FUTURE TECHNOLOGY
to the training and enablement around
MSP, which obviously includes the ESP
part as well.
How does the channel structure
work in enabling the end user to
understand the technology?
It differs from country to country but we
have System Engineers (SEs) – some of them
are predominantly focused on the end user.
Then we have some Channel SEs. In some
countries we have the luxury of having both,
in some countries we only have one that kind
of does both. The role of the SEs is to look
at the architecture of the infrastructure the
customer has today, and to be able to go
and advise them or give them consultative
information about what they could do in the
future. We also have the Channel SEs, like I
said in the bigger regions. These are the SEs
that are focused on the channel and they
do exactly the same – they make sure that
the channel is up-to-date and aware of our
solutions so they can go and do the same
with our customers.
ATM Digital is a big event where we
also expect the customers to be able to go
through the different tracks to see whether
Five years down the
line, I think less than
40% of the channel
partners will be
resellers.
they want to go down a technical route or an
industry route. And so, our role is to keep our
customers informed at all times as well of
anything that is new.
How did Aruba manage to use AI
first in a solution like this?
I think I take it back to Keerti, our Co-
Founder. He has always been very conscious
of what we can do to improve the lives of
our users. HPE’s slogan is ‘We do advance
the way people work and live’ and that is
our objective at the end of the day. Keerti
has always believed in ‘What can we do to
make the lives of our users easier?’. One of
the examples of that is the openness of our
solutions. You can use multi-vendors, it
doesn’t always have to be Aruba. It can be
any other vendor.
In terms of AI, this is through either
products we have acquired or technologies
we have brought throughout the years. It is
the research we have done through all the
networks we have managed just to bring up
this AI. A lot of companies have talked about
AI from the beginning of the year and it’s
time we see them in action.
What technology trends do you see
happening in the future?
If we look at five years ago, we had partners
that were resellers, and if you really dissect
that name, reseller means that you resell a
product, you might add some things here
or there, you might add an accessory, some
software apps, but at the end of the day you
were reselling a product.
Five years down the line, I think less
than 40% of the channel partners will be
resellers. I think more than 50% will be a
service provider, meaning that they provide
a service, regardless of the technology. I
think even our distributors today and in all
of the discussions we are having with our
distributors, they are also having to rethink
how they are going to distribute products.
In the old days, the reseller will go and buy
from a distributor a product, pick it up, do a
system integration and sell it.
Now, if it is a service being provided by
the vendor, specifically like in GreenLake for
example, what is the role of the distributor?
With that in mind, what we are thinking is
– how do we have to change the structure
of us internally to be more of a ‘service
provider’ channel organisation rather than a
‘reseller’ channel organisation. That means
what kind of people do we have to be able
to talk the same language, what kind of
rebates do we need to be able to give to our
partners, what kind of certifications should
they have? This is something we are talking
about on a worldwide level. •
INTELLIGENT TECH CHANNELS
INTELLIGENT
TECH CHANNELS Issue 31
35