Smarter mobile enterprise opportunities ignite sponsor and partner interest

Canalys today announced that its inaugural Channels Forum for the Asia Pacific region has surpassed expectations, both in terms of vendor support and channel partner participation. The event is themed to tackle the hottest topic of the year and builds on a track record of outstanding success in EMEA. Mobility’s march into the enterprise has accelerated beyond e-mail on smart phones and corporate-mandated applications and restrictions. User-led mobile access to corporate data and workflow innovation mean IT budgets are fragmenting and suppliers are being asked to adapt. The forum will explore how these trends affect growth prospects for the IT channel partner community and how best to take advantage of them.

‘Our keynote sponsors helped get the forum off to a terrific start,’ said Rita Chaher, Canalys Event Director. ‘The early commitment of industry leaders such as Cisco, EMC and HP was critical to establishing the foundations for this exciting and important initiative. In addition to their participation in keynote, theater and workshop sessions, senior representatives of these companies will form the Channel Management Leadership panel, to whom the hundreds of partners present can pose questions on the final day of the event.’

The early keynote sponsors were joined by APC (by Schneider Electric), Avaya, Fujitsu, Juniper Networks, Lenovo, NEC, ShoreTel and VMware, underscoring the importance for enterprise-focused vendors of being able to meet face-to-face with such a large, senior channel partner audience.

‘The escalating volume of data, high premium on space, and rising energy costs are creating a perfect storm for all organizations, including SMBs,’ said Philippe Arsonneau, Senior Vice President for Schneider Electric’s IT Business in Asia Pacific and Japan. ‘Schneider Electric looks forward to sharing our insights on energy management with the channel audience at the Canalys forum, and launching InfraStruxure^TM for Small IT, a unique data center infrastructure solution designed specifically to help SMBs address the growing complexity of critical, small IT spaces.’

‘The rapid adoption of bring-your-own-device (BYOD) policies has enabled employees to use their personal mobile devices to access corporate networks and resources. This may have improved employee productivity, but it has also created a complex security issue. We are firmly committed to our partners and view this forum as a great platform to share insights on how Juniper Networks can help ease the burden of BYOD for today’s enterprises,’ said Emilio Umeoka, Senior Vice President, Worldwide Partners, Juniper Networks.

More recently, Google, Microsoft, SAP, Trend Micro and Webroot joined the line-up of prestigious global vendors sponsoring the forum, enabling them to demonstrate how much they value the role that channel partners play in growing business across the APAC region and to explore how best to work together going forward.

‘We have seen acceleration in customers asking for more flexible collaboration tools to take advantage of cloud, mobile and social capabilities. Channel partners will play a critical role in facilitating adoption of these future-fit tools in the market. We are looking forward to robust discussions during the two days at the forum, to understand how we can better support the channel’s activities,’ said Ricky Kapur, Managing Director for Google Enterprise in Asia.

‘The megatrends facing our industry today – including consumerization of IT, mobility, cloud computing, big data/BI and social enterprise – all require the skills, expertise and experience of partners to make them a reality. Microsoft is committed to its 54,000 partners in Asia and conducts 98% of its business today through them. We are looking forward to participating in the forum, listening to, understanding and working with our channel partners,’ said Alvaro Celis, Vice President, Microsoft Asia Pacific.

The event will also host the announcement of the winners of the inaugural Candefero Channel Partner of the Year awards in APAC. These awards, with prizes presented during the closing keynote session in front of an audience of industry peers and the media, recognize innovation, growth and achievement in particular areas by partners.

‘We are looking forward to meeting our goal of delivering the largest and most influential channel partner conference Asia has ever seen,’ said Gemma Edwards, Canalys Event Manager APAC. ‘And one which all the vendors, distributors and channel partners participating will enjoy, benefit from and see the value of continuing to support next year and beyond.’

About the Canalys Channels Forums

The Canalys Channels Forum APAC runs from 30 October to 1 November 2012, in Singapore. The very successful EMEA event took place in Barcelona earlier in the month. The forums, in their fifth year in EMEA and running for the first time in APAC, are the only independent events that unite senior managers from leading technology vendors, distributors and channel partners to discuss industry trends, forge new business relationships and create sales opportunities. In addition to vendor keynotes and theater presentations, the events feature thousands of senior one-to-one meetings and prestigious gala dinners, among other networking activities. The events are open to senior business managers, both from IT vendors and channel partners. Journalists should contact press@canalys.com to learn how to obtain a press pass. More information about the events can be found at www.canalyschannelsforum.com.

About Candefero

Candefero is the exclusive global channel partner community run by Canalys. It provides the channel with an online forum to discuss the issues affecting their businesses and to get their opinions across to senior executives within vendor organizations. They also gain access to high-quality, independent market intelligence, trends analysis and advice from Canalys. Membership is free to qualifying employees of authorized channel partners only.

About Canalys

Canalys is an independent analyst firm that strives to guide clients on the future of the technology industry and to think beyond the business models of the past. We deliver smart market insights to IT, channel and service provider professionals around the world. Our customer-driven analysis and consulting services empower businesses to make informed decisions and generate sales. We stake our reputation on the quality of our data, our innovative use of technology, and our high level of customer service.

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