Channel needs a new cloud conversation

Scott Murphy, HP & Symantec divisional leader at Bell Micro has reacted to Analysys Mason’s prediction that by 2015, agents, systems integrators, dealers and resellers will account for 39 percent of the then €27.5bn enterprise cloud-based services market.

Murphy says the report makes for “cheery reading for the channel”. He goes on to say that he believes the projected figure to be a conservative estimate, quoting Gartner, which he says regularly estimates that around 60 percent of IT services will be migrated to the cloud over the next few years.

However, this has yet to happen, and Murphy reckons the problem lies in the way cloud services are sold: “With a plethora of virtualisation solutions already in place, many IT managers find conversations around the cloud an unnecessary complication. Since the potential benefits of cloud-based services are not in doubt, this means we need to be having a different conversation with a different type of person: a strategic business chat with a like-minded customer.

“Technology for technology’s sake will not foster those revenues; someone needs to help potential customers make informed decisions,” he continues. “That someone is the channel. It may not be the type of conversation resellers normally have, but with many vendor and distributor organisations launching initiatives and programmes that will ensure it’s not only the larger corporations that can afford the necessitated investments in time, training or new, qualified staff acquisition, it is surely the channel that enjoys the trust necessary to own the consultative conversations.”

Murphy adds: “Cloud services should and will begin with helping end customers to start their strategic journey into the cloud, whether that journey begins in a technical sense today, next year or five years from now.”