New distributor Channelfusion will focus on high-performance storage, network infrastructure, and cloud storage technologies, it announced as it signed Cleversafe, Emulex, Mellanox, and Nimbus to its UK portfolio.
The vendor has pledged to foment a coup in the enterprise IT market as a new wave of revolutionary technology startups take over the infrastructure. As enterprises hit a performance wall there will be a sea change in infrastructure, predicted founder and director Bruce Hockin, who claimed a wave of new vendors is aiming to sweep away the old incumbents in the networking and storage markets. It will create great opportunities for the channel, he said.
“The timing is perfect for a distributor to specialise on leading-edge, high performance enterprise storage technology,” said Hockin, who was previously head of solutions strategy for Avnet Technology Solutions.
Change is the opportunity, but channel partners must be emboldened to commit to doing something different from the rest of the herd, he explained. It is the duty of the distributor to encourage partners to make that brave first step, he argued.
Investing time and money in flash and object storage will reap dividends, he said: “We are not about big brands – we bring together complementary technologies and services so channel partners can respond to market demands.”
Hockin said Cleversafe will be a key vendor in this market because its multi-petabyte Big Data storage problems is a groundbreaking invention. “Channelfusion will help us continue to move cloud builders into the next evolution of data storage,” said Michael Wolf, head of global channel sales development at Cleversafe, who said cloud computing desperately needs a new architecture that uses information dispersal to create massive scale cloud capacity and Big Data storage by design.
Too many distributors see their role as helping partners to jump through accreditation hoops, said Hockin. “It’s not just about helping partners to become product specialists. It’s about giving them vision, understanding and the credibility to recognise, engage and solve business challenges using new approaches to storage,” he added.
Vertical specialisation will be another critical survival skill, he warned. “Sectors like media and entertainment, gambling and gaming, finance and service providers in particular want a high performance infrastructure,” said Hocklin.
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