“While that share is declining, actually, we see the level of influence… growing within customer environments, within enterprises, within public sector.”
Omdia Chief Analyst Alastair Edwards claimed the influence of channel partners is on the rise, even as the channel’s share of total tech spending shrinks (see more here).
Some 65% of tech spending will flow through the channel in 2026, down from close to 70% in 2025, according to the analyst’s numbers. That’s set to drop to 63% in 2027, Edwards said.
Although partners may be locked out of the majority of hyperscale build outs, Omdia is seeing “a lot of growth” in some of the larger VARs and systems integrators serving regional neocloud companies, he said.
“More generally, in the enterprise space, the only way that enterprise organisations and public sector companies can actually prepare themselves for the future is by modernising their IT, by investing in the next generation platforms, solutions, services, and software to support the move into an AI world… and the only way we can do that is through partners,” he added.
Here in Europe, end customers are looking for support from partners to increase the level of resilience in their business, Edwards said, adding that this is something “vendors can’t do directly”.
The topics they’re most concerned about include not only cybersecurity, but vendor lock-in and supply changes around availability of hardware.
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