Channel Cloud Challenges Abound: Pax8, Dell, VMware, Rackspace Talk

Channel partners face cloud challenges aplenty. And those issues don’t just come in the form of deciding which services to offer and support, or which platforms to recommend to customers. Rather, those cloud challenges often run a lot deeper.

First, there’s the question of profitability. In an era where every business is assessing its financial standing and determining where best to make changes, channel partners are anything but immune. One of the cloud challenges they’re up against? Teaming with vendors that help them attain profitability.

Another common problem crops up when a channel partner isn’t using internally generated data to better position his or her business. This represents another area where providers can step in, but many have yet to rise to this particular cloud challenge.

From there, channel partners’ clients are asking whether they should even use public cloud computing anymore. After three years of unexpectedly high cloud costs, many end users are looking at repatriation. That’s one of many major cloud challenges for any partner with customers on Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud and other platforms.

Then, of course, there’s the big kahuna dominating practically every discussion right now: generative AI. Channel partners have a significant cloud challenge on their hands with this technology, figuring out how to use it to improve operations and customer service, and even make money.

Pax8’s Ryan Walsh

VMware’s John Turner

Rackspace’s Adrianna Bustamante

Dell’s Michael Piccininni

The participants on the 2023 Channel Partners Cloud Roundtable tackled these cloud challenges, and more. Channel Partners held this invite-only, closed-door discussion for the third time at the recent expo in Las Vegas. Four vendors joined the panel: Ryan Walsh, co-founder of Pax8; John Turner, director of customer marketing at VMware; Adrianna Bustamante, vice president of global alliances and channels at Rackspace; and Michael Piccininni, director of global alliances, Americas cloud, data center and telco service providers at Dell.

If you missed the first 2023 Cloud Roundtable installment, which looks at cloud trends impacting the channel, click here.

See the slideshow above for the many cloud challenges facing partners and vendors today.