Declining Perpetual Licenses Entice VARs to Embrace Managed Services
Summary
As more IT hardware and software providers shift from offering perpetual licenses in 2023, the clock may be running out for VARs that have resisted the managed services movement. Alex Cvetkovski, CloudBlue’s director of go-to-market and acceleration services, recently noted: “Research indicates that B2B companies are increasingly leveraging recurring-revenue models to create a better experience for customers who routinely prefer making small, regular payments instead of large, infrequent ones.” The trend is also shifting to hardware. “We’re seeing more customers engaged with us with the conversations around true scale, or as a service for both the client and the server side,” Vlad Rozanovich, president of Lenovo North America, recently told Channel Futures. “That’s a part of the business that I think is going to remain extremely strong, not just this quarter, but also moving into strength in the foreseeable future.” Another example is Dell, now offering its server and infrastructure hardware as managed services with the launch of Apex. As for the IT decision maker, the provider promoting managed services needs to have a pragmatic conversation with them by saying, “‘If your arms are wrapped around the infrastructure, you’re spending time on tactical stuff, that’s not good for your career,’” he said.
