2025 Predictions – Experts discuss where the IT channel is headed next year

James Munroe, Channel Director at Trend Micro:

The cybersecurity channel will continue to face evolving challenges heading into 2025. Skills gaps and the growing complexity of security perimeters continue to strain organisations and customers struggle to identify risks across their IT and OT environments. This requires channel partners to offer solutions that identify all risks and gaps within the technology estate.

To address these challenges, we’re expecting partners will continue to seek vendors who can consolidate multi-solutions with a platform and offer innovative ways to consume and procure. Managed attack surface risk management is a key priority, as the rise of platform plays enables partners to help customers quantify and mitigate risks more effectively. 

Looking ahead, as risks grow in volume and perimeters become harder to quantify, platform-based solutions will help channel partners break down cyber risks to qualify and quantify them in explainable ways. AI and Generative AI will also remain top priorities as channel partners look to bolster their platform offerings with threat intelligence capabilities. This will empower them to develop clear strategies for risk management and mitigation, laddering up to more comprehensive security measures.

Jonathan Wright, Director of Products and Operations at GCX

Vendor flexibility remains a critical challenge heading into 2025. As managed solutions expand to encompass networking and security holistically, vendors must develop commercial flexibility to sell directly to end customers and through diverse channels.

When you factor in operating in different regions with diverse vendor teams, the challenge of implementing globally managed solutions is intensified by some vendors’ ‘box-shifting’ mentality. This approach prioritises product sales over customer needs, hindering effective service reselling across different regions. Despite these hurdles, optimism should remain high for channels pushing the right products. Customers' needs are undergoing seismic shifts, so adaptation is key. The surging SASE market over the past 12 months highlights this, as organisations sought to boost visibility to tackle evolving security challenges.

As we approach 2025, we expect early SASE adopters to flourish. We also expect opportunities to arise from customers looking to collapse the costs of point security solutions into more concise SASE-delivered offerings. Furthermore, as compliance frameworks continue to evolve, we expect a significant increase in microsgementation requests. This will serve as a means of bolstering compliance through a more targeted application of security controls

Tim Whiteley, Co-Founder of Inevidesk

The outlook for channel businesses and their vendor partners in 2025 will be shaped by key factors, including volatile economic conditions and the rapid pace of technological change. Success will depend on how effectively businesses address opportunities and challenges in the evolving landscape.

In the Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) market, flexibility and resilience are vital for many organisations, and that’s fueling the continued migration of infrastructure to off-premises solutions. However, compared to a few years ago, they’re not just jumping ship to public cloud providers. Concerns over skyrocketing costs and the inflexibility of big tech providers are growing, creating opportunities for private and hybrid cloud solutions, especially those that offer cost-effective and tailored alternatives.

VDI is poised to be a major growth driver. Organisations seeking enhanced security, scalability, and agility are moving towards hosted solutions, especially given rising cybersecurity threats and the uncertainty of the global political theatre’s impact on markets.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) will remain a dominant force in the tech landscape. Larger players, such as Microsoft and Amazon, will prioritise AI innovations over other tech that has been growing in momentum, for example potentially sidelining VDI-specific advancements. This shift opens the door for smaller, more agile players to disrupt the market with customer-focused solutions that deliver agility, performance, and cutting-edge hardware, alongside clear