BoB Attendees: The Split Up, Spin Out Frenzy Is Just Beginning

Solution providers attending the BoB Conference say the split up, spin out frenzy that is sending ripples through the channel is just beginning.

"This is just getting started," said Jed Ayres, the chief marketing officer  for MCPc, the $262 million Cleveland, Ohio, national solution provider ranked No. 89 on the SP500 that is building out a $100 million HP Helion cloud data center in Cleveland. "Wall Street is reacting favorably to these splits. We expect to see many more of these in the future."

How split-up mania will impact the way solution providers structure their own businesses will be front and center at CRN parent The Channel Company's BOB Conference Oct. 13-15 at the Grand Hyatt Cypress in Orlando Fla.

Ayres has been in the solution provider business for 20 years navigating the ever changing technology landscape but has never seen anything like the turmoil among industry heavyweights in the last several months.
"Are you surviving this?" he asked. "Don't you wake up every day wondering what is going to happen next?"

In the last week alone, industry giants Hewlett Packard and Symantec both announced they are splitting up in a bid to be more competitive in a fast moving market. On top of that, EMC is facing pressure from activist hedge fund Elliott Management to split up. Solution providers say they expect more vendors to be pressured to do the same.

Ayres said he sees the HP split, which separates the computer giant into two publically traded Fortune 50 companies – a $57 billion PC and Printing business and a $57 billion enterprise computing business – as a watershed moment for MCPc.

In fact, he said MCPc, without any knowledge of the HP split, had only one month before the HP split separated its PC business from its next generation data center business.

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