Channel must embrace new economy, says Equip

Web integrator and distributor Equip is calling for the channel to get clued up on the technology of the new economy, or risk being left behind.

Web integrator and distributor Equip is calling for the channel to get clued up on the technology of the new economy, or risk being left behind.

Neil Ledger, founding director of Equip, said that as more and more companies evolve their business over Internet Protocol (IP), resellers need to be educated on the changing needs of their customers.

This means understanding and offering ebusiness technologies such as quality of service, hosting, cacheing, web switching and bandwidth management.

"Resellers have good enterprise customers, but they also have to embark on educational programmes to [show] them that the business infrastructure of the future has to be over IP," said Ledger. Then it is a case of taking that technology and integrating it into existing customer bases, he added.

However, despite the embryonic development of w web integrators and solution providers in the US, the UK channel still seems stuck in its ways. "No [reseller] out there at present fully understands the technology. They are really just fulfilment houses. If resellers are not interested in getting up to speed with the technology of the new economy, they are going to be left behind," said Ledger.

Ian Morris, fellow Equip co-founder, said business internet turnover will hit $50bn (£34.3bn) by 2003, adding that there were golden opportunities for resellers that understand the technology to exploit products such as cacheing in the corporate space.

Equip will be giving seminars in October and November for resellers interested in new economy technology. It has also signed a deal with Ericsson to supply its carrier-class IP switches and routers.