CompTIA Previews Three Upcoming Trends in 2016 Industry Outlook

Ahead of the release of its annual IT Industry Outlook report, CompTIA is providing channel partners with a sneak preview of some of the trends we can expect to see in the coming year.

Among this year’s hottest trends to watch, CompTIA is predicting an increase in the importance of cloud, new compensation models for cloud-centric channel partners and a focus on providing enterprise customers with a better end-to-end experience.

First and foremost, CompTIA predicts that cloud computing will continue its transformation from an important new technology to a critical resource for enterprise IT. This is bound to lead to big changes for cloud service providers and customers who rely on the cloud to operate their businesses.

“While cloud will not quite become a pure commodity like electricity, it will be so prevalent in IT architecture than cloud-specific focus will give way to overall solution planning” said Seth Robinson, senior director of Technology Analysis at CompTIA, in a statement.

CompTIA also predicts that the rise of cloud computing will have a profound impact on the financial relationships between technology vendors and their channel partners. The company believes the growing importance of cloud will force many technology vendors to reevaluate their compensation models and keep partners interested in their services, according to Carolyn April, CompTIA’s senior director of Industry Analysis.

Finally, CompTIA expects that we will see a renewed push by technology providers to provide better end-to-end experiences for their enterprise business users. While some of these efforts will be driven by the technology providers themselves, others will be a result of customer demand for more support, said Tim Herbert, CompTIA’s senior vice president of Research and Market Intelligence.

Stay tuned to The VAR Guy in the coming weeks for the full breakdown of the CompTIA 2016 IT industry Outlook once it is released.

In the meantime, check out CompTIA’s recent report on the importance of big data projects for enterprise users, and sound off in the comments on what you think will be some of the biggest industry changes in 2016.