Canalys announces largest ever independent channel conference

Canalys today announced that it will be hosting the largest and most prestigious independent channel conference that EMEA has ever seen, from 5 to 7 October in Barcelona. Mark Hurd, Chairman and CEO of HP, and Dirk Meyer, President and CEO of AMD, will both deliver plenary keynote presentations, and they will be joined by a tremendous line-up of industry speakers attracted by a large, prestigious channel audience.

Leading distributors are actively participating by inviting their best resellers to join them in Barcelona. Tech Data, Magirus, Also, Actebis, Bell Micro, Esprinet, Westcoast, Ingram Micro and eD’system are already confirmed as event partners. Nestor Cano, President of Tech Data Europe, said, ‘We are pleased to be participating in an event designed for our reseller customers across Europe where they can benefit from a program that will help set industry trends, create interesting dialogue and develop business relationships.’

Christian Magirus, Executive Vice-President and COO of Magirus, said, ‘Distributors contribute to the health of the IT industry by enabling vendors large and small to train, supply and access the reseller community. We are delighted that finally an event has emerged that recognises our vital role in the value chain and we look forward to using this event to both deepen existing vendor-to-reseller relationships and develop new contacts.’

The event is expected to reach its 1,000-maximum capacity, with every attendee privately selected by a distributor as an influential member of the channel in their country. Resellers should contact either Canalys or one of the participating distributors to secure their invitations.

Leading vendors that are committed to the channel will use the event to share their company’s vision, discuss recent innovations and engage in dialogue with their partners. Steve Brazier, President and CEO of Canalys added that ‘Resellers told us after our previous events that their two main requirements are top executive keynotes combined with plenty of formal and informal one-to-one meeting time. Our agenda delivers against these benefits. Participating vendors will gain more intimate time here with their channel partners than at any other event, exhibition or conference in Europe. With the who’s who of the reseller and distributor community taking part, it is difficult to see why any channel-facing vendor would not want to participate. One-to-one meetings can be set up in advance, or in real time during the event via the innovative agenda tool, which is fully smart-phone-enabled.’

Alan Cardy, Vice-President of Canalys, continued, ‘The event’s theme is “Prepare to switch on” and our goal is to guide the channel on their post-recession investment decisions. Aside from the keynotes, we will be running multiple sessions in parallel, where experts from the vendors and distributors, and our own analysts will be participating. For example, one track will be dedicated to data centre opportunities and cloud computing, while other sessions will explore the impact of social networking and ubiquitous working on the IT infrastructure and working practices.’ Vendors that have already signed up to participate include HP, AMD, APC, Gateway, Juniper, Lenovo and Trend Micro, and many more will be announced in the coming weeks.

The event will take place at the Hotel Arts, Barcelona’s most prestigious hotel, from 5 to 7 October, with the highlight of the entertainment programme being a glorious gala dinner, which will take place alongside the Barcelona beach front. The Forum will also run on Candefero (www.candefero.com), the online channel community, which will allow participants to share their thoughts, presentations and content online before, during and after the event. For more information visit www.canalyschannelsforum.com.

About Canalys

Canalys specialises in delivering high quality market data, analysis and advice to the world’s leading technology vendors. It is recognised as a key provider of continuous advisory services and confidential custom projects for marketing managers and strategists within blue-chip IT, telecoms, navigation and consumer electronics companies. It has unrivalled expertise in routes to market for all kinds of high technology products and services in the consumer, SMB and large enterprise segments, and provides worldwide market data and trends analysis.

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