Are You Nervous Yet?

HEATHER CLANCY

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Can be reached via e-mail at [email protected].

“Breakthroughs are what define our species,” Rutan said. “They come about because we are threatened.”

What, exactly, does insight from Rutan, the inventor who orchestrated the first manned private flight outside Earth’s atmosphere, have to do with your life in the channel?

To me, it crystallizes our particular moment in business history. IT is finally being recognized for what it is: not a means to an end, but rather an amazing tool to alter and enable business strategies and processes.

Moreover, high-tech vendors such as IBM have finally figured out that midmarket businesses aren’t actually trying to be just like their enterprise counterparts, they’re trying to be better. Even if they aren’t inclined to spend as much as the big guys out of the gate, they are willing to invest in long-term relationships with trusted advisers. And (news flash!) the people best-equipped to facilitate this come in the form of technology solution providers. “More and more of the innovation is out in the marketplace, where the problems are,” said IBM Vice President of Technical Strategy and Innovation Irving Wladawsky-Berger.

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Perhaps this is one reason IBM plans to spend $250 million on Business Partner Innovation Centers this year, anticipating 40 additional sites on top of the 100 or so scattered throughout the world. Or that it plans to open up IBM’s world-famous R&D resources to its channel.

Say what you will about IBM’s On Demand mantra, which it has trumpeted loudly for several years. The fact is, it got business partners and customer prospects thinking differently. IBM’s latest pet mantra, innovation, is a whole lot easier to understand. But only the most innovative solution providers—those willing to shake things up and take risks—will be able to translate that message into profitable growth.

Are you thinking outside your comfort zone? HEATHER CLANCY, Editor at CRN, welcomes your comments at [email protected].