Of the 6,000 new channel partners brought on each year by Ingram Micro, the distributor has found that they're increasingly either born-in-the-cloud or have steered their businesses toward cloud services through mergers and acquisitions, said Kirk Robinson, Ingram's senior vice president of commercial markets and global accounts. 

Robinson cautioned that born-in-the-cloud partners typically can't fulfill all of their end users' needs since they tend to focus on one technology area such as security or mobility, meaning that traditional on-premise partners are usually also needed to address the clients' broad array of needs. 

Although a cloud specialist can fulfill a customer's need on some occasions, many customers are in need of a more comprehensive solution, according to Marq Cerqua, an IT services consultant for All Covered, No. 110 on the CRN's Solution Provider 500. Cerqua believes a partner would likely provide superior consulting or advice if it understands the brick-and-mortar side of the business.

"Everything has a backbone," Cerqua told CRN in an interview following the panel session. "I think you'd miss a lot [by focusing just on the cloud]."

The IT channel has additionally been challenged by increasingly frequent encounters with the telecom channel, which Garzon said has a leg up on its IT counterparts since its financial model and expertise have long been built around selling subscription-based services.

Pure IT solution providers benefit from a trusted relationship with clients thanks to their many years of consulting and advisory work, Garzon said, but are just now coming down to offer recurring revenue-based services.

Garzon expects the IT and telecom spaces to converge within the next three to five years as the telecom channel expands its ability to become a trusted advisor and the IT channel figures out how to successfully monetize services. Acquisitions could also help drive a convergence of the two spaces, Garcon said.

Short of an acquisition, partnerships between telecom and managed services firms can help both grow their installed base, thanks to all of the additional services they're now able to offer, Bradbury said

"If you're an MSP, find a telco partner that makes sense and offer your services to them," Bradbury said. "And vice versa."

The telecom channel opens up a whole new ecosystem, Rauch said, making it possible for VMware to work with vendors such as Apple and Samsung for the first time.