Boy, has Avnet been busy in the last six months. It's added Cisco to its line card, watched the delicate dance of the Oracle-Sun acquisition from a front-row seat, bought up distributors like Bell Micro and others to broaden its worldwide footprint, and planted a firm stake in the ground with its CloudReady program that seems to say, "Damn right distributors have a role in cloud computing."

In a recent visit to Avnet's Phoenix headquarters, CRN had a chance to catch up with a range of Avnet executives on these many issues, including Phil Gallagher, Avnet Technology Solutions Global President, and Jeff Bawol, President of Avnet Technology Solutions, Americas. Here's a look some of the key issues top of mind for Avnet on the Technology Solutions side.