From the data centre to the smart device, from digital signage to the cloud, value- added resellers have traditionally done a lot of the heavy lifting for others in the tech ecosystem. But that ecosystem is changing so dramatically and so quickly a new approach must be considered.
The amount of disruption is near or at a historic high for the IT industry. Software platforms that didn’t exist three years ago range from Android to Microsoft Azure to iOS. Use models are in the middle of the most radical change since PC makers began building notebooks with wi-fi antennas.
The guidebook towards navigating this disruption means, in many cases, resellers will need to act like software vendors. They will need to write more software than ever to perform a wide range of functions.
Tiffani Bova, a longtime channel expert and Gartner Group analyst, told an audience of solution providers at Everything Channel’s XChange conference in March that writing code would likely be key in delivering solutions and taking advantage of opportunities.
“It’s almost impossible to deliver a hybrid solution, meaning on-and- off premise solutions, integrating multiple cloud providers, as well as ... private clouds without writing some form of software: APIs to get the on-and-off premise to speak with each other; you may have to write little tools to get databases to communicate with each other,” Bova said. “And more than anything, the two things that really start to make cloud work are metering usage and chargeback.
“If you’re not able to meter the usage in cloud ... how is it truly able to spread the cost to those that are actually using it?
"Or are you actually just standing up the same kinds of environments you have had, because it’s virtualised?”
Software doesn’t just add value, in other words.
The same, too, could also be said about software for mobile platforms, or software that can run across platforms.
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