Partners Cheer Consolidation Activity In The Channel

/**/ /**/

With the historic deal struck between Dell and EMC last week, partners may be asking themselves, is bigger always better? There is certainly a trend of merger and acquisition activity in IT, but solution providers see it as a positive thing for the channel.

’I think at the end of the day it’s good for all of us, in that change brings out a lot of strengths and sheds weaknesses in all of these companies. So we will all be better as we go through these changes,’ said Denali CTO Michael Leeper.

Leeper did add, however, that solution providers need to spend more money to communicate vendor changes to their customers, and that can add up after several significant consolidations.

Tony Scicchitano, from Siwel Consulting, said that merged vendors make it easier for partners to bring end-to-end solutions to customers. It becomes ’less [about] trying to work together, trying to piece these things together, that responsibility kind of goes back to the converged partners.’

’I still think we’re at a point where it’s good for the channel. I expect, as we’re seeing vendors consolidate, we’ll also see consolidation within the channel itself,’ said Cumulus Global's Allen Falcon.

Founder and President of Distributed Technology Group Mark Matheson agreed with Falcon, and said that OEMs have recently been encouraging consolidation among partners by ’creating programs that are driving solution provider consolidation.’

PUBLISHED OCT. 20, 2015