Ingram event highlights health, finance, Bitcoin

Forbes boss explains new areas of channel opportunity in Las Vegas keynote

Healthcare, Bitcoin, and financial services are areas of opportunity for the industry, delegates at the Ingram Micro ONE event in Las Vegas heard.

In his keynote address, Steve Forbes, president, chief executive officer, and editor-in-chief of Forbes, told delegates that, with the cloud, there is an opportunity to be found in these sectors.

"The cloud is going to enable us to do what we couldn't do before. Take health care for example: there's a huge opportunity coming in healthcare.

"Right now it looks like mass confusion, but what's emerging is a totally new, patient-oriented system, and if you're quick enough, you're going to have a huge new industry being created, with numerous new players coming in."

He said the financial sector is also a huge area of opportunity for the industry. Once growth begins in earnest in the financial sector, there will be a huge demand for financial services again.

"Right now the opportunity is coming because the regulators have made the banks virtual utilities. They have just crushed them. Unless you are a big company or the federal government, trying to get a loan from the bank is a pretty daunting task.

WSo there is a huge opportunity now for outsiders to come into financial services and escape the regulatory net," Forbes predicted.

Bitcoin is also an area of opportunity, delegates heard. Forbes explained that its ease of use means payment processing systems could become significantly less costly.

"Bitcoin is developing something where I think the real story is and that is a seamless process payment system. You think it is seamless now, but if you know anything about the payment process system, you know it's very inefficient and very costly.

"Bitcoin and others doing this make it seamless. They are going to cut out billions of dollars of costs for processing, so there are huge opportunities to be found there as well," he suggested.