ChannelTrends: Women in IT Council Debuts; Notebooks Rule Business; Telecom in the Cloud

The channel is evolving to meet economic challenges and rapid changes in technology, but are women being squeezed out of the industry? According to the latest research, that would seem to be the case.  CompTIA is taking some steps to reverse the trend and appointed two influential professionals to chair the council that will put it into action. Other newsworthy IT channel issues involve the switch to notebooks for business use, with the movement away from desktop PCs, and an announcement that shows an increased play for telecom in “the Cloud”.

Council Created to Encourage More Women in IT

Only 25 percent of professional IT-related occupations in the American 2009 workforce were held by women, a decrease from 36 percent in 1991, according to research from the National Center for Women & IT. The outlook from an education perspective isn’t much better: Only 18 percent of computer and information science degrees were awarded to women in 2008, which is down from 37 percent in 1985 (a more than 50-percent decline)!

So why are women avoiding or leaving the IT profession? The reasons might be too numerous to discuss here, but the result was quite startling, especially when you compare the technology field to other industries. For example, the NCWIT also points out that women hold more than half of all other professional occupations in the U.S. The issues are worth a lot more exploration and the CompTIA Educational Foundation announced the creation this week of a Women in Information Technology (WIT) Council to study and address the discrepancies between industries. The committee is charged with ensuring that women receive the knowledge and skills needed to be successful, and inspire them to pursue IT careers. 

The council elected Susan Krautbauer, Business Development-Americas for Elcoteq, and Jean Mork Bredeson, general manager of SERVICE 800, as its chair and vice-chair. Each has been an advocate for the IT channel through leadership positions in the industry, including their involvement in the CompTIA IT Services and Support Community. If you’ve ever had a chance to meet either of these ladies, you know they will drive the council to build successful programs to help change this downward trend.

Desktops Still Rule In Business…But Not For Long

Notebook sales finally may cross that elusive point in sales sometime this year, surpassing the number of desktop PCs delivered to businesses. This is a key trend that solution providers should be paying close attention to; their customers’ preferences and needs are shifting to mobile technologies including laptops, netbooks, smart phones and tablets.  As noted by our friends at Channel Insider, the growth of notebook sales over the past couple of years was hindered slightly due to the economic downturn and lack of business hiring.

Despite that hiccup in the markets, SMB market research company Techaisle reports that shipments of notebooks are expected to exceed desktop models sales to businesses sometime in 2011. The company also mentions that SMB purchases of all PCs are shifting from the reseller channel to retail and online stores. A reported 30 percent of mature market small business sales go through retail and online now.

Even employees locked in workstations or to their desks all day are benefiting from the latest notebooks or tablet technology, many docking the units with their desktops so they can do additional work from home or while travelling. The market is shifting and solution providers selling PCs need to make sure they have the right portfolio of offerings that the SMB segment wants. 

Telecom Making a Push Into the Cloud

With two significant deals taking place this week between telecom giants and cloud computing companies, could this be a trend solution providers should be paying close attention to? The latest announcement concerned the Time Warner Cable acquisition of cloud service provider NaviSite, Inc., which comes on the heels of Verizon Communications’ purchase of Terremark. As mentioned by our friend Joe Panettieri in his Talkin’Cloud news post, the Time Warner/NaviSite deal will enable the company to make a cloud push to the SMB customers. This will put them in competition with the IT channel and drive down the already tight profit margins in the process.

So, should solution providers be truly worried about this news? You be the judge based on one executive’s statement: “Cloud Computing continues to fundamentally alter the way enterprises procure, deploy and manage IT resources, and this combination helps create a tipping point for ‘everything-as-a-service’,” says Lowell McAdam, president and COO of Verizon.

I believe these deals, in the long run, will alter the channel landscape by forcing providers to focus even more on the individual needs of each client. The large players aren’t typically capable of altering their portfolio of services, or providing the local support, demanded by many SMB customers. That commitment to client’s needs is why the channel has continued to prosper, even in tough economic times, and increased competition in the cloud shouldn’t be any different.