How Ingram Micro Sees Its Future in the Cloud Age
-
How Ingram Micro Sees Its Future in the Cloud Age
While competition across the channel remains fierce, Ingram Micro is investing heavily in cloud services. We examine the distributor's cloud strategy. -
Level of Commitment to the Cloud
In the last four years, Ingram Micro has invested approximately $1.5 billion in building out its cloud platform and has made it clear it wants to own the intellectual property it uses to deliver cloud services. Ingram Micro also revealed it has more than 700 engineers working on its cloud platform. -
Number of Cloud Partners
Ingram Micro already has 30,000 partners operating across 18 countries registered to transact on Ingram Micro Cloud Marketplace. It has 10 million seats under management. On average, an Ingram Micro partner is managing seven subscriptions on the Ingram Micro Cloud Marketplace. By the end of this year, Ingram Micro predicts the average partner will be managing 20 subscriptions across 400 seats. -
Top Ingram Micro Cloud Partners
Recipients of Ingram Micro's 2016 Cloud Partner Awards include InfiniIT Consulting, Adapture, Aqueduct Technologies, Arterian, Altrion, TechQuarters and Interlinked. -
Major Cloud Acquisitions
Most recently, Ingram Micro acquired Ensim, a distributor of cloud applications and related IT services. Previously, Ingram Micro acquired the Odin cloud platform from Parallels in addition to Softcom and SofCloudIT to bolster the range of cloud service expertise it makes available to its channel partners. -
Ingram Micro as a Mall in the Cloud
The Ingram Micro Cloud Marketplace now provides access to more than 500 cloud services. Solution providers can either expose a branded or white-label version of the marketplace to their customers, or they can opt to download a version of the Odin cloud platform to host an instance of the store on their own private cloud. -
Future Ingram Micro Cloud Services
Ingram Micro has revealed it is building an integrated platform-as-a-service (iPaaS) environment through which partners will be able to integrate cloud applications and services more easily. -
Ingram Cloud Strategy
Ingram Micro plans to bundle various services along with helping solution providers target specific vertical markets. In addition, Ingram Micro is creating playbooks that partners can follow to sell different classes of cloud services. -
Ingram Referral Services
Ingram Micro also announced a Cloud Referral Program through which traditional resellers can market cloud services via their own Websites. Ingram Micro has also created Ingram Micro Cloud Echo, a marketing service that will make it simpler for solution providers to reuse marketing content across multiple social networks. -
Financial Headwinds
Ingram Micro's Q4 sales were $11.3 billion, down 19 percent in U.S. dollars and down 13 percent on a currency-neutral basis, compared to worldwide sales of $14 billion in Q4 2014. In this interval, non-GAAP operating income of $239 million was down from $247 million. GAAP operating income for Q4 was $196 million, or 1.73 percent of sales, compared with $201 million, or 1.44 percent of sales. -
Ingram Micro Going Under Tianjin Tianhai Umbrella
Once the acquisition of Ingram Micro by Tianjin Tianhai is complete, the company will join HNA Group. As such, Ingram Micro for all intents and purposes will become a private entity.
What Partners Need to Know About HP, Inc. 
MSPs Face Big Cybersecurity Talent Gap 
Why Tech Companies Are Eager to Invest in 5G 
The Problem With Partner Referral Programs 
Microsoft Taps Channel for Digital Business 
New Technologies Will Fuel Channel Opportunities 
Channel's Transition to the Cloud Requires More Time 
Microsoft's Cloud Channel Begins to Mature 
Defining MSPs' Goals, Challenges and Tools 
Why Metrics Matter to the Channel Being a distributor in the IT channel has never been easy. These days, however, distributors have more competition than ever now that the number of places and ways solution providers can source products and services has exploded. To remain relevant in the age of the cloud, Ingram Micro has poured more $1.5 billion into building out its own cloud platform. There are now some 30,000 registered partners doing transactions on that cloud. But the number of subscriptions per partner is still relatively light, seven on average. Ingram Micro wants to get the number up to 20 by the end of this year. As part of that cloud strategy, Ingram Micro has revealed that it is building its own integrated platform-as-a-service (iPaaS) to make it easier for partners to integrate applications via the cloud. Time will tell how much disruption Ingram Micro will drive versus actually being on the receiving end of that disruption. We examine how the distributor is prepared to do battle for partner loyalty in the age of the cloud against all comers.