Channel's Transition to the Cloud Requires More Time

The "State of the Cloud Channel 2017" report, based on a survey of 142 channel partners conducted by Gorilla, a provider of channel marketing and sales services, finds that while channel partners have embraced cloud computing to varying degrees, the channel still has a long way to go in terms of making the transition to the cloud. Conducted in collaboration with Kairos Consulting, the survey finds that 74 percent of partners offer some cloud-based service today, but only 42 percent are engaged with more than four cloud vendors. In fact, the most widespread usage of cloud solutions is confined to software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications (48 percent) versus infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) solutions (30 percent). Channel partners concede that customer interest in cloud solutions is high, but the survey indicates that many customers are not yet making the transition. Of course, there are many business model issues that partners need to confront when transitioning to the cloud, and the Gorilla survey suggests that there's still a lot of work to be done in that area across the channel community.