ChannelTrends: UC Partnerships Escalate; Software Licensing Simplifies

While the process of answering the phone hasn’t changed a lot over the years, the technology behind the call has transformed significantly—especially for businesses. Efficiency and productivity are being taken to new heights with the latest unified communications (UC) solutions, connecting a myriad of applications and account management platforms to reduce the time required to manage customer calls. Both the technology and business applications continue to advance, which was confirmed by two of this week’s channel news items. While each case was UC-focused, the vendors’ approach differed significantly, but the channel implications are closely related.

Skype and Citrix Partner on UC Business Offering

While Cisco may have captured the spotlight in New Orleans this week with its annual partner conference, Skype and Citrix made news of their own by announcing a strategic partnership to mesh their communications and conferencing technologies. As a result of this relationship, Citrix will provide its GoToMeeting online audio conferencing and screen-sharing capabilities to the Skype for Business platform, thus adding to Skype’s instant messaging, voice and video calling, group video calling, conferencing and file sharing capabilities.

While UC vendors (i.e. Cisco, Avaya) and their partners focus on upping the technology features and functionalities for businesses of all size, competition is increasing on the lower end of the market. The self-serve capabilities are on the rise as well, as demonstrated by the Skype/Citrix announcement.  

Social media and instant messaging worked their way into businesses through the backdoor, with employees adding the applications to their computers when permitted. While some organizations blocked or limited their use, other companies adapted them to improve their business operations. Skype started out following the same model and seems to be mimicking Google’s development into the enterprise space. While its partner program isn’t as advanced (English language only, for example) as the high profile UC vendors, the company does continues to expand its channel focus. 

So is this a threat to solution providers, or an opportunity? The answer lies somewhere in the middle. The consumer marketing power of Skype will likely increase the demand for unified communications tools, breaking down barriers for solution providers and creating discussion points around the technology. It allows VARs and MSPs with consultative sales skills to work their magic and implement the proper solution for their customers.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, the introduction of new features to Skype and other lower cost solutions could drive down prices, margins and integration revenue for the channel. That’s a potential trend that UC experts will be looking out for. 

Tech Data Rolls Out Software Licensing App

With all the discussions around cloud services, this week’s announcement by Tech Data caught me by surprise. No matter how prevalent SaaS and other Web-based applications become, software will surely be around for years to come—and licensing it isn’t the easiest process for solution providers. With that in mind, Tech Data introduced the StreamOneSM Software License Selector, a Web-application (accessed through techdata.com) to streamline the channel process for selling and distributing software.

The distributor’s service sifts through hundreds of thousands of software SKUs and each vendors’ extensive licensing rules to identify the right license number and type, as well as correct pricing. This saves time and frustration for solution providers, lowers license processing costs, and makes it easy to bundle software and hardware.  

According to Stacy Nethercoat, vice president of software product marketing for Tech Data, “Many resellers avoid pursuing lucrative, margin-rich software sales because of the complexity of software licensing.” Nearly 40 software vendors already are part of the program, which represents more than 99 percent of the software licenses purchased through Tech Data.