Making you think: Expo 2009
Our education and training programme has been devised to help you through difficult times, writes Fleur Doidge
An exciting, thought-provoking and we hope innovative education programme has been put together for CRN Channel Expo 2009 to give resellers and other technology providers the best possible chance for a successful year.
Mark Burton, CRN publisher, said: “We have taken some vital feedback with us from the 2008 event and used it to build a more detailed education and training programme, featuring key speakers from all areas of the industry.”
Speak up
“We have picked out a range of 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.
"And we have assembled a high-profile lineup of expert speakers and business leaders to provide valuable advice and help for delegates looking to build a stronger company through difficult times,” added Burton.
One education highlight will be a talk by Peter Lorant, head of EMEA partners at Google Enterprise, who will talk about cloud computing and its vision for such services over the next three to five years.
There will also be a presentation from Graydon chief Martin Williams, who will look at the fight against fraud, and a talk by channels and sales strategies specialist Tiffani Bova from Gartner.
New exhibitors will include players such as Dell and Northamber, and many exhibitors from 2008 have confirmed their presence again this year.
William Linard, membership services coordinator at industry body CompTIA, said Channel Expo 2008 marked the launch of its UK reseller membership community.
“From zero to just over 300 reseller members, 2008 was an extremely successful year for CompTIA, kick-started by Channel Expo,” he said.
“We aim to use Expo as a springboard to provide the reseller channel with what they need, and support them with the toolkits and programmes they require to get through this difficult [economic] period.”
Quality and quantity Justin Coombes, marketing manager at Gamma Telecom, was impressed with the quality of attendees in 2008.
“It attracted channel partners from all around the UK, giving us good reach from one event,” he said. “There were few tyre-kickers. Those visiting our stand had
a genuine interest in our products.”
Gamma Telecom is attending Expo again this year, this time as a Gold sponsor.
“We will continue to push the message to resellers of data and IT services that managed or hosted IP telephony services will give them an additional revenue stream with great new margins,” Coombes said.
Using Cisco IP phones, Gamma Telecom’s managed voice service targets resellers of IT or data services that have LAN-based knowledge, as they have the skills needed to install this type of solution.
Darren Lewitt, divisional director at AV specialist distributor Midwich, said last year’s Channel Expo was very successful.
“The number of exhibitors and the breadth of products attracted a broad
audience of resellers and we got some really good leads,” he said.
However, Midwich will not be in attendance this May.
“We exhibited at ISE in January to launch our Which Lamps business into Europe, and we hosted our own AV Innovations event at Ascot in February. We hope to return next year,” said Lewitt.
CRN’s Burton said difficult trading conditions mean channel firms must work harder to win business.
“Attending a trade show gives resellers a fantastic opportunity to increase margin potential through meeting and learning from the key decision makers,” he said.