphiant, MetroNet, Segra, Nitel, FirstLight, Crown Castle, PacketFabric

Data centre & colocation
Equinix, Digital Realty, Iron Mountain, Cologix, CoreSite, Flexential, TierPoint, DataBank, 365 Data Centers, Switch, Aligned Energy, Telehouse, Evocative, Expedient, AtlasEdge, T5 Data Centers, Zenlayer

Cloud & infrastructure
Microsoft Azure, Rackspace, Dell EMC, RapidScale, Otava, Logicworks, Veeam, Acronis, Ntirety, Effectual, Lunavi, Opti9, Aptum, CloudFirst Global, Dizzion

Security & SASE
Arctic Wolf, LevelBlue, eSentire, BlueVoyant, Trustwave, Exabeam, Securonix, Veracode, Fortra, Keeper Security, Perimeter 81, Open Systems, SilverSky, Avertium, Nord Security, Threater, Xcitium, Gradient Cyber, Cyber Defense Group, White Knight Labs, Echelon Risk

Unified communications & contact centre
RingCentral, Zoom, Five9, Genesys, NICE, Talkdesk, 8x8, Dialpad, Vonage, Mitel, Nextiva, Sangoma, Content Guru, Sinch, Ooma, CallTower, Intelepeer, Net2Phone, Alvaria

CX and applied AI
Cresta, Observe.ai, Uniphore, PolyAI, Kore.ai, SoundHound AI, Balto, Yellow AI, Boost.ai, Sanas, Verint, Calabrio, Sprinklr, Synthflow, UJET, Quiq, Glia

Expense management & managed services
Tangoe, Calero, Sakon, Brightfin, Tellennium, vMOX, Wireless Watchdogs, Dataprise, Thrive, Ntiva, Synoptek, CBTS, Blue Mantis, CompassMSP, Procurri

The full roster is larger than what is shown here and changes as providers are added or retired. If you are evaluating a specific category, ask us for the current list rather than relying on this page.

The obvious objection

“You are still paid by providers. How is that neutral?”

It is a fair question and it deserves a direct answer rather than a reassurance.

We are compensated by the provider you select. That is the model, we do not hide it, and we would rather you interrogate it than take it on faith. What keeps it honest is not our character — it is the structure. Three hundred providers means no single relationship is material enough to be worth protecting at your expense. Losing one provider costs us nothing. Losing your trust costs us the practice.

The things worth checking are whether we will tell you when the right answer is to stay put, whether we will show you options that pay us less, and whether we will say so when the honest recommendation is to buy nothing. How We Get Paid sets out the model in full, including the questions to ask us and how to verify the answers.

Questions

Are these MALA's exclusive partnerships?
No, and we would be wary of any advisor who claimed a portfolio this size was exclusive to them. These are providers we are able to transact with. What is specific to MALA is the advisory work around them: the assessment, the benchmarking, the negotiation and the recommendation.

Can you work with a provider that is not on this list?
Often, yes. If the right answer for you sits outside what we can source, we will say so, and in most cases we can still advise on the evaluation and the contract even where we cannot transact.

Do you get paid more by some providers than others?
Compensation varies by provider and by service. That is precisely why the breadth matters and why we publish the model. If you want to know what a specific recommendation pays us, ask — we will tell you.

What if we already have contracts with several of these providers?
That is the common case, and it is usually where the fastest value is. Benchmarking an incumbent contract against current market pricing does not require changing providers. See Technology Contract Negotiation and the Renewal Review.