11 top partner leaders have revealed what most caught them cold at Canalys Forums EMEA this morning, with one saying he “totally disagreed” with the thesis of the opening keynote.
Around 1,000 partner leaders descended on Barcelona this morning to hear a plethora of Omdia analysts pinpoint the channel opportunity in a tech market that is set to boom 35% in 2026.
The event was opened once more by Canalys Founder Steve Brazier, whose claim that partners should go all in on hardware was openly challenged by Omdia Chief Analyst Jay McBain.
Chief Analyst Alastair Edwards then took to the stage to claim that the “balance of power” is beginning to shift back from vendors to partners.
But what was the snap reaction from the partner leaders present?
We collared 11 for their views.
Here’s what they said…
“It further endorsed where we need to make additional investments”
Hayley Mooney, Chief Commercial Officer, Bytes Software Services
Were there any curveballs for you in this morning’s keynotes?
Bytes Software Services has always been primarily a software company, but we are seeing huge demand for hardware both on the device and infrastructure side.
The data this morning further endorsed the area where we probably need to make some additional investments for the next fiscal in terms of skills that lend themselves to managing that hardware/logistics side of things.
We don’t have a warehouse, so we need to lean really heavily on distribution partners and build those strong relationships to make sure we can deliver to our customers.
“I think Steve was absolutely wrong”
Alex Tatham, Non Executive Director, Novatech
What was the biggest curveball for you from this morning’s keynotes?
I think Steve Brazier was absolutely wrong to say that distributors and resellers need to stock up because they’ll make money on stock. We don’t do that. That’s a gamble and things could change tomorrow.
Although I do think end users will buy forward – and of course if they buy more of it they’re more likely to rank higher from an allocation stake.
Steve Brazier and Jay McBain disagreed on whether the AI opportunity for partners is around hardware or services. Are you Team Steve or Team Jay?
I’m more team Jay than I was Steve on that particular point. But Steve’s speech was absolutely outstanding as always, and the rise of Anthropic and is just a truly phenomenal thing we’re witnessing.
“I loved the fact they disagreed”
Simon Williams, Stuart Daley and Tanaz Gould, CEO, Chief Commercial Officer and CRO of Trustmarque Ultima
Were there any curveballs for you from this morning’s keynotes?
Williams: I really liked the fact they didn’t all say the same thing. I loved the fact they disagreed.
[Steve Brazier’s keynote] was only about hardware and datacentres, and I’m sitting there going, ‘true, but it’s more than that’. He even said that if you’re doing AI services and helping people adopt AI, you’re not going to make any money – ‘don’t do it’.
And then Jay stood up and went, ‘what it’s all about is helping people with AI services.’ I liked the provocation.
Daley: Part of our job is to clarify that confusion for customers. Anyone listening to that will be like, ‘where do we go from here?’, so I think it’s incumbent on us to make sure we’re giving clear messages to customers.
Gould: For me, this was just pointing out that no one really knows, even the researchers. And we’re all just trying to figure it out together. What came out to me is that there is so much opportunity; it’s just really important to make your bed right. because I heard as much about the people that are going to fail as those who are going to win.
“It pinpointed the reality for all of us”
Magnus Lönn, CEO, Proact
What surprised you from this morning’s keynotes?
No surprises but I think they were really good, forward-looking statements. It’s really pinpointing the reality that all of us are working at.
Steve Brazier and Jay McBain disagreed on whether the AI opportunity for partners is around hardware or services. Are you Team Steve or Team Jay?
I think maybe both are right, depending on the aspect you are looking at it. But I think at least in the coming year, hardware and datacentres will continue.
“That’s a problem for me”
James Hunnybourne, CEO, Cybit
Were there any curveballs for you from this morning’s keynotes?
The statement that there’s no money to be made in AI to start off with was a little bit shocking – before everyone went on to contradict that. I think it’s really interesting to see the resurgence in product. Running an MSP which is 90% services oriented, that’s a problem for me. It’s something I need to keep an eye out for.
Brazier and Jay McBain disagreed on whether the AI opportunity for partners is around hardware or services. Is it fair to say you’re more Team Jay?
Yes, I would say I am, mainly because it works better for me! That’s what we’ve also been seeing as well.
With AI [the decision making] is completely the other way around [from usual] – ‘we must just go and buy loads and loads of this stuff but now we’re trying to work out how to get the most out of it’.
It’s a great opportunity for us but it’s very strange market behaviour – I’ve not seen it since the rush to the cloud a long time ago.
“Hardware is back – 100%”
Carl Henriksen, CEO, OryxAlign
What was the biggest curveball for you this morning?
A lot of MSPs are going, ‘we’re doing AI consultancy and we’ll go in and consult on AI and install Claude Enterprise, LLMs or whatever you want to do and tell you how to run your business’.
I don’t think that’s going to work because [tech providers] don’t know the client’s business as well as the client does. I think they validated that in the keynote – [the model] where AI consultancies say, ‘we’ll tell you how to run the business’ is probably not going to exist.
We definitely won’t be going in telling clients how to run their organisation. We’ll supply the hardware, the network, the resilience and the security around that.
Steve Brazier and Jay McBain disagreed on whether the AI opportunity for partners is around hardware or services. Are you Team Steve or Team Jay?
Hardware is back – 100%. I was at a partner conference in Vegas 6-7 months ago and they were wheeling out NVIDIA hardware and GPUs on stage and everyone was applauding, and I’m thinking to myself, ‘what is going on here’?
I’m definitely not going to rush out and buy a warehouse full of hardware – it’s not our game. We will encourage our clients in the datacentre space who are procuring hardware to run the datacentre network for the hyperscalers to order early, because we are seeing lead times massively expand and constrained.
“They did it in the right way, rather than doom and gloom”
Rob Darby, Director of Alliances and Partnerships, Managed247
Were there any curveballs for you in this morning’s keynotes?
I found the content probably the most controversial and the most changed we’ve heard for a while. If you think back two years ago, Steve Brazier came out with ‘the channel is done’, whereas this was quite bright. It wasn’t just about cloud or AI: it was actually about making sense of the partner landscape over the next four years.
The underlying tone was, you’ve got to change or you’ll be done. But they did it in the right way, rather than doom and gloom.
Are you Team Brazier or McBain?
If you’re a hardware specialist then go with Brazier. If not, then stick with Jay.
“You need to have a strong internal use of AI”
James Napp, Regional Director UK&I & MD UK, Bechtle
Steve Brazier and Jay McBain disagreed on whether the AI opportunity for partners is around hardware or services. Are you Team Steve or Team Jay?
Like most things in this industry it’s a hybrid story. We absolutely believe in the hardware and services side.
Did anything else jump out from the keynotes?
That to be competitive on the MSP side you do need to have a strong internal use of AI. That’s going to become more and more apparent as time goes on.
“We are modernising”
Penny Williams, Managing Director at CDW UK and International
What leapt out at you from the keynotes?
The technology ecosystem is evolving at unprecedented pace, and we have absolute clarity on how our business needs to evolve with it. We are modernising and transforming our capabilities, operating model and ways of working to ensure we can deliver the speed, scale and expertise our customers need to turn their AI ambition into meaningful business outcomes.
