How Interconnected Enterprises Spur Business Gains

The number of interconnected enterprises is expected to double by 2017, according to a survey, conducted by Equinix, an interconnection and data center company. The survey of more than 1,000 IT decision-makers also reveals the biggest business priority for almost half of them is to drive revenue growth, with interconnection at the heart of the strategies cited as key to meeting this goal. Existing IT architectures weren't built for the current level of engagement and distributed coverage—such as ubiquitous user access, and sourcing to external business and IT services to cloud-based providers—resulting in more points of engagement. There is a new wave of converging the physical and virtual worlds, and businesses depend more than ever on how they collaborate with partners and engage with customers and employees, said Tony Bishop, vice president of enterprise at Equinix. The distributed coverage—combined with other requirements, such as the need to add new services rapidly and support this multi-cloud ubiquitous world of service delivery—is becoming a catalyst of new opportunity for VADs, VARs, MSPs and SIs, Bishop said. Here are 10 key reasons companies in the channel need to refocus their services.