Good year, bad year

Whose year has been a stonker and whose has been a stinker?

Good year

Euro cloud providers

If the European cloud industry wanted to improve its PR this year, it needed to look no further than a certain Edward Snowden.

The former US security analyst's revelations about the National Security Agency (NSA) snooping on top tech firms' users' data led to a backlash among European users worried about entrusting the security of their data to US firms.

Snowden was the Guardian newspaper's Person of the Year in 2013 and he may have earned himself similar hero status among local datacentre providers.

Inflexible working

While you might be forgiven for thinking that enterprise tech vendors lead the way when it comes to setting technology trends in the workplace, industry giants HP and Yahoo were certainly not responsible for pioneering the use of remote-working technology.

Both Yahoo boss Marissa Mayer and HP leader Meg Whitman strongly discouraged remote working. "To become the absolute best place to work, communication and collaboration will be important, so we need to be working side by side," Mayer said.
So if you see any HP employees looking particularly chirpy at an event or conference, remember they're probably just high on fresh air and daylight.

Sales rejigs
The emergence of cloud and the quest to move from farming renewals to generating new business and targeting specific vertical markets forced many channel bosses to overhaul their commission structures in 2013, with mixed results.

ChannelWeb became a forum for disgruntled sales staff unhappy with their lot this year as a slew of VARs dabbled with the way in which they reward staff, particularly for annuity business.

Some even turned to "gamifying" the process, whereby customers can be bought based on their respective value the salesperson who won the deal and the company as a whole.

Cloud is here to stay so, if anything, 2014 will see even more tinkering.

Bad year

Buy and build

The buy-and-build model was as popular as the The Darkness, planking and the Atkins Diet in the noughties as a succession of channel entrepreneurs set out to knock five, 10, 15 or even 20 resellers together in a bid to build a super VAR. And it may now also be as outdated.

The logic was simple: the channel was in dire need of consolidation, and bringing a load of game but undersized resellers together, backed by VC lolly, would ensure all involved were greater than the sum of their parts.

But the dream turned to a nightmare as the souring market left many unable to service their debts, culminating this January in the spectacular collapse of its largest champion, 2e2. Although new ventures show the model is not dead, the events of 2013 suggest its glory days are behind it.

Microsoft

Microsoft's journey to becoming a devices and services company has met more than a few bumps in the road this year. The turn of 2013 saw resellers furious with the software giant for not letting the channel in on its Surface distribution strategy, and the tablet let the vendor down again in the summer by leaving a $900m (£547m) hole in its income statement.

Windows 8.1 was rushed out after the dramatically different Windows 8 operating system failed to win over customers. On top of all this, its longstanding leader Steve Ballmer announced he would stand down, cementing 2013 as a landmark year for the firm, although maybe not for the reasons it intended.

Channel accounts staff

Following the unedifying finger-pointing of the HP-Autonomy saga this year, the misdemeanours of channel accountants continued to make headlines.

Services firm Phoenix saw an accounting boo-boo at its Servo brand put a £60m dent in its FY13 numbers, while print VAR Danwood admitted at the start of the year that it would be restating six years of accounts owing to some numerical jiggery-pokery. The spring brought news that distribution behemoth Tech Data had discovered accounting "improprieties" in its UK business, which it estimated could see $20m wiped off its net profit.

At least the channel maths bods can now forget their annus horribilis and let their hair down. And no one knows how to party like accountants!