7. Born-in-the-Cloud Partners Will Be Gobbled Up By Channel Goliaths

Expect some of the most successful independent cloud partners to find a home inside solution provider behemoths in the coming year.

IBM Global Services, No. 1 on the CRN SP 500, kicked things off in March by purchasing one Salesforce's longest-standing partners in Bluewolf, No. 240 on the CRN SP 500, for a reported $200 million. And business process services giant Wipro spent $500 million in October to purchase cloud services powerhouse Appirio and improve its market share around Salesforce and Workday.

And Accenture, No. 2 on the CRN SP 500, grew its Workday practice by 50 percent by purchasing 400-person partner DayNine in September.

Many leading cloud partners want established relationship around the world, but realize they can't build the necessary scale and sustain high levels of growth without help from deep-pocketed industry giants.