Channel Ecosystem Transformed Through Splits, Acquisitions

This year will be remembered for the earth-shattering deals that split some vendor and partner behemoths apart and brought other giants together.

On the vendor side, Dell’s proposed $67 billion acquisition of EMC will create a single, massive channel organization, while HP’s split created two more nimble and agile Fortune 50 companies and a sharper channel focus for HP Inc. and Hewlett Packard Enterprise.

On the channel side, a split created the world’s largest pure-play U.S. government partner, while three big-time acquisitions thinned the ranks of Microsoft’s Licensing Solution Providers. 

With record merger and acquisition activity in the channel, 2015 also marked the start of the strategic service provider era. The new class of partners are architecting, integrating and managing services from vendor partners, driving business outcomes with an emphasis on cloud and managed services delivered via a recurring revenue model.