IDC foresees 'aggregator' model for channel

Large firms could offer specialist services

By Amanda Sachtleben, Auckland | Monday, 19 May 2008
Research firm IDC predicts New Zealand’s channel landscape could look very different in five years, with large companies adopting new, specialist services for businesses and consumers.

Local country manager Amit Gupta told the audience at the recent IDC Directions 08 conference in Auckland, that any firm with mass reach into customer and business markets – such as HP, Microsoft, Google, Kordia, Vector, major telcos and even New Zealand Post – could become “aggregators” of services.

Such aggregators could partner with specialists such as telcos, services firms and hardware and software providers to gain offerings they haven’t traditionally provided for customers.

This would contrast with today’s eco-system, where integrators offer services from telcos, client and hosted software vendors and hardware firms, says Gupta.

“Aggregrators [would] have the ability to draw on the most competitive offerings through acquiring within their own ecosystem, or with strategic partnerships,” he says.

“I see it as the flip-side of the current channel model.”

Gupta cites large vendors such as HP and powerful brands like Google as examples of companies with the reach to become aggregators.

He says the partner eco-system would have to adopt an approach of “co-opetition” – a mix of cooperation and competition – to achieve this model.