Norbert Kiss, Vice President Asia Pacific, KEMP Technologies
1. Key channel plays for 2015
New technology trends that gained a lot of attention and focus in 2014, like SDN and NFV, are not only trends but concrete solutions that customers are already implementing or considering. Channel companies need to continually improve their knowledge within their companies and to be aware of who the key players are and to address their efforts and resources into vendors that can offer these technologies and offer value-add solutions for their customers.
2. Key technology for 2015
Some of the primary key technology focus areas for 2015 in the datacentre will be virtualisation of network services. This is a first step toward automation of the agile and elastic Network-as-a-Service environment of the next generation data centre. This next generation NaaS will consist of elements from SDN and NFV including cloud management and orchestration but it will take more time to bring those services to the production data centre.
3. Key message to the channel for 2015
With the rapidly-changing infrastructure technologies now on offer, channels should re-evaluate not only their go-to-market strategies but also their existing alliances. Consideration now should be on the expanse of the product offering, given customers have multiple options on how to deploy new technologies. Also, don't forget the issue of cost-sensitivity on top of everything.
4. Key warning to the channel for 2015
All vendors dabble in what is new like SDN, but channels have to be careful to pick the partner that has a long term goal of pursuing and providing a complete end-to-end solution that will sustain their customer’s requirements.
5. Key to your company’s success in 2015
Continuing to be the value leader and enhancing our technology offerings is key. KEMP Technologies is focused in 2015 on developing the technology that will enable benefits for the data centre both in the enterprise space as well as service provider environments, while continuing to provide our market with the best in class application delivery controllers they have come to rely on.
Our channel strategy in Asia Pacific remains focused on developing specialised for infrastructure and data center management, with emphasis on positioning our products to the channels that have existing business with our key strategic alliances, namely Microsoft, VMware, Dell, HP, Cisco, and Oracle. On top of this, in 2015, we will push for channels that have the same direction towards KEMP’s SDN and NFV outlook.
We will continue to develop a value added two-tier distribution channel that is highly skilled and well trained. Training and partner enablement continues to play a very important part of our channel management.
