Telcos Poised to Grab Bigger Role in IT Services Business?

Look for signs of growing channel disruption as cloud-based managed services start to gain traction. The reason is that technology suppliers historically reliant on some channel partners, seem to be shifting to alternate channels, especially the large telcos.

Technology vendors are in many cases favoring distribution by the large telcos, the analysts say. For example, Microsoft is making its Windows Azure Platform Appliance and Office 365 available only to select telcos. Cisco Systems likewise is relying on telco partners to sell its managed service products.

The big potential issue is that many of the new managed services products might be more suitable for delivery by telco partners than by the historic channel partners such as  value-added resellers, system integrators, managed service providers, resellers and other partners, say Tim Harmon and Peter O’Neill, Forrester Research analysts.

Forrester Research estimates that more than 60 percent of technology product revenues are generated through channel partners including . But cloud technology options, including software-as-a-service (SaaS), therefore are poised to significantly alter channel structures.