Cloud, Mobility and Social Media, Oh My!

Say goodbye to the first half of 2012. I, for one, cannot believe the year is already half over. And since archaeologists recently uncovered secret Mayan artifacts pointing to calendars extending beyond 2012, it appears as though the world is not coming to an end Dec. 21, 2012, after all. So if you haven’t already, it’s time to take a close, hard look at your business model and see how you are positioned for the rest of year, into 2013 and beyond.

If you were under the assumption the sky was going to crack open and you haven’t yet transitioned to a managed service model, migrated customers toward a cloud environment, gained mobility integration and security expertise or capitalized on the social media blitz, it’s time to start. There still is plenty of confusion, as you can see by the Facebook IPO insanity, and businesses throw money at confusion. Since solution providers supply the answers, it’s obvious it’s not too late to make some money off these technologies.

Research powerhouse IDC last year noted the industry was going through a fundamental transition, the likes of which have not been seen for 20 years when the Internet changed everything. It all revolves around cloud computing with mobile devices and social media pushing development. As a result, hardware makers will move more toward services, software vendors will embrace software-as-a-service distribution models and solution providers will be the lynchpin that holds it together. IDC was dead-on, and the good news for solution providers is this transition is ongoing and will be evolving for years to come. (I guess they had insider info on the Mayan discovery.)

If you look at the moves and positioning of the major industry players, you can see this clear as day. IBM, HP and Dell all are investing/acquiring/developing expertise around the services model. In fact, Dell CEO Michael Dell has said publicly that services are his company’s future business model, and the company has been in acquisition mode ever since.

Enterprise software companies see the writing on the wall as well, thanks to the likes of VMware and Salesforce.com, and realize the entire distribution model is changing. The app store was the powder keg and the corporate app store will be the future — and software vendors have to adjust. As a result, licensing, distribution and upgrading all will change.

All of these truths are catalysts leading to a big mess of confusion inside corporate IT. And I said once before and I will say it again: Where there is confusion there is opportunity for solution providers.

Now let’s add in the consumeration of IT and the need for organizations to support, manage and secure every mobile device under the sun — not to mention the emergence of social media as a true business model — and you come out with specialized services for which the channel is critical. Today’s IT departments need a lot of help transitioning their organizations and making sure their technology investments position their companies for growth. They can’t do it without solution providers.

So if you haven’t begun evaluating your business model and tapped into these growth areas, it’s not too late. But every day that goes by is a potential lost opportunity.

Knock em alive!