Dive Brief:
- The channel will generate more than $4 trillion in value globally this year, as partner-delivered sales grow 6.7% year over year, according to Omdia research published Monday. The analyst firm expects the IT market to expand by more than 10% year over year, surpassing $6 trillion.
- As hyperscaler AI infrastructure investments continue to balloon, channel partners’ share of the addressable IT market will shrink slightly to two-thirds, down from just over 70% last year, Omdia said. Spending tied to cloud providers, including a rising cohort of GPU-as-a-Service neoclouds, will help drive 18% year-over-year growth in vendor spend, per the report.
- Despite Big Tech’s ongoing focus on AI-related data center buildouts, partner-centered system integration and advisory services remain vital to IT purchasing decisions. “IT services are forecast to grow at the fastest rate in years, although hardware and software will still grow faster,” Omdia Chief Analyst Jay McBain said in a LinkedIn post previewing the research.
Dive Insight:
The relatively rosy forecast papers over mounting challenges for partners in the evolving technology market.
In addition to AI-driven change, partners are contending with ongoing transformations in how technology is procured and what vendors and customers expect from the channel.
Supply chain disruptions and component shortages are contributing uncertainty to an already volatile market that’s been shaken by AI concerns and a wave of partner program resets favoring larger firms and incentivizing service-based outcomes over pure product sales, Omdia said.
AWS revamped its partner program and Google Cloud introduced a ground-up rebuild designed to encourage co-selling, post-sales services and collaborative software development in January. Meanwhile, Microsoft partners are grappling with the company’s software licensing policy reset.
Nevertheless, as IT spending mounts, partner opportunities expand, Omdia underscored.
Nearly three-quarters of organizations expect their IT budgets to grow in 2026, up less than two-thirds last year, according to a prior survey fielded by Omdia. Fewer than 1 in 10 anticipate budgets declining this year.
“Partners who invest in complementary and adjacent skills and develop services capabilities will be well-placed to grow,” the firm said.
Disclosure: Informa, which owns a controlling stake in Informa TechTarget, the publisher behind Channel Dive, is also invested in Omdia. Informa does not directly influence Channel Dive’s coverage.
