In Depth

In Depth

• Interview: Graeme Watt, CEO of Softcat

  Softcat boss talk about office openings, organic growth and why he doesn't lie awake at night worrying about the future of the channel  Continue Reading

• OpenText looks to channel to fulfil ambitious growth

  EIM software specialist OpenText reveals plans to grab enterprise market share from rivals  Continue Reading

• Five minute interview: Greg Bailey, Veeam

  MicroScope puts its questions to Greg Bailey, director of channels and cloud at Veeam UK&I  Continue Reading

• Brexit crisis: How are businesses coping?

  Theresa May’s impending departure has only deepened the confusion surrounding Brexit – so what does the business community make of it all?  Continue Reading

• GPC 2019: Dell Technologies highlights channel growth

  Dell Technologies demonstrates progress with partners while encouraging cross-selling across expansive portfolio  Continue Reading

• Channel enjoys a strong start to the year

  Just how has this year been going? There is no better way to find out than ask a number of those working in the channel  Continue Reading

• Five minute interview: Matt Bruun, regional vice president at Forcepoint

  We catch up with Matt Bruun, regional vice president at Forcepoint, to find out more about what makes him tick  Continue Reading

• How to protect your intellectual property

  Just what is intellectual property and why does it matter to a small business? Here is some practical advice to protect the unique aspects of your business from competitors  Continue Reading

• Channel opportunities stack up in managed print services

  We identify the opportunities presented by managed print services and consider the pros and cons for partners seeking to sell such services  Continue Reading

• Nuvias moving to the next stage

  Before he moves into the executive chairman role Paul Eccleston the CEO of the distributor talks about the journey the firm has been on  Continue Reading

• Adapt for the era of virtual distribution

  Virtual distribution – the delivery of subscription services rather than physical products – is a growing IT trend. We consider what this means for channel businesses and how they can remain relevant in this changing IT world  Continue Reading

• Roundtable: The challenges and opportunities of SD-WAN

  In the first part of our coverage of the MicroScope roundtable on SD-WAN, the speakers scope out the market and the opportunity for the channel  Continue Reading

• Commvault CEO: "Our best years are still to come"

  Just a week and a half after taking up the position of CEO at Commvault Sanjay Mirchandani took some time to talk of his decision to join the firm and his thoughts about the future  Continue Reading

• Electric cars could be the vehicles for a channel coup

  Electric cars could have a more profound effect than simply just helping drivers get from A to B argues Nick Booth  Continue Reading

• Cisco: Partners play a crucial role

  In an on-going series of Q&A's with channel executives the questions this time were put to Angela Whitty, managing director, partner, Cisco UK & Ireland  Continue Reading

• What lies ahead in the storage world

  Federica Monsone, founder of A3 Communications, speaks to industry shapers about the likely 2019 trends in data storage  Continue Reading

• Cutting through to the SD-WAN opportunity

  There is plenty of hype around software defined networking and plenty of opportunities for those channel partners that get past that and provide solid solutions  Continue Reading

• The IT security skills crisis and the Boniface Dike Test

  The security skills gap is well known but as Nick Booth finds out it is not as easy as getting people trained to fill those vacancies  Continue Reading

• AI's moment has arrived for the channel

  Vendors are making moves around artificial intelligence and more customers are starting to exploit the technology  Continue Reading

• The attraction of TaaS

  Offering technology and desktops as a service sounds like a good approach for the channel to take and the early adopters are urging more to get involved  Continue Reading

• Wearables 'a slow burn' but worth the channel backing

  The market for wearables is expanding and with it the potential revenue streams for the channel  Continue Reading

• Peer-to-peer lending growing in popularity

  P2P is an option that more in the channel are taking a look at as an alternative source of finance  Continue Reading

• Channel tensions rising

  Competition and strained vendor relationships highlighted as concerns at Canalys Channel Forum  Continue Reading

• Too much silence in the Brexit debate

  Business in general has been fairly quiet about Brexit and the channel has been no exception but that might not be the best strategy  Continue Reading

• Storage roundtable: Hyperconvergence and channel opportunities

  In the second part of the MicroScope storage roundtable the discussion moves onto hyperconvergence and how vendors are supporting their channel partners  Continue Reading

• Storage roundtable: Cloud and MSPs

  In the first part of coverage of MicroScope's storage roundtable the debate begins with a focus on the shift by customers towards the cloud and the movement by the channel to become MSPs  Continue Reading

• Plugging the security skills gap

  Government is doing its bit to raise the profile of the need for more cyber security skills but the IT industry is also picking up the baton and working hard to improve the situation  Continue Reading

• Agony aunt as a service

  Impartner’s chief marketing officer Dave R Taylor has some helpful advice for those trying to increase and improve their partner communities  Continue Reading

• The storage technologies of the future

  In the second part of this series, we ask vendors and channel companies for their views on the storage technologies customers will be asking for in the future  Continue Reading

• Channel can take the mobile high ground with UEM

  Margins in MDM might have been squeezed but according to MobileIron there is plenty of life in unified endpoint management  Continue Reading

• The “new Datto” outlines growth plans to MSPs

  Datto CEO Austin McChord details product roadmap and messaging to MSPs, post-Autotask merger  Continue Reading

• What storage technologies are customers looking for?

