Setting Up a Channel for the Cloud

Keywords: Channel, Distribution, Indirect business model, Resellers, VARs
Authors: Laurent Glaenzer, Lemon Operations.
Abstract: As a Company specialized in recruiting and developing channel partners for IT Companies in EMEA and in the US, we have been confronted a number of times with the challenge of setting up the right channel for Cloud applications.

At the end of the day we have to admit the obvious: this is a completely different story than in the traditional IT. All the players who have tried the old route are now realizing that this is not the right way. Among 5000 resellers specifically recruited by Microsoft for reselling S+S, only 5% are active. In 18 Months, SAP has found 68 customers all around the world for its Business by Design Cloud offering. Better than Oracle who has found one customer for his Beehive suite: himself! The list could be very long and the takeaway is there: IT distribution needs to be reinvented to match with the Cloud era. In the last two decades, this is the third time it has to be shaken up: the first in the eighties with the rise of the PC industry, the second in the 90s with Internet and the third one is now. We even tend to think that Cloud Computing is not as a big revolution for the technology than it is for the distribution.
Because of our specialty, we have been at the forefront of this revolution and we are now able to propose channel alternatives to all Cloud Companies that are willing to rely on an indirect business model (the vast majority of them) to succeed.

The content of this presentation will contain many concrete examples coming from all over the world with best and bad practices (we won't name the Companies for the bad practices though...). Yet, whilst we will report some experience it would be the first time where we would present new promising routes for setting up a channel for the Cloud.

-- Cloud Computing Conference - Cloud Slam 2010.