Oxygen 250 2026 Dinner: UK Channel Partners Expect Components Drought To Last Until 2030

UK channel partners are braced for the components drought to last until 2030, with some warning that allocation will rapidly overtake price to become the most pressing issue.

Held in partnership with Nebula Global Services, last night’s Oxygen 250 2026 dinner saw 15 of the UK’s top channel partners come together at Quaglino’s in Mayfair.

This included top executives from eight of the Oxygen 250’s top 10 in the form of Softcat, Computacenter, Bytes Technology Group, CDW, SCC, Trustmarque and Bell Integration (see full line-up, bottom).

See the best images from the evening here.

“This isn’t going to fix next year; this is out to 2030”

The pre-dinner discussion quickly turned to deepening memory shortages that have already prompted the likes of HPE and Cisco to narrow their price protection windows and begin reserving the right to raise prices post-PO.

Sarah Shields, Head of Vendor Alliances at Computacenter, said a leading OEM last week had sought to illustrate the extent of the price rises by underlining that the price of a 64GB DIMM has risen from $47 to $3,000 over the last 12 months.

But an even larger issue is looming, she warned.

“When you talk to the OEMs, this isn’t going to fix next year; this is out to 2030,” she said.

“We’ve got another couple of months of moaning about price hikes; then it’s going to be allocation – and that’s where it’s going to start to get really, really critical, because then who gets prioritised?

“Are we going to see defence and public sector prioritised? Are we going to see US versus others? There are lots of different questions, but allocation is the real issue here, and it’s coming fast.”

Melissa Rambridge and Yolanta Gill, Oxygen 250 2026 dinner

Melissa Rambridge, CEO of InTEC, voiced a similar concern.

“We do a lot of school new builds. We are having to provide a bill of materials and pricing for a school that has to open in September 2028. How do we predict at this stage the price and delivery date on a spec that’s provided now by the Department for Education?” she said.

“There’s a commitment from the education sector for that school to open for 1,400 pupils as of September 1, 2028 – or whenever it might be – so it has got to be live.”

“I’m terrified of the numbers you just shared”

Simon Williams, CEO of Trustmarque, said rocketing prices have prompted distributors to begin putting quantities as well as values into their quarterly business reviews for the first time.

“I think some of the vendor relationships are going to start doing the same,” he predicted.

“I’m terrified of the numbers you just shared. I expect the thresholds for the tiering will have to change, because the costs are all just going up.”

But Williams, along with Alastair Rudman, CEO of Natilik, agreed that availability of stock is fast becoming more of an issue that pricing.

“It might be controversial [to say], but the predictability of delivery is a bigger issue than the predictability of the price,” Rudman said.

“Everyone’s acknowledged that the price has changed. But if you can’t predict when you can have the technology, that’s a bigger problem for our customers.

“I think the vendor winners will be those that actually hit their commitments.”

Alastair Rudman, Natilik, Oxygen 250 2026 dinner

Yolanta Gill, CEO of European Electonique, said her company is now waiting on some equipment for projects for up to five months.

“If you’ve got a project and timeline, you not only have to rescope, but in some instances, we have to use some distribution switches to act as core switches for later on, to redesign the solution again,” she said.

“It’s all about what can people get their hands on”

80% of Cisillion’s clients have been “quite sympathetic” about rising prices and changes in Ts and Cs, its CTO Rob Quickenden said.

“For our sellers, this is a good opportunity to get into hearts and minds and expand the conversation more into finance teams than we’ve probably done before,” he said.

“And that’s uncovering for us more cloud conversations – it’s all about what can people get their hands on.”

Cisilion’s position isn’t being helped by vendors and competitors telling customers to “just ride the wave” until 2027, Quikenden said.

“We hear a lot from our customers that they’re told by either our competitors or by OEMs directly that this will sort itself out this year. And when you sit and say it won’t, a lot of customers don’t believe you,” he said.

John Holt, Director of Professional & Managed Services at CDW UK, said customers are struggling to get deals signed off within vendors’ shortened quote validity windows, meanwhile.

“They accept that things are going to change, and that quotes might only last 14 days,” he said.

“But they’re struggling to get a quote signed off within 14 days. That’s caused them embarrassment within their business, but we’re having to work with them on how do you short circuit that process? Because once we give a quote, they’ve got to be able to place the order straight away, otherwise that quote won’t be valid.”

“I quite like there being kit shortages”

Ross Teague with Russell Brown and Neil Hall at the Oxygen 250 2026 dinner

Several in the room acknowledged that the components shortage is acting as a double-edged sword for their businesses, meanwhile.

“We’re re-platforming all our VMware platforms, and we erred on making an order in February – it cost us £250,000,” Craig Mackay, Group COO at Iomart Group, said.

“The flip side, though, is that there’s an advantage there. We’ve got a bare-metal business that’s got loads of old servers that we’re ready to recycle. We’re seeing huge demand for that now, because people need to put workloads somewhere, and they can’t buy tin themselves.”

Ross Teague, CEO of Nebula Global Services, said that, as the leader of a third-party maintenance firm, he “quite likes there being kit shortages”, although conceded that projects are “taking forever”.

“I think you need to have a scenario where your business is robust enough in terms of the different workstreams you have – if you’ve got a down here, you’ve got an up there,” he said.

Russell Brown, UK CEO of SCC, said his company is focusing on ways to help its clients extend assets.

“Customers actually understand the challenge now. It’s gone beyond the question of ‘is it real?’,” he said.

“They’re looking to see what can they do with their existing assets. There are two things: how can they extend the life of the asset, get it recertified and redistributed; and to support that conversation, they’re looking at telematics on the devices.”

Sheryl Moore, Director of Sustainability at Converge Technology Solutions UK, agreed, saying it had “taken something like this” for customers to look more at refurbishment and recycling options.

“I’d love to say vendors are feeling the pain, but I’m not sure they are”

Simon Williams at the Oxygen 250 2026 dinner

Everyone around the table agreed that there has been one group of winners from the current predicament in the form of the OEMs.

Neil Hall, CEO of Focus Group, noted how the big vendors have quickly insulated themselves from any risk when it comes to rising component costs.

“If you think about how vendors have operated, for as long as I can remember, when they got the order, they wouldn’t guarantee the cost price of the components of the assembly until it was going through production. Because everything was dropping, if there was a delay in that period of time they were gaining,” he said.

“It’s the first time for a long time that it’s flipped the other way. They’re not happy, and they’re changing the rules of the game because it’s turned against them.”

“Now they’re selling less and making more money,” Williams said.

“I’d love to say they’re feeling the pain, but I’m not sure they are.”