Crayon boss predicts Microsoft LSP 'bloodshed'

Incentive changes will mean 'no more than a handful' of LSPs will survive in current form, Torgrim Takle tells CRN sister publication Channelnomics Europe

"No more than a handful" of Microsoft's biggest resellers will survive in their current form, the chief executive of one of the vendor's leading global partners told CRN sister publication Channelnomics Europ e earlier this week.

Norway-headquartered licensing and software asset management (SAM) firm Crayon has been on an expansion drive in recent years, and is now present in 23 countries across the world. The last couple of years have seen the company, via organic both investment and acquisition, set up new operations across western and southern Europe, as well as Asia and North America.

With a total of just 300 top-level Microsoft Licensing Solution Provider (LSP) partners, the coming years will see plenty of "bloodshed" and present further opportunistic acquisition opportunities across the globe as the software channel's biggest fish look to survive in an ever-smaller pond. That is the view of Torgrim Takle, group chief executive of Crayon.

"There is a shakeout of the industry as a consequence of the larger vendors moving incentives away from transactional business to services," he told Channelnomics Europe. "We believe there will [ultimately] be no more than a handful [of LSPs] left. There are interesting capabilities, there are customers, and portfolios where we can engage [and complement] our SAM and cloud capabilities. From that perspective it will be an interesting time of consolidation."

The Crayon chief added that his firm is several steps ahead of most of its rivals when it comes to its cloud, services, and SAM capabilities. Some 60 per cent of the company's employees are consultants, said Takle, while most other LSPs "claim to have 20 per cent - but actually it is lower".

"We believe we are the best placed of all the players that are lined up," he said.

Look out on Channelnomics Europe for more from our interview with Crayon senior leadership in the coming days.