Computerlinks claims cloud superiority

Nearly half of UK resellers quizzed by distributor now pushing cloud

Computerlinks has poured cold water on its rivals' cloud strategies, insisting it remains the only distributor to have developed an authentic cloud model.

Research commissioned by the distributor, conducted in November, suggests cloud computing is continuing to gain momentum in the channel.

Almost half (49 per cent) of the 112 UK resellers quizzed said they actively offered cloud services, up from 44 per cent in the equivalent poll conducted a year earlier.

Computerlinks re-engineered its business in 2010 to focus more on services and new technologies, launching its ALVEA-branded cloud proposition in September of that year.

Dave Ellis (pictured), director of new technology at Computerlinks, claimed rivals are still playing catch-up in the cloud space.

"We are well ahead of the game," he said. "One or two of them are now doing stuff with third parties but are not wrapping anything around it or providing 24/7 support or any real aggregation. They are just doing what they have always done by reselling someone else's product."

Eighteen months ago, Computerlinks set out plans to double its profit margins to 10 per cent over three to five years. Ellis said the distributor had since seen a positive trend in its margins, but stressed the strategy is also about raising the profitability of its reseller partners.

"Our business is very IP [intellectual property] heavy," he said. "We now have 45 engineers in the UK alone and are building up the skills that make it as easy as possible for partners to enter these new markets."

Ellis said resellers are also now pushing cloud across a wider array of applications than two years ago.

"Initially, people were using cloud mainly for managed security or backup, whereas now they are using it for proper pay-as-you-go computing," he said. "End users are now provisioning servers, storage and networks in the cloud so the spread of applications is a lot wider than it was."