VAR500: Predictions For 2012

VAR500 Execs Share New Year's Predictions

Will 2012 be a booming year for solution providers? Will the careful planning and cultivation of new customers pay off in the new year? Ten VAR500 top execs discuss what next year might bring, both economically as well as technologically. Here are their 2012 predictions.

Accenture: Gavin Michael, Chief Technology Innovation Officer

’For 2012, we see the emergence of a trend where data services combine real-time signals from the physical world with social media, location-based context, and many other types of contextual inputs. The inputs include soaring smartphone usage, the expansion of cloud computing, booming social media participation, and the development of powerful tools for aggregating and analyzing many different forms of data. IT leaders who get it will establish themselves as strategic players by harnessing this data explosion on behalf of the business. They will engage functions such as marketing and sales, putting them in pole positions to drive new revenue.’

Adaptive: Steve Thorpe, President And Founder

’In 2012, we expect an increased demand in automation tools, with the customer base looking for products that will provision their networks faster and more securely than ever before. With the surge of mobile device usage worldwide, we will also continue to focus on device access control, in addition to application and virtualization security. We anticipate the economy to be fairly status quo during the election year, and expect to see slow, steady growth without a drastic change in either direction.’

Axispoint: Dan DiSano, President And CEO

"At Axispoint, we are positive and excited for the upcoming year, 2012. Though we believe the economy will continue its ’slow growth’, demand for technology solutions and IT services will remain strong. IT historically was viewed as a cost center by executive management. Today, CEOs look at IT not only for automation and efficiency gains but for innovative ways to drive revenue and growth. This paradigm shift bodes well for service providers who can help CIOs and CTOs achieve their objectives. Axispoint achieved record revenue in 2011, and we foresee high growth areas such as Mobility (DAS – distributed antenna systems and mobile applications as customers need ’pervasive’ solutions) and Collaboration (Enterprise 2.0 applications, Unified Communications and Business Video which fosters communication and connections) leading to a strong 2012."

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Computer Sciences Corp.: Sam Visner, Chief Cyber-Strategist

"Convergence’ today (personal devices that serve our voice, data, social and media needs) will become ’converged infrastructure’ in 2012 (banking, business processes, email and control of machines) through services provided by a common infrastructure. If 2011 was the year of mobility, 2012 will be the year that converged infrastructures move to the edge. For cybersecurity, converged infrastructures, of which cloud is broadly representative, will be an important challenge. If we get security wrong, we jeopardize a wide range of users and their vital needs; but done right, we can bring useful security technologies and practices to more users – and to more uses – than ever before."

Denali: John J.Convery, EVP, Vendor Relations and Marketing

"Denali is focused on disruptive trends in 2012 and investing in the resources, and team to assure we are positioned to drive growth and profits. 2012 areas of focus will be Mobility, Managed Print, our local installation of our Cloud Center of Excellence and partnering with HP, [among other areas]…Denali is focused on building relationships with our very strategic vendors, doing more with less, making commitments and investments with fewer number of alliance partners and investing in distribution and leveraging all their resources and tool. We are investing in more analytical tools, and building our Web site to focus our messaging, to express the simple and clear value we offer customers."

immixGroup: Skip Liesegang, VP, Government Channels Division

"In the federal government, new technologies are being used for the most critical missions in government agencies and departments.

Because of the current federal focus on shared services, sustainability, efficiency and innovation, a number of technologies are emerging as important topics of conversation. Those include energy efficiency; cyber and physical security; cloud, mobility, and social media; and data center optimization, virtualization and consolidation. Vendors, resellers and systems integrators must position sales to the federal government as a continuation to existing mission critical programs or objectives. The best strategy in this economy is to position technology benefits as supporting current operational objectives within a more austere budget framework."

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Logicalis: Vince DeLuca, COO

"The hybrid cloud computing model – linking an internal, premises-based private cloud with the capabilities and bandwidth of public clouds – is going to be an effective and flexible model that works for CIOs in 2012 and beyond. Companies are looking at application stratification when making decisions. Certain types of CRM, collaboration and messaging applications are seen as appropriate for public clouds, while applications with more sensitive or private information – such as those with industry or government compliance requirements – are being architected to reside within private infrastructures or application spaces that exist within the four walls of the enterprise. We can appreciate that separation and the reasons for it. Our Logicalis Enterprise Cloud offers a shared, multi-tenancy environment that enables us to consult and build a roadmap for customers. We leverage ITSM and business processes to allow customers to take their existing private cloud infrastructure and build a blueprint that addresses application cloud awareness, connectivity, and security in building one’s hybrid cloud strategy. The successes we have already experienced in doing so tell us that a hybrid strategy will provide the varied requirements CIOs and IT pros have as they move more broadly toward cloud solutions in 2012."

NWN: Jane Linder, Managing Partner

"The writing’s already on the wall. We believe the temperature of the U.S. economy will remain tepid for the foreseeable future, but the technology sector will show some heat. And cloud will be positively blazing, as customers fall in love with instant infrastructure. Hosted voice, a relative newcomer to the cloud, will be the growth story of the year. Successful IT companies will find their portfolios continuing to shift toward services. With the gear itself becoming less important to the conversation, VARs will have to talk business solutions to get the customer’s attention. Maybe we will even begin to see the term ’VAR’ go up in smoke."

OnX Enterprise Solutions: Michael Cardy, Global Chief Technology Officer

The following is a statement from Cardy and others in OnX's office of the CTO.

"Cloud Computing at the CIO and IT Director levels will transform from a ’nice idea’ to a ’how do we deploy’ discussion, with most organizations considering pilots of a Private or Federated Cloud for specific project requirements. With this new deployment model for IT, there will be a need to re-align traditional IT organization structure and administrative roles associated with a change in a business model driven by Cloud and converged. This will also drive significantly more discussion on internal and externally delivered SLA’s and the ROI for Cloud as IT organizations struggle to understand the underlying financial and operational challenges and opportunities presented by the Cloud business model. Coupled with the change, will be the proliferation of mobile based devices and the consumerization of IT, also leading to drastic changes in the way in which businesses consume IT services. OnX is well positioned as both a traditional solution provider, but also as a service provider delivering options on how our clients want to consume IT."

ZSL Logic: Shiv Kumar, EVP

"Our continuous and increased investment in Value Added R&D and Innovation allowed us to demonstrate the TCO and ROI of Disruptive Technologies such as Cloud, Mobility, Enterprise Social Media and Big Data Business Analytics to line of business and IT executives. As Cloud, Mobility and Desktop Virtualization technologies make further headway into the businesses, our focus in bringing new products and solutions based on 'Disruptive Innovation' platforms will multiply in 2012. We see 2012 as a potential year for solution providers and enterprise IT to gear-up "growth oriented" innovation by leveraging emerging technologies through collaborating closely with customers' line of business executives."