The ‘Cloud’ has been the buzzword du jour and touted as the “Next Big Thing” for the past five years. While cloud adoption continues to grow, there are still many fundamental questions and lingering concerns that may lead to untapped opportunities for channel partnerships in the Cloud.

On Tuesday, October 23, at 2:00 p.m. ET,  CompTIA’s Director of Communities, Kate Hunt and I will conduct a webinar that will discuss the economics of a winning Cloud partnership, identify the best channel opportunities in the Cloud market, and share success stories in developing successful Cloud partnerships based on real-world case studies based on CompTIA’s latest research.

Click here to learn more about this webinar and to register for this event.

Everyone is aware of the explosive growth of data as a result of social networks, web and mobile device monitoring technologies, and file sharing among increasingly dispersed co-workers. The best news about ‘Big Data’ is that it has taken centerstage at the same time that a new generation of Cloud services has emerged perfectly suited to address age-old data and storage management challenges. Click here to read my views about how various players are redefining data and storage management in the Cloud in a new online publication called Data and Storage Management Report.

A growing number of leading channel companies, industry associations and publications have been added to the expanding roster of speakers, sponsors and partners participating in the second annual Cloud Channel Summit on Monday November 5 at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA.

Key executives from All Covered, Avnet, Centerbeam, Cloud Sherpas, Ingram Micro, Insight and Spiceworks will provide their perspectives about the fundamental challenges and exciting new opportunities created by today’s rapidly evolving Cloud marketplace. They will be joined by Kate Hunt, Director of Communities at CompTIA, the largest association of channel companies, and Joe Panettieri, Editorial Director of Nine Lives Media Brands, the leading online publication group focused on the channel industry.

These are the latest executives to confirm their participation in the Cloud Channel Summit hosted by THINKstrategies, the Cloud Computing Showplace, and Rising Tide Media. The single-day, single-track, peer-to-peer executive forum and networking event will focus exclusively on … Read More »

I’ve been suggesting for the past few years that a more robust channel ecosystem must emerge for the cloud movement to continue to grow at its current pace. While the fundamental nature of the cloud computing business creates significant challenges for traditional channel companies, rapidly rising user demand creates market pressures and opportunities that cannot be ignored.   Over the past year, the established channel companies have stepped up to these challenges and are now poised to capitalize on the new opportunities. Click here to read my latest E-Commerce Times commentary about examples of some of the initiatives a few of the major channel companies have launched this year.

The Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA), the leading trade association for the software and digital content industries, has entered into a partnership with THINKstrategies, Inc., the Cloud Computing Showplace, and Rising Tide Media in support of their upcoming industry conferences – the Cloud Channel Summit and All About Mobile.

Cloud Channel Summit will bring together senior executives from Cloud vendors and channel companies to discuss winning strategies for building successful and profitable partnerships to create new business opportunities in the Cloud marketplace. Monday, November 5, at the Computer History Museum, Mountain View, CA.

“Channel development is essential to the continued success of the Cloud movement, and the SIIA is pleased to be working with THINKstrategies, the Cloud Computing Showplace and Rising Tide Media to make the Cloud Channel Summit a valuable forum where leading players can share their best practices and … Read More »

Senior executives from BrightTALK, Coraid, GoodData, Ingram-Micro and Intacct are among the latest to be added to the growing roster of speakers, sponsors and partners participating in the second annual Cloud Channel Summit on Monday November 5 at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA.

These executives join others already confirmed from Salesforce.com, Google, IBM, Oracle, Rackspace, SAP/Sybase, AppDirect, Alteva, Aryaka, Box.net, CallidusCloud, Comcast, Corent Technology, CorSource, DocuSign, GoodData, Iron Mountain, SoftServe, Spiceworks and VMware who are speaking and supporting the Summit hosted by THINKstrategies, the Cloud Computing Showplace, and Rising Tide Media.

The one-day, single-track, peer-to-peer executive forum and networking event will focus exclusively on how companies can create profitable channel relationships in the Cloud marketplace.

The following executives are scheduled to give keynote presentations at the Summit:

Stacy Nethercoat, VP of Software Product Marketing at Tech Data
Stephen Cho, Director of Software Partner Business Development for Google Enterprise
Ron Huddleston, SVP of ISV Alliances at Salesforce.com
Amy Anderson, Manager of … Read More »

One of the biggest frustrations facing CIOs and their IT teams is the consumerization of IT and shadow IT.

This ad hoc and unauthorized adoption of mobile devices and business applications by corporate end-users is raising security and compliance concerns. It’s challenging traditional IT management systems and governance policies.

THINKstrategies believes the emergence of enterprise Cloud marketplaces could be one remedy for this growing problem.

Click here to read my latest commentary in Datamation about how enterprises can launch their own Cloud marketplaces to overcome this challenge, and create new business opportunities and revenue streams.

One of the most exciting aspects of the rapidly evolving Cloud computing phenomenon is how it is disrupting every aspect of the traditional IT hardware, software and services industry. But, these legacy business models are changing so quickly that we sometimes lose sight of the significance of these fundamental transformations. So, let’s take a look at some of the most important game-changing developments of the past few years. Click here to read my guest blogpost for Symform regarding these game-changing developments.

Senior executives from Salesforce.com, Google, Oracle, SAP/Sybase, IBM, Alteva, AppDirect, Aryaka, CallidusCloud, Corent Technology, CorSource, GoodData, Iron Mountain, SoftServe and other leading companies are scheduled to speak at the second annual Cloud Channel Summit on Monday, November 5, to share their experiences and perspectives regarding industry best practices for building successful partnerships in the Cloud.

The Cloud Channel Summit is hosted by THINKstrategies, the Cloud Computing Showplace, and Rising Tide Media, and will take place at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA. The one-day, peer-to-peer executive forum and networking event will focus exclusively on how companies can create profitable channel relationships in the Cloud marketplace.

Stacy Nethercoat, VP of Software Product Marketing at Tech Data, will be this year’s kickoff keynote speaker. Stephen Cho, Director of Software Partner Business Development for Google Enterprise, Ron Huddleston, SVP of ISV Alliances at Salesforce.com. and Amy Anderson, Manager of IBM’s Cloud Computing Partner Program are also … Read More »

Last week, thousands of people converged on the Moscone Center in San Francisco to hear about Salesforce.com’s latest offerings and success stories. The Dreamforce conference was a celebration of the rapidly evolving cloud marketplace which was as important for Salesforce.com’s partners as it was for the host itself. It also represented another milestone for the growing cloud channel ecosystem.   Nearly every company exhibiting its wares at last week’s conference agreed that Salesforce.com, Dreamforce and the other Salesforce.com events represent the most important channels to market for cloud companies today.

Conferences are back, but just as importantly channel relationships are expanding to create more vibrant partner expos which add even greater value for customers that are seeking to move to the cloud. Click here to read my perspectives on these changing channel dynamics in Sandhill.com.