Renee Bergeron on stage at Ingram Micro Cloud Summit 2012
PHOENIX, AZ - Cloud services are easy to buy direct; they seem to skirt the traditional channel model with customers buying and setting up the service without a solution provider. At Ingram Micro Cloud Summit 2012, there is no denying this fact. But, as the channel starts to find its place in delivering cloud services to customers, there's also no denying the power of the traditional channel relationships.
Ingram Micro has long made
its strategy in the cloud clear. The distributor sees itself as a master cloud aggregator, building a comprehensive portfolio of top cloud services that spans business applications, data centre, device management, network and communication, security, and service desk. And, the level of interest from its channel customers continues to grow.
Renee Bergeron, VP of managed services and cloud computing, said in conversation with Channel Insider Canada, that the cloud services business has doubled between 2011 and 2012. "We added 956 new customers in 2011," she said, adding that these customers could have been Ingram Micro partners buying hardware or software but are just now buying their first cloud services through the distributor.
It's not just the customer base that's growing either. Bergeron said the average deal size for cloud services has doubled in the past year. She attributes the growth to their partners wining larger scale deals. When resellers were asked during a keynote presentation how many seats in the cloud they were currently managing, many claimed 500 to 1,000 seats, while one said it was managing over a million seats in the cloud.
