CRN roundtable discussion: Commoditisation of IT

Norman: Well yes, so the integration is definitely a challenge. Things are getting better, but there’s no getting away from the fact that data is in several places. Google Docs is a great environment, but the formats are not truly interchangeable yet with the OS that everybody uses. We use Oracle CRM so we’ve got all our customer contact data in the CRM, but then we use Google Docs for sharing information, and people are still using Outlook on the desktops and to be quite honest, it’s a bit of a muddle and in terms of managing the data interchange between them. I’m sure it’s going to get there, but it’s still an immature technology.

Sydney: Is it really in the interest of vendors getting there? Where you have major corporates and global organisations that control swathes of the market, do you really think it’s in their interest to do this? They’ll probably actually string this out as long as they can to try and make as much money as they can.

Norman: I don’t think it’s the corporates’ desire to string it out. They’ve realised that they can’t rule everything. They’ve now realised that different organisations have got different businesses, and that’s just too hard, so they’re going out and buying the best of breed, and they’ve got a huge integration challenge, which they’re trying to address. As fast as they address it there’ll be new point applications coming out and in the same way as the lifetime of a device seems to be shrinking, the lifetime of an application seems to be shrinking. There’ll be a new CRM or a new HR system come out over here that someone’s going to want to buy and integrate that data, and I don’t know the answer, but I see it as a challenge. You’re going to have replicated data in multiple places in the cloud world and there needs to be policies and systems to manage the integration of that data, and I think that’s one of the opportunities, to have some form of integration platform to help manage it all.

CRN: Where do you think the money is for resellers? Of course the initial outlay is negligible for an organisation because people are bringing their own devices, their own knowhow, their own Facebook accounts and so on, so where does the industry actually make a dollar?

Norman: As a reseller one of the threats that we see is the move to the cloud. It’s a direct sales model – why do I need resellers? – I’ve got telesales guys and all the stuff all runs in the states. The whole cloud thing is an opportunity as well as a threat, but the whole software resale model is changing and so once again it’s going to have to be a move to services around how to migrate your business into the cloud model, and how can I retrain your sales force to make use of this online CRM and how can I set up your internal sales processes on the CRM rather than ‘here’s a piece of CRM software, let’s go and spend $2 million configuring it, good luck guys'.

Mathew: The key though is those are transactional systems that you don’t want to actually put any performance degradation on, so you need to be doing that, without actually affecting the performance.

Norman: Well either that or architect the environment to make allowance for it, because it is important. As you say security is important, and encryption is important, but it’s only one of the things that you need to look at doing.

Brett: With all the problems we have with all these devices in the office space and office environment – if you do have a person who brings their tablet or their smart phone, is it an idea to say ‘well you can use the smart phone in the office or outside the office when you are going mobile, but we would like to be able to set what the access is in terms of when you access that device. You need to also be able to have that remote wipe feature.

Mathew: And again we look at an endpoint device, regardless of what it is, as an endpoint – so having the security to actually do what you’re talking about is there and it’s being used now by many organisations that are starting to see all these iPhones and iPads, it actually forces a lot of the native security on a device to be enabled, if you want to restrict access to that environment.

Those features and functionality of mobile management are there, but to tie it all in and to lock in to your security practices and security policies, is really where you start to get the power of having one centralised management environment, and looking at endpoints and looking at security as a whole, across all devices, all machines, all laptops, all servers etc.

Chris: I think back to the question about what’s the level of education or information that needs to be processed. Your average CEO of a large corporation has probably read about it, heard about it and that would be across most of the threats and familiar with the common techniques to avoid them. I think the challenge further down the line to an SMB/SME type organisation where they don’t have that internal IT structure that’s when companies such as those represented around the table here have the opportunity to go out and advise on that policy. Information sharing has to come from the system integrated reseller community to move away from advising ‘here’s a piece of hardware you should install’ ‘here’s about how you should install it is a policy you should have across your business, and here’s an update that we’ll talk about in six months’ time and twelve months’ time beyond that. That’s how I think you get integration.

Norman: I think that’s a really, really good point, but supplementary to that, directors of a small company to a large ASX listed company, have got a fiduciary duty for governance, that’s part of the role of the director, and I think to your point, we as resellers and IT professionals shouldn’t just be educating the IT managers, we should be educating the board and institutions such as the AICD to make sure that it’s on their agenda that their directors know.

Chris: I definitely agree, and the key point I noticed, you may have it locked down today and you may be safe today, that certainly doesn’t mean that you’re going to be safe tomorrow or next year, and you’ve got to be constantly checking and monitoring and I think that’s where the ongoing education is absolutely required.

CRN: Where do you think the money is for resellers? Of course the initial outlay is negligible for an organisation because people are bringing own devices, their own knowhow, their own Facebook accounts and so on, so where does the technology industry actually make a dollar?

Norman: The margins on hardware are dropping and dropping all the time- services, it’s a competitive marketplace, services is a challenge, because your capacity is limited by the quality and capability of your people – but that’s where the opportunity and the margin is by putting services around the hardware, delivering the complete solution to meet the businesses’ needs, advise them on security, provide them the support that they need so they don’t have to employ their own security expert.

Chris: I think the opportunity also lies in what you said earlier, a company should by all rights focus on its core strengths and given how complicated this topic is becoming, and that’s [commoditisation ] a specialty on its own. So I think to answer your question of where the money is, it’s about providing not just a piece of hardware, but making it a solution and making it secure, and a solution that has longevity – and that’s where I guess the financial reward would be for companies in the IT game, to make sure that you’re up to speed and you can be that trusted adviser to a company. 

Michael: Two points I’d like to make here. In the mid-market where the money is it is all around solutions, and a lot of people this morning spoke about how it’s easier to retain the customer than it is to go and get a new customer. So picking up on Norman’s point it’s about the ability for the reseller to go and sell that solution. We’re seeing a lot of our traditional infrastructure partners coming to us, and now they’re wanting to sell solutions. They’re wanting to dip their toe into the services base, and when I say service, that’s not just technical services, it’s about educational services. There’s a lot of need out in the marketplace for education on cloud for instance – what does that mean for my organisation? – so it’s been a lot about our reseller partners driving those types of services as well.