  In the first of a two-part investigation of the storage market the question being answered is around the current user demands  Continue Reading

• Q&A: Luis Murguia, SAP

  SAP is sitting down with partners and customers in Orlando next week, but before that one of its senior channel executives was prepared to give an update about its reseller base  Continue Reading

• Q&A: Tim Maloney, svp worldwide channels, Lifesize

  The video conferencing specialist has launched a partner programme and has shared the details with MicroScope  Continue Reading

• Sainsbury Management Fellows is engineering your next breakthrough in the IT business

  There is plenty of talk about reinvention and changing business models but there could also be something to doing some personal development  Continue Reading

• Cybersecurity the latest battleground for MSPs

  SolarWinds MSP says relationships with customers will suffer if channel doesn’t get security offerings right  Continue Reading

• How channel partners can prepare customers for GDPR compliance

  With just a few weeks to go there are still plenty of customers that could do with the channel's help when it comes to being on the right side of the data compliance regulations  Continue Reading

• How Kognitio mined the reality gap on London bus time tables

  The work was inspired by TfL’s open data policy and could spark ideas in other channel partners Nick Booth argues  Continue Reading

• Why GDPR spells a channel opportunity

  Next month's data compliance rules should generate plenty of chances for the channel to get talking to customers  Continue Reading

• Making the right exit

  Those considering leaving the industry and selling up need to think about the value of their firm and make sure they get the exit strategy right  Continue Reading

• Cloud and IoT to play key role for distributors

  Forecasts coming out of the Global Technology Distribution Council indicate that there is growth out there for disties if they focus in the right technology areas  Continue Reading

• Transformation continuing at Insight

  The channel player has been transforming its own business and the managed services side of the business continues to grow  Continue Reading

• What’s TechUK’s most inspiring data science story - Harry Potter, Mission Impossible or Susan Bowen?

  Nick Booth gets inspired talking about programming, coding and the next generation with Susan Bowen, VP and general manager at Cogeco Peer 1  Continue Reading

• The opportunities and threats of cloud

  The months ahead will give resellers plenty of chances to make revenue out of cloud but there are dangers for those that get it wrong  Continue Reading

• What's to come? Plenty of cloud and security

  The year is still young enough for the great and the good to be making predictions about just what technologies will make a difference in the months ahead  Continue Reading

• Top ten channel technologies of 2017

  The most discussed technologies of last year are also set to dominate 2018 so here is a look back with more than a hint of the themes to come  Continue Reading

• Q&A: Michael Sotnick, VP channels and alliances & Ben Savage, EMEA head of channels Pure Storage

  Microscope sat down with Pure Storage’s channel execs at its Accelerate 2017 conference to discover the Flash vendor’s plans for its partners  Continue Reading

• The problem with licensing and how to solve it

  Licensing can be an expensive business. Niv Lilien explores license management solutions, and how to optimise licenses that you've already purchased  Continue Reading

• Buying for business

  Commercial law expert Matthew Gough explains what legal rights businesses have when they purchase products and services  Continue Reading

• Distribution positioning for a smart future

  Distribution is making sure it has a role to play in a smart technology driven future  Continue Reading

• Interview: Microsoft's channel head urges IP development

  Phil Sorgen, Microsoft's worldwide channel head, is encouraging partners to develop their own IP as they embrace a cloud model  Continue Reading

• Windows of opportunity

  This summer's launch of Windows 10 promises to be a shot in the arm for the channel finds Amro Gebreel  Continue Reading

• Five Minute Interview: Simon Worsfold, Fujitsu

  In the latest five minute interview we catch up with Simon Worsfold, who heads the channel sales team for Fujitsu in the UK and Ireland  Continue Reading

• An A-Z guide to social media

  The use of social media across the channel has grown at an incredible rate, but is often lacking a strategy that really works  Continue Reading

• Marussia F1 Team keeps racing with Sage partner expertise

  Software specialists discuss how bespoke tailored apps successfully augment Sage ERP X3 sales into midmarket customers such as the Marussia Formula 1 Team  Continue Reading

• Two nations, one channel? The impact of Scottish independence on IT

  In September Scotland goes to the polls in a referendum to decide its future and that of the UK, Alex Scroxton considers what the prospect of independence could mean for the channel  Continue Reading

• Gartner’s Magic Quadrant: Sales tool or marketing gimmick?

  With businesses under pressure to find targeted solutions for their customers, Alex Scroxton asks if the channel can find value in Gartner's Magic Quadrant - or whether it is just a shabby sales ruse  Continue Reading

• The channel of the 1990s

  Simon Quicke revisits the events that made the headlines during MicroScope's coverage of the channel in a decade of mergers, acquisitions and the millennium bug  Continue Reading

• A trip down memory lane

  Simon Quicke revisits some of the events that made the headlines during MicroScope's first decade in print – the heady days of the 1980s  Continue Reading

• Making the journey from break-fix to MSP

  A lot of resellers will be embarking on making the transition from break-fix to managed services and Clark Integrated Technology has already gone through that process and can share some of the lessons it learnt  Continue Reading

• In-depth: Selling BI in the context of other market trends

  Business intelligence vendors and their solutions need to be more agile and adaptive than ever, says Amro Gebreel. The need for business intelligence (BI) has never been greater. Data volumes continue to multiply and the requirement for real-time ...  Continue Reading

• Interview: Sir Peter Rigby finds fortune favours the brave

  As is the case with most successful entrepreneurs, it is possible to look at the winner of this year's MicroScope Awards for Channel Excellence lifetime achievement award, Sir Peter Rigby, and gloss over the hard work and visionary career that has ...  Continue Reading