Channel Expo special
The curtain rises on CRN Channel Expo in just nine days and attendees are promised a very special show. Fleur Doidge reports
Attendees try out some tech at CRN Channel Expo 2008
Knowledge is power. An exciting, thought-provoking programme has been put together for CRN Channel Expo 2009 to give all stripes of technology provider the best possible chance for success in the rest of the year and beyond.
Registrations are now open online ; see the end of this story for details.
Education is expected to be a real highlight. There will be a talk by Google Enterprise’s Peter Lorant, head of EMEA partners. He will discuss one of the most talked-about trends of the year cloud computing and Google’s vision for such service provision over the next three to five years.
Will the cloud finally end the reign of the desktop? What opportunities might exist for business partners? The CRN team is particularly interested in hearing how Google plans to take on this exciting phenomenon.
Justin Coombes, marketing manager at Gold sponsor Gamma Telecom, says there were few tyre-kickers last year, and he expects the same quality of attendee for 2009.
“The central location meant it attracted channel partners from all around the UK, giving us good reach from one event,” he said.
“We intend to continue to push the message to resellers of data and IT services, that adding managed or hosted IP telephony services to their product portfolio gives them an additional revenue stream with great new margins.”
New and old exhibitors
New exhibitors will include players such as Dell and Northamberand also sees many from last year returning.
Platinum sponsor Dell will demonstrate its fresh approach based on UK reseller feedback on its year-old PartnerDirect programme.
CRN’s publisher, Mark Burton, says the difficult trading conditions, with companies chasing diminishing pots of money, mean businesses must work harder to win business.
And then they will be better placed when things start to pick up again predicted by many commentators to be the end of this year to mid-2010, Burton says.
Exhibitors and visitors are interested in more specialist shows and niche communities these days, and Expo follows that trend.
“It is fair to say that the colossal exhibitions that include huge expensive stand designs are becoming a thing of the past,” Burton said. “I can certainly see this trend continuing.”
He sees trade shows naturally evolving into more niche, specialist exhibitions with focus being the keyword.
“We will also see the growth of pre-show professional networking as visitors look to maximise their time on site, instead of simply turning up and visiting stands,” said Burton. “Increasingly, exhibitions will be as much about meeting peers and industry leaders as visiting exhibition stands.
“Attending a trade show gives resellers a fantastic opportunity to increase margin potential through meeting and learning from the key decision-makers.”
Learning from the past
Burton, chief mastermind of Expo’s education programme, says the show took the feedback from the 2008 event and used it to build a more detailed education and training programme, featuring key speakers from a wider cross-section of industry.
“We have picked out topical business areas that we think will affect our visitors the most over the next year such as cloud computing, virtualisation and seizing the upside of a downturn,” said Burton.
“This may be the year when more traditional resellers finally bid farewell to box-shifting business models to concentrate their efforts on the sophisticated provision of solutions, crammed with value-add. Demonstrating ROI and business efficiency will be key.”
Kevin Collins, solutions development manager at Magirus, says the distributor is working hard with VMware at Expo to showcase genuine money-making opportunities for the channel, especially ones that unite the tactical ‘let’s survive today’ approach with an ability to remain far-sighted and strategic for the future.
“We will be showing the functionality of VMware’s vSphere, the next gener ation virtualisation product,” said Collins. “This is preparing for the vCloud, preparing machines to be able to migrated out into services, supported by service providers.”
Collins says Channel Expo is a great opportunity because of its focus on ‘grass-roots’ needs and initiatives for partners.
“Expo has some huge advantages, in our opinion, over other venues, because it is more grass roots,” he said. “It is all right talking about this great cloud experience, but the channel wants to know what it can really do today.
“VSphere works at both levels. Business partners and customers are a lot more tactical during this credit crunch than they would be generally. VSphere allows you to be tactical but still have a strategy for the future.”
Mid-market focus
Collins says at one end, vSphere offers thin provisioning built in, so anyone with even one x-server can get the benefits, yet it also features a mid-market focus in the form of Host Profiles allowing customers to add a profile by taking a profile from one host and mapping it across all the infrastructure.
“This reduces management costs not so much an issue for really small companies but very much so for medium-sized ones.”
For large enterprises, vSphere coincides with the launch of a distributed virtual switch alongside a similar launch by Cisco. Cisco’s will also run with vSphere, giving enterprises an ability to get all the extra functionality from Cisco proprietary protocols and manage it easily with a VMware set-up.
There will be many channels to success at Expo.
Foreign participants will be exhibiting, and almost certainly will have new and innovative solutions for the UK channel.
A-Serverfrom Antwerp, Belgium, will display its cloud offerings for solution providers. And Dutch company IASO Backup Technology is showcasing its own online solutions.
Online security
One stand will be manned by Global Online Tracing (GOT-IT), a Northern Irish start-up. Joe Hunter, director of GOT-IT, will promote a new online security application. The solution provider is not yet well known across the UK, and CRN Channel Expo will be a focal point for its expansion.
“GOT-IT is an online application that allows you to register your PC or laptop onto a secure online database,” says Hunter.
Hunter hopes to sign up companies from all over the UK to maximise the service’s effectiveness against theft.
Products will be on show from an incredibly diverse range of vendors. Organisers hope there will be something of interest for everyone, and that some exciting deals will be clinched as a result of networking activity during the show.
On the stands, Acronis’ retail product line, for example, is aimed at accelerating the penetration of its consumer product offering across retailers in the UK as well as an extension of its recent distribution partnership with Gem.
More channel partners are wanted by the storage vendor and virtualisation specialist, which targets SMEs and the mid-market as well as larger organisations.
Paul Brook, UK managing director of security software vendor Eset, says it will be launching its fourth generation of Eset Smart Security and Eset NOD32 Antivirus.
The applications include some 50 new enhancements, including some that target laptop users, such as a built-in automatic energy-saving battery mode.
Distributor Widget is hoping to use Channel Expo to big up its recent partnership with Flip Video and spread its message as far as possible.
Mark Needham, executive chairman of Widget, said: "Some people think the Flip Video products are only available in the US, but even when Flip formally becomes part of Cisco, Widget will remain the UK trade source for these cameras. We are going to Channel Expo to show this."
Networking is the most important aspect of Channel Expo. Meeting new resellers, catching up with partners and talking to rivals is all part of what makes Expo the definitive show for the IT channel across the UK.
Some inspirational keynotes have been slotted in including stirring success stories from the IT industry and a discussion, chaired by Was Rahman of UK Trade & Investment, on how to expand beyond the UK.
Far and wide
Delegates will hail from an even more diverse range of industry sectors and businesses.
The revamped programme and exhibitor line-up is expected to attract more visitors and delegates than last year’s 3,000.
Meanwhile, a last-minute addition to the speaker line-up has confirmed his involvement. Dave Poskett, director of the Solutions Partner Organisation in the UK division of industry giant HP, is going to give a vendor-eye view of working with the channel.
Attendees to his talk, first up on day two, will benefit from his long experience with succeeding in the challenging but always fascinating and fast-paced IT business.
CRN is genuinely excited about this year’s programme, and thousands of leading channel players have already indicated they will attend or participate in one way or another in just nine days.
See you at the NEC Birmingham on 20 and 21 May.