John Carter

Career so far: I went from tea boy to head of sales at Brother in the heady days of the 1980s and helped to build it into a big business. I moved on to consultancy work with various companies and formed DMSL in 2002 - I have never looked back.

If you could be anyone else for a week, who would you be and what would you do? Lord Sugar. I'd get the overrated chief executives from the biggest companies in this business and put them through a real get-down-and-get-your-hands-dirty form of The Apprentice, just so I could say at the end of it, ‘Your fired!'

What would you have as your last meal? Jellied eels or pie and mash - both if I can have them.

What is the best corporate jolly you have ever been on/taken partners on? There have been far too many, but all of them a long time ago. The biggest and best was probably a trip around the Bay of Biscay on Concorde.
Unfortunately, most vendors don't do enough to look after, and reward, their partners today.

Do you see the cloud as a threat or an opportunity? If you see it as a threat, my advice is to give up and get out now. Resellers need to embrace it and everything it means. Most businesses are already going to the cloud for voice. Other apps and services will follow fast.

Have any of your predictions come true this year? No, but they will! Spurs to make the Champions League semis is an absolute banker.

What do you see as the channel's biggest challenge in 2011? Not missing the boat. In the broadband and voice markets, hosted VoIP is happening fast, and other hosted services will follow on from that very quickly indeed. You need to be on that boat now!

What is the best part of your day? Switching the mobile on/switching on the mobile off. I enjoy my work and the people I work with, but it's also great to chill out at the end of it all. Alternatively, when I get the time, the best part of the day is a drive off the first tee.