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Iain Shaw talks about the recent 15th Brigantia Conference and where the group is heading over the next six months…
Over 150 delegates gathered at the Microsoft Campus in Reading on Thursday November 22nd for what turned out to be the best get-together of Brigantia members and alliance partners in the 15-year history of the subscription membership community.
Sponsored and hosted by Brigantia vendor alliance partner Microsoft, the event was very much about how to profit from cloud services. Ian Moyse from CompTIA gave a brilliant presentation entitled ‘Accelerating your Cloud business’.
Moyse also? explained the benefits?of CompTIA trade? association? membership to those ?gathered.
What Moyse told? everyone was then ?heavily underlined by? Techgate plc ?managing director? Martin Wright, who? explained how he had built a highly successful cloud services distributor business over recent years. Members also learnt why he had invested in Brigantia and the future he saw for channel computer solution providers.
Cisco Product Director Jans Hofmeister’s presentation was entitled ‘Smart Wi-Fi controlling your network from anywhere anytime’. This wonderfully flowing presentation took members to places they had never imagined they might end up going as computer solution providers and showed just how important smart Wi-Fi is going to be over the coming years as more and more devices are looking for connectivity to access cloud services.
Andy Dow, marketing director of Computer 2000, was able to pick up on how they can assist computer solution providers to deliver the necessary hardware and moved the proposition from purely being about the last pound saved on a product to added value.
Microsoft put on excellent speakers who covered hardware, Office 365, Lync, Windows 8, phone and licensing. In a rousing call to arms Brigantia managing director Paul Ashley, outlined where the group is heading over the next six months with the emphasis very much on assisting members to access broadband, comms, backup, anti- spam and other cloud based services through wholesale arrangements being put in place. The first services are currently being tested by a number of members who were present at the conference.
Now with the conference over for 2012, Brigantia members are concentrating on the all important Christmas and New Year trading periods. Brigantia next gets together in early March 2013.
In my next column I will review the events of 2012 and look ahead to 2013 making my usual set of predictions, having consulted with my crystal ball.
Iain Shaw is the founder and a director of Brigantia, the UK and Irelands largest subscription membership community of independent computer solution providers.
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