Look Into the Crystal Ball

The session Channel Execs Predict the Future (21 October at 11:30-12:15) is sure to be one of the most popular sessions at the upcoming CompTIA EMEA Member Conference 21-20 October at the Radisson Edwardian Heathrow Hotel.

The panel, moderated by CRN editor Sara Yirrell, covers what leading channel players think is hot, happening and coming down the pike: cloud computing, green IT, healthcare IT, security, storage and much more. We asked the panelists — Ray Barber from Kaseya, Tim Black from Intel, Kathy Schneider from Dell — to give as a peak into their predictions prior to the conference. Here is what these leading channel executives had to say:

Ray Barber, Technical Director, Kaseya

Pure SaaS as a delivery model has a long way to go, and we've been talking about it over 10 years now. Very few vendors have strong SaaS offerings yet, so in most cases businesses are still choosing traditional products. How long is that really going to take? And in the end, will all applications really belong in the cloud?

The word channel used to mean something quite distinct, and one thing that has changed a lot is how people buy and consume IT. As this continues, it's the businesses who can articulate their offerings as services that will come out on top.

Tim Black, EMEA Reseller Sales Manager, Intel

As technology infrastructures (such as cloud computing) continue to evolve, they have the potential to dramatically change the IT landscape.
- Moving the IT investment into a services or pay-as-you-go/subscription model will move the ROI calculations to an op-ex decision, rather than the focus on cap-ex investments we have today.
- As more of the corporate data is stored and managed by third-party organizations, it will present challenges to the culture and data-security.
- Technology such as virtualization and provisioning will enable a proliferation of end-user computing devices (such as tablet, PDA etc) to be used in a secure and manageable way and administered by the corporate IT departments.

As the focus on hardware shifts, the X-as-a-service delivery model is another big opportunity for the reseller channel organizations. These new infrastructures will present challenges, but they also have the potential to deliver improved flexibility and productivity for the business.

Kathy Schneider, EMEA Channel Marketing, Programs & Operations Director, Dell

Analysts estimate that total enterprise IT spending is around $1.2 trillion, but two-thirds of that is spent on maintenance and keeping the lights on rather than new investment. This has forced users and IT departments to get more out of their IT systems, increasing opportunities for new technologies such as virtualization that enable greater efficiency.

There is a growing demand for help in reducing the maintenance cost of IT infrastructure in order to use IT budgets on business innovation. IT partners who can offer this to their customers – in a customized way – will have the advantage, so we will see IT vendors and resellers investing in their capability to offer virtualization solutions, IT-as-a-service models and cloud-based offerings.

This is just one of the exciting education sessions planned for this year’s event. Watch the blog for more session previews. Download the complete agenda and register on the conference website. Don’t forget to join the MyCompTIA EMEA community to connect with other attendees, manage your schedule, set up meetings and much more.