40 quotes that tell the channel's story last year
We round up 2019 in quotes from the channel's biggest names
"We are looking at a number of different ports. I'm sure it will change over the coming weeks as events unfold, so I don't have names of specific ports. But we are absolutely sure that we have a robust supply chain."- HP Channel boss Neil Sawyer on the plans being put in place for Brexit, which it later turned out were not needed.
"We have kept them at arm's length and we want them to continue to grow. Their mission is to acquire partners and we want them to continue to be aggressive. - HP's print boss Tuan Tran said the plan is for Apogee to keep on acquiring.
"If you think about other tags in the channel, an SI's job is to put systems together, a VAR takes somebody else's product and adds value to around it, but a performance partner is somebody who implicitly understands what a business is trying to achieve." - CSI CEO Simon Payne on why the firm is rebranding itself as an ‘enterprise performance partner'.
"It's amazing how many vendors don't have a Brexit strategy." - Westcoast boss Alex Tatham on his disbelief of some manufacturers.
"Sometimes you see your own children as more beautiful than they are." - Econocom CEO Jean-Louis Bouchard on taking the reins back from his son, six months after appointing him.
"It's an understandable decision from Microsoft when customers are going directly to AWS and doing the same thing with their credit cards… but Microsoft is being disingenuous if it tries to position this as a positive move for partners." - Canalys analyst Alistair Edwards on Microsoft taking Azure purchasing direct for SMBs.
"I have been working myself out of a job." - Connectwise founder Arnie Bellini, after a private equity firm acquired a majority stake in the vendor.
"We realised we both had the same business values and Sir Stelios invited us to join his ‘easy' family of brands. I went into a meeting prepared for some tough negotiations and walked out with a new business partner!" - Easy Networks founder Richard Gwilliams on bracing for what he thought were intellectual property talks with Stelios, only to find that Easy Group wanted to buy a stake in the business.
"Britain has a long standing and proud reputation as a global tech leader and it's fantastic that NTT has chosen London for its global headquarters." - Former Prime Minister Theresa May was on hand to open the new international HQ of NTT Ltd, the new $11bn-revenue entity.
"Strategically we have been very focused on how we build our mid-market play, from an account point of view, as we have been skewed towards the enterprise. That's an area that PCM brings a lot of value." - Insight CEO Ken Lamneck on the rationale behind the resellers surprise acquisition of US counterpart PCM.
Highlights