New Forms Of Competition Are Emerging

The barriers to entry for a new business are lower today than ever before, Bibby said, with startups now capable of paying for secure email, computing and storage by the month.

This has created a major opening for born-in-the-cloud solution providers, Bibby said, who have gained market share by capitalizing on the indecisiveness of some legacy VARs.

Plus end users are starting to come up with their own IT solutions, said Bibby, citing a financial institution that has sold its own platform-as-a-service offering to 50 other banks.

In total, he expects the 3rd platform will disrupt or transform a third of the leading solution providers in every IT sector.