The Margin Q2 2015

And now for something partly different

Madonna and Apple excel at it, while only idiots try to do this to the wheel. What am I talking about? Reinvention – taking something that exists and tweaking, reworking or rebranding it to make it more palatable.

The world of technology certainly isn’t immune to rebranding something in the hope of boosting adoption or sales. One of the greatest examples of reinvention currently on the lips of every major vendor is cloud computing. Software as a Service, hosting, managed services, shared services, outsourcing – these elements all represent something that’s now covered by the encompassing term ‘cloud’. Indeed, it could be argued that the concept that underpins cloud has been around since 1950’s mainframes did all the work and thin clients were used to access them.

We’ve touched on the impact of cloud on the channel in previous issues of The Margin – such as the effect it will have on the server hardware market as companies shift to hosted datacentres. There’s much anecdotal evidence that South African companies have been slow to adopt cloud, but it would seem that local risk-resistance is waning and adoption is slowly gathering momentum. With that in mind, this is the perfect time to look at how cloud offers opportunity for the channel, especially for those systems integrators and resellers who, like the IT departments of many local enterprises, have been somewhat reluctant to commit.

In these pages, you’ll also find pieces on selling luxury technology, how to become a trusted advisor, tips on perfecting your omnichannel strategy and a roundtable featuring a number of leading local voices on selling security.

I wouldn’t normally highlight a distributor profile upfront, but our chat with Tarsus Technology Group ties in particularly well with the theme of reinvention, and seems to go much deeper than a straightforward rebrand. I’ve never seen Alison Job,

The Margin’s deputy editor, so enthused by a story as when she returned from their new warehouse with tales of change and reinvention, so I would recommend giving that article a read.

To close up my theme of reinvention, regular readers will also notice that we’ve added a couple of new features to the magazine, as well as sprucing up the structure and look and feel. Hopefully, you’ll be able to find the content most relevant to you more easily and I hope you enjoy our reinvented style.

Happy reading

Adrian Hinchcliffe

Editor

Adrian@itweb.co.za