Nebulas turns soothsayer

Garlick: 2010 will see the channel taking on a far greater role as integrators for complex IT infrastructures

VAR Nebulas Solutions Group has dusted down its crystal ball and offered its tips on how the IT industry and the channel will change in 2010.

While the firewall market is set for the advent of revolutionary new technology next year, 2010 will also be the year of the Hybrid Cloud, claimed Nebulas managing director Nick Garlick.

“2010 will see the channel taking on a far greater role as integrators for complex IT infrastructures, which have become so complex that a single vendor cannot meet all their requirements,” he said. “Resellers offering multiple vendors’ solutions and those who can integrate them effectively will grow rapidly in the coming year.”

Firewall technology has remained fundamentally the same since the 1990s but Garlick backed newcomer Palo Alto to shake up the status quo. Its technology would challenge established vendors such as Blue Coat and Check Point by offering increased granularity and ease of use, he said.

Garlick warned that cloud computing would remain an immature technology next year with few organisations moving to a full-blown Public Cloud model.

"It's still too unproven and there are some major security concerns,” he said. “The Hybrid Cloud will dominate in 2010 – non-critical apps will go to the Public Cloud for cost and efficiency reasons, but most organisations will still keep their critical business apps in-house. The challenge for 2010 will be seamlessly and securely integrating the two activities.”

2010 will also be the year compliance finally becomes "hard wired" into organisations, said Garlick. Meanwhile, there will also be frenzied consolidation at a vendor level as manufacturers scrabble to move into the Web 2.0 world, he concluded.