Fifteen Ideas from Baptie Channel Focus

Yesterday I wrote about some themes that emerged at Channel Focus, and I promised to share some of my other notes.  Like most everyone I make lists of notes while at conferences -- always intending of course to pay some attention to them later in my life.  The act of writing this blog is great encouragement for me to put a little more thought into these notes, so here is my list of fifteen things I want to remember from the conference.  Whenever possible I give credit to the people that either directly proposed the idea, or said something that sparked the thought in my brain.  These are not direct quotes but attribution none the less.

1. Sandy Carter (IBM): Know the customers problems better than they do.
2. David Green (Motrola): 1% of the cloud is for the enterprise right now.
3. Sandy Carter (IBM): We see far less than the Gartner 20% at the enterprise. The private cloud is the way to go. Good stepping stone to the public cloud.
4. Oli Thordarson (Alvaka Networks) Everyone overestimates change in the short term and underestimates the impact in the long run (Geoffrey Moore). And Solution Providers are the most adaptable creature on earth.
5. Gartner Study Cited:  Was 20%, now 50 % of purchasing decisions influenced by the Business Decision Maker (BDM) and going to 70%.
6. Sandy Carter (IBM): Social Media is 50 % for listening.
7. Tarkam Maner (Wyse): 300 to 3 watts of power required per device makes wireless power possible.
8. Tim FitzGerald (Avnet): We are 3 years into a quest to deliver solution and the partners in our program are experiencing growth at 3X the industry.
9. Ross Brown (Microsoft): Three screens include the TV; Younger gen drives the adoption; 90% of all MS developers will be on cloud projects by FY11; Script is fast and flexible compiled is not; cloud computing will take the most complicated licensing (MS) and double it.
10. Ross Brown (Microsoft): ISVs are partners now but many want to be customers instead.
11. Ross Brown (Microsoft): You really don't have to find new partners but broadcast your intentions and let them come to you.
12. Ross Brown (Microsoft):  Who is building the Government Cloud?
13. Julie Parish (NetApp): Only 15 % going to the cloud – so do what you do best even if it is not cloud oriented.
14. Rod Baptie (Baptie): 20 percent fewer SPs now than 2 years ago.
15. Rod Baptie (Baptie): Channel thinks the cloud will happen much faster than the vendors do.