According to EOH executive director Rob Godlonton, many companies have been surprised by the speed at which cloud computing has taken the IT world by storm. A year and a half ago, many providers were predicting that true cloud adoption would not begin until two or three years down the road, something that has been proven untrue as services in the cloud quickly accelerated. What this means for so-called channel providers is that they must step up or move out.
Currently, many channel providers are focused on working with clients to provide access to private or hybrid cloud services, but more and more companies are beginning to trend toward at least partially public options. Providers that are unable to offer public services and do not move up the value chain will quickly be left behind.
Outsourcing, as it stands, is quickly changing and companies that do not lock-in client relationships are in real danger of losing large sources of income as greater cloud adoption happens. Legacy relationships will not be enough to keep a provider in the game.
Consider service provider Global Micro which has seen a 250% increase in growth over the past three years. MD JJ Milner has commented that many smaller channel members have been slow in moving forward in this new environment, something that could lead to them becoming irrelevant or being bought out by companies that were quicker to adapt.
Still, the cloud is in its early days of full adoption, and many facets, such as data centers, have yet to find the right combination of price and service that make them viable as true cloud competitors.
For the moment, channel competitors need to keep their heads up, and not let the cloud pass them by.
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