CCF-APAC 2018 Focus on AI, Hybrid Cloud and Automation

10th edition of Canalys Channels Forums(CCF 2018) for the APAC took place from 4th - 6th December 2018 in Hotel KERRY, Hong Kong. The theme of the event is on“Independent Intelligence”, where 1000 senior level IT executives from the IT fraternity across the APAC region. The focus of the event is focused on Artificial Intelligence, Hybrid Cloud enablement and adoption and the whole area of addressing digital transformation in the channels space.

Global vendors such as Dell EMC, Lenovo, HP, Schneider Electric , Huawei, AMD, Citrix, Fujitsu and VMware among others – are putting their best foot forward in terms of showcasing their latest and innovative offerings directed towards the channel community of the region. The event witnessed by the three important keynote speeches given by CEOs . They are Yang Yuanqing, CEO of Lenovo, Jean-Pascal Tricoire, CEO and Chairman of Schneider Electric and Steve Brazier, CEO, Canalys. The other senior dignitary includes Ng Tian Chong, President Asia Pacific and Japan – HP Inc. Ng Tian Beng, Senior Vice President & General Manager, Channels, Asia Pacific Japan – Dell EMC Corporation and Dmitri Chen, Chief Operating Officer, APJ, VP, Speciality Sales, Dell EMC.

Various other companies had also showcased their product and solutions and LogMeIn – a secure remote desktop software access provider, UI Path- fastest growing company into the sector of RPA, MobileIron – a modern workforce security enabler, Bitdefender, Kaseya – an IT management software and monitoring solutions provider and FusionGrove – account based revenue orchestration enabler – among others.

On the keynote speech Steve Brazier spoke, “It is a multi-cloud world. Steve discusses how the entire IT market has performed well, even in areas that were unexpected such as the PC market.

Security is, of course, another major trend - there is little new to say here except that those who are selling into this area are going to continue to win.

Bitcoin and its related markets are dead except for “drug dealers and terrorists,” Brazier says. “It was hype, it was a bubble. You shouldn’t be in the market. It has collapsed. It will not come back” - the message is pretty clear.

Blockchain is treated sceptically by Brazier. “It’s a shared spreadsheet, an Excel file. There’s a lot of hype but whether it really changes the world the way people hope, we really doubt. Most experiments are not going well.”

Vendor and partner tension is beginning to grow as vendors are stepping on the toes of resellers and integrators, according to Brazier

He further continued, “You need edge computing, you need on-premises computing, you need security, and if you’re only reselling public cloud, you can’t provide the customer the full experience. Most born-in-the-cloud companies are not making money, and we expect them to be acquired, either by channel partners providing multi-cloud experiences or system integrators. That bubble will burst.”

Brazier also spoke on several technologies he feels represent hot opportunities for the channel. “Flash, wireless, hyper converged, software-as-a-service, IoT and sensors, managed security and public cloud are all extremely high growth,” he said. 

“Our end-to-end experience & LOB engagement is key for channel partners moving forward. We are here to help! Huge thanks to our APAC Partners for the great results this year. Japan and ANZ did really well for us. It is surprising when everyone only expects the emerging markets to grow, and yet the mature markets did really well," remarked Dmitri Chen, APJ COO in his speech.

“87% of our business is through the channel and we want to be innovative with a purpose, to be very customer-insight driven, and to have our character. Arrogance and complacency are the biggest enemies," said Ng Tian Chong, President of HP Inc. APJ.

“We have focused on improving elements of our program in being predictable - how (sales) are selling into accounts our partners have been selling into to protect the investment, and how we help partners sell into new accounts," Ng Tian Beng, Senior VP and GM, Dell EMC APJ Channels said.

“We believe the larger potential lies within commercial IoT. We are only scratching the surface of these new smart IoT product categories. In future, Lenovo will focus on three areas - Smarter IoT, so we view PC and the smartphone as part of it; second is new IT, software datacenter, supercomputer and hyper-scale businesses; and third is smart verticals," said Yang Yuanqing, CEO – Lenovo.

“In the 21st century, where many people still don't have access to reliable energy, our mission is to supply energy. We develop or supply combined solutions of power and digital because they are the source of life.  We live in exciting times, at the convergence of IT and power. If you look at the equation of energy in 15 years from now, energy consumption will grow one-fold. Electricity will grow twice the pace, and IT four times," said Jean-Pascal Tricoire, CEO- Schneider Electric.

“As digital transformation unfolds around the globe, a new reality is emerging - Digitization’s productivity gains depend on clean and reliable electrical power,” added Jean-Pascal.

“AI will become a new general-purpose technology and will dramatically change all industries and organisations. Our strategy for industry digital transformation is "platform plus AI plus ecosystem," said Ma Yue, VP of Huawei EBG and President of EBG Global Sales. 

“Why are you selling direct when you want us to be loyal?” Brazier asks as a hypothetical partner.

Many vendors are going direct, by taking the data from the partners, that become a pain point with the partners. “You don’t want vendors to get your customer data,” he says.

Steve said in a strong statement on, China’s potential to overtake the US in three main categories - Best performing cloud, 5G and computing. With this type of advancement in the technology “Future battles may not be physical wars, they will be cyber wars.

“The people and countries with the most advanced computing and power are the ones that will win. This will have knock-on effects in areas like AI, the economy, healthcare, positive things too.”

"Smart speakers. Led by Amazon, Apple, and Google, but also in China with… Xiaomi etc.”

Brazier expands this trend to include ‘Voice’ in general, pointing out the frustrating irony of having to launch a smartphone app to use smart home features when a switch was much quicker - however, with voice activation, this is all going to change.

“Voice platforms are going to be a major competitive area. While they are mainly in smart speakers today, they are going to be seen in many places, not least cars.”

Finally, Brazier makes his five last predictions.

Prediction one looks at the Alibaba/Amazon battle for the direct to business market. Alibaba will overtake and beat Amazon Business in South-East Asia by 2020.

The challenges both of these companies will face around counterfeit goods (that Amazon has done little to mitigate on its own platform), which will impact these marketplaces and disrupt pricing.

The predictions look like bad news for Intel, on top of the fact that China is aiming to produce its own semi-conductors and perhaps even Intel clones for its own market. There’s a lot of innovation going on in processors,” Steve says.

Prediction two is that “Apple has the performance, we think, to leave the Intel processor behind by 2020."

Prediction three is that “Intel is short of products this quarter..., AMD has the best set of products . This quarter, AMD will achieve its highest share of PC sales for more than a decade.

Prediction four also relates to Alibaba, this time that Alibaba Cloud will become the third largest cloud provider in APJ excluding China in 2019 .

Prediction five is By 2021, India overtaking the UK and France to become the fifth largest IT infrastructure market in the world.

“Stock markets have come down, in China significantly, in the US significantly. Many tech companies are worth 20% less now than they were three months ago. The biggest driver of economic change is that the US has decided to end quantitative easing, which they have been doing since 2009 when the financial crisis happened.