Are you a cloud laggard? That’s analyst speak for “slacker.” If you are, you may be in the minority sooner than you think. Fewer than one in five partners serving small- to medium-sized businesses will not be offering cloud services by next year.
That’s according to a new study out this summer from Techaisle Inc. The research firm found the number of U.S. channel partners – VARs, MSPs and solutions providers – offering cloud services to SMBs will jump from 38 percent in 2012 to 64 percent in 2013 and 86 percent in 2014.
Interestingly, Techaisle found the largest cloud conversion among VARs; with nearly three in four offering cloud this year compared to only one in three last year. The research firm said the change of heart was the result of prodding by both customers and cloud vendors accompanied by the realization that the industry has moved inexorably in the cloud direction.
Those new to cloud among the VAR set can take some inspiration from their pioneering brethren – 36 percent of those that offer cloud are making money and 63 percent have just started to turn a profit, Techaisle said. Proof of a payoff can make the hard work of transformation more palatable. And hard work it is – for some partners more than others.
Independent software vendors, meanwhile, are “sitting pretty,” according to Forrester analyst Tim Harmon, who in a summer 2013 research brief said these partners won’t change because they don’t have to. Their development prowess is sought after by customers, vendors and competitors alike. For other partners, then, acquiring development skills may be one of a laundry list of changes they make to build a cloud practice. But it’s not mandatory. In fact, there are a number of ways that channel partners can take on the cloud.
Cloud Sherpas, for example, is a born-in-the-cloud company that is the top Google Apps reseller and one of the leading resellers of Salesforce.com and ServiceNow. It has developed intellectual processes around migration and even spun out a separate company, BetterCloud, to sell its home-grown migration and management tools for Google Apps.
Meanwhile, the folks at AVANT Communications have built a cloud services business on top of a telecom agency, pairing connectivity with six core cloud services – compute, e-mail/archiving, backup and recovery, storage, desktops and UC – all offered under agency agreements with cloud services providers. AVANT is now building its own distribution channel around its best-of-breed portfolio.
Cloud Sherpas and AVANT seem to have little in common, yet both are cloud partners. The disparity between these companies’ business models highlights the challenge of defining the opportunity for channel partners in a cloud environment. Throw in a handful of other models and specializations and you get hundreds of permutations. If you include the hybrid models pairing legacy and cloud services (as AVANT does), the possibilities only grow.
Clearly, we are just discovering what a cloud partner can be. Channel Partners looks at the emerging options in a new report, “What is a Cloud Partner?” If you are a reluctant cloud laggard, take heart: You still can find a place in the cloud that will work for your company and leverage its strengths. Explore your opportunities in the cloud at Cloud Partners, a Channel Partners event, Sept. 11 to 13, in Chicago.
Khali Henderson is editor-in-chief of Channel Partners.
