How to play the good host

Channel drives the host market

Melbourne IT's Gore says that around 60 percent of the company's business is through the channel - and that proportion is growing fast.

"The channel community for us is extremely important and we expect to see a higher percentage of sales over the next few years," he says.

ICO's Chicktong says that resellers play a key role in helping find new business, with around 25 percent of sales coming from the channel in the past year.

"We have identified the channel as the next big market and there will be a big push for us in the next few months to capitalise on the presence that itX has," says Chicktong.

And for the companies themselves the business case is pretty compelling.

"I think there is a tremendous potential out there for the reseller community," says Chicktong.
Adrian Britton, head of products with Hostworks, says that one of the biggest emerging opportunities for the hosting industry over the next few years will be education. More and more learning resources are moving online from web-based classes to digital libraries and the like.

"Education is the evolving market here. There really are some great opportunities," he says.