TCA conference secures big-name speakers

Industry veterans Dow and Pacey to appear alongside leading analysts at trade body's annual get-together

The sky's the limit: This year's event will take place at the Radisson Edwardian hotel near Heathrow Airport

A clutch of well-known channel veterans have agreed to share the wisdom of their years with attendees at the Technology Channels Association's (TCA) annual conference.

The trade body's yearly shindig takes place on 20 October at the Radisson Edwardian hotel near Heathrow Airport. Keynote speeches at the event will be delivered by industry figures including veteran analyst Bob Snyder and CompTIA chief executive Todd Thibodeaux, whose talk will focus on channel opportunities in the cloud.

Computer 2000 marketing director Andy Dow will also be interviewed at the event about his channel experience and where he feels the industry is going. The TCA claims Dow's extensive vendor and distributor experience – with big hitters including Dell, HP and Westcoast – will give resellers a valuable insight into how the top two tiers of the channel work.

In contrast with this, a panel debate led by resellers will attempt to provide "a bottom-up, rather than a top-down, view of the market". Members of the panel will include GfK analyst Carl West and long-time Bell Micro credit man Eddie Pacey.

The event, which this year is entitled Margin Makers, takes place the day before CompTIA's UK get-together at the same hotel. TCA president Keith Warburton claimed working in tandem would be beneficial.

“Delegates have told us they feel our conferences to be some of the most useful in the calendar," he added. "It’s a while since we held one in the London area and we are anticipating a great event. Pre-registrations are higher than we’ve seen before.

"The speakers we have secured are some first-class people, none of whom is known to be reluctant to state a controversial view, and we have some highly pertinent technologies on show.

"As always, the TCA conference is a great opportunity for the industry to get together. Working closely with CompTIA means that there is considerable cross-fertilisation between their event and ours, and everyone benefits.”

Anyone wishing to attend the conference can book tickets here.