The Secret Reseller on…. IT solution providers on TV

IT reseller boss known only as ‘Dave the Dealer’ offers his inside take on the industry

My good friends at CRN have lured me out of semi-retirement to give a ‘fly-on-the-wall' take on life as an IT solutions provider boss.

They've demanded a warts ‘n' all account of what really goes on at the coalface of the channel.

How do you successfully lead a staff- and customer-oriented organisation while navigating the choppy technological waters of the post client-server era? Are service differentiation and intellectual property development really the best ways to enhance margins in a world of increased vendor competition and peer-to-peer partnerships?

And, most importantly of all, which vendor gave me the best Easter hamper?

Although Incisive are paying me less than Dave Jr gets for delivering (or strictly speaking, dumping in the nearest hedge) the Dagenham Packet each week, I am of course hoping this arrangement is a precursor to a book-deal and Hollywood movie trilogy.

So remember, you read it all here first.

Hacked or fiction?

If a profession can be judged by how well it comes across on TV, the IT channel scores a big win in US drama thriller Mr. Robot.

The show - which predictably features more references to DDoS attacks, rootkits and worms than you can shake a stolen USB drive at - depicts a brilliant young vigilante hacker whose day job is working for wonderfully generically named cybersecurity solutions provider, ‘AllSafe'.

The pilot episode introduces us to the sexy, mile-a-minute world of cybersecurity.

To be fair to whoever researched the show it really chimed with my own experiences as the head of a global IT solutions firm.

First came a scene where AllSafe's boss laments the fact that 80 per cent of his business comes from a single client (that's an accident waiting to happen, right?).

Next there was a horrible moment when said client threatens to take all its services inhouse and cut loose its IT suppliers (we've all been there).

But it was the massive network attack resolved by - in the words of our hero - "taking the whole system offline, wiping the infected servers clean, and then bringing them back up", that really struck a chord with me.

In other words, turning it off and on again - an ethos I've built my whole managed service desk philosophy around.

It really got me thinking about how we should be upping our game when it comes to cybersecurity. For starters, most of my technical team would have to become substantially better looking if they are to compete with Rami Malek and the rest of Mr. Robot's cast.

For anyone who's watched all four seasons, Mum's the word - I'm only on episode 2 and will endeavour to bring you any updates as I progress through its back catalogue.

Bot-ticelli?

Regular reader(s) familiar with the severity of my robot paranoia will be unsurprised that the following story caught my eye last week.

According to various news outlets - including the Associated Press - a ‘robot artist' recently sold one of her pictures for the best part of $1m, and is now eyeing a music career (a story that also piqued the interest of my fellow technology change maker Michael Dell last week - see below).

A creation of Hong Kong-based Hanson Robotics, the multi-talented ‘Sophia' became the world's first robot citizen in 2017 when she was granted Saudi Arabian citizenship.

Not content with that achievement, Sophia managed to flog a "digital work" she created with Italian artist Andrea Bonaceto to some hapless punter for $688,000 last month.

The proud new owner gets a ‘non-fungible token' (I hear there's a cream for that) of Sophia's masterpiece. For the uninitiated, an NFT is a unit of data on a blockchain ledger that allows anyone to verify the authenticity and ownership of items.

Call me a traditionalist, but I can't help thinking that a glorified doodle spat out by a metallic droid lacks the romance of Caravaggio's fine brushwork or the pointillism techniques pioneered by Georges Seurat.

If that wasn't enough, Sophia can apparently mimic facial expressions, hold conversations and recognise people.

Although, to give her some credit that's more than can be said of most of my sales team.

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