Andrew Binding

Vice president, Northern Europe region, Magirus

Career so far I have been with Magirus since August 2003 in two roles, managing director for the UK business before taking on my current role last year. Prior to Magirus, I spent two years as international finance director for AltaVista and two years advising private equity funded e-commerce start-up companies. Previously, I spent eight years with Creative Technology as vice president and co founder of Creative Labs Europe and two years in Boston as vice president and chief financial officer of Cambridge Soundworks. Earlier career roles included European financial controller for Trace Mountain.

Do you care about green IT? Yes, we know it is important to be green and environmentally responsible and take as much direct action as we can. However, cost is still the primary purchasing driver in many decisions these days.

Has 2009 been as bad as everyone said it would be? No, in fact it has held up well through our focus on virtualisation management and services. These have been a big winner where the main driver has been squeezing value that virtualisation has to offer while having the flexibility to adapt once the market starts to strengthen. In 2010, as investment levels start to increase, we expect to see clients taking a more holistic approach to their IT requirements whether this be in the datacentre or in their distributed IT requirements. Virtualisation will therefore continue to be at the heart of the growth.

Have any of your predictions come true this year? We bet on virtualisation and invested heavily in marketing the benefits of how to develop this area as a recession-proof technology to support our resellers. This has largely been borne out with our virtualisation sales continuing to grow strongly and increasing numbers of business partners have focused on these solutions.

What do you see as the channel's biggest challenge in 2010? Adapting to the opportunity offered by cloud computing. With current and increasing demand for internal cloud solutions and the demands for external cloud solutions in the future, our industry is going to need to understand how to maximise the opportunity now and also be ready for a new go to market model in the future. Cloud computing will change the industry substantially.

What is the best part of your day? It has to be the gin and tonic I have with my wife when I get home from work in the evening.