IT gets back on song

When we see vendors report encouraging numbers, we should feel that next year we might be able to smoke one Monte Cristo.

After nearly three years of faltering sales, consolidation, cut-backs, business failure and general malaise, the UK IT industry, like The Beatles' song, is getting better all the time. After all, 'it can't get no worse.'

Although we shouldn't all reach for the Dom Perignon just yet, don't forget that business growth is all about confidence.

So when analysts such as IDC predict good growth in Europe for servers and laptops, and when we see vendors such as Intel and Kingston report encouraging numbers, we should start to feel that maybe next year we might be able to smoke at least one Monte Cristo after all.

And this is the general feeling from many of the UK-based analysts, vendors and channel players I have spoken to recently.

Of course, everybody realises that the feeding frenzy is over. The market has matured, and a lot of the once complex IT solutions have become commoditised.

Smart players know that end-users are more savvy about technology these days and want answers to their business problems, not speeds and feeds.

Channel players also know that users want demonstrable cost-savings and low cost of ownership from the outset, not after many months of partial implementation and soaring consultancy fees.

But the fact is that end-users are slowly realising that IT is so important to business that investment cannot be ignored for much longer.

New technology, such as wireless and broadband, when properly secure, offers SMEs real business benefits and gives resellers the opportunity to sell broader technology solutions rather than just products.

In other areas, voice and data has matured enough for companies to trust it as a stable and compelling technology.

The good news is that all these areas offer good margin and they need value-added services, such as integration and support.

Although cost is a major consideration for end-users, resellers in these markets will seldom be competing with a direct vendor or an online reseller for this type of business - and this is the business that appears to be seeing the best growth.