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Later, Wainewright added: "The cloud is all about being connected. It's all about participating in this connected 24-by-7 real-time world that we operate in now with a global scale with the ability to connect to customers and employees and partners and to be able to link up with them to tap into new resources as they come online. If you don't have that connectivity into the cloud, you're missing out really on the true benefits of cloud computing that make it distinctive."
For resellers, Wainewright said, the key will be offering hybrid cloud solutions to help clients with the migration from on-premise and integration of key internal assets with cloud resources.
Hurwitz, too, noted that resellers will find success with hybrid public and private cloud in the long run, likening it to the evolution of intranets and extranets and how they blended and are no longer seen as dramatically different animals.
Regardless of which direction solution providers take in the cloud, it all comes down to being a services player, said Jeffrey Kaplan, managing director of THINKstrategies, a cloud and SaaS consulting firm in Wellesley, Mass. Kaplan said companies are fed up with inefficiencies of IT and that is pushing them to the cloud. For resellers the good news is that it puts partners in direct contact with the users so they can see the transition first hand. The bad news, however, is that the channel now has to think in terms of services vs. products.
And to take advantage of the changing market, solution providers have to be ready and have to start tailoring the services they offer to fulfill new customer requirements, said Stuart Williams, Software Business Quarterly practice manager at Technology Business Research, a market research firm in Hampton, N.H.
"The most important thing [solution providers] should be aware of is that the market is beginning to segment itself out," he said. "Sellers should be extremely aware and attentive to the requirements of the buying end users as they begin to outline their specifications."
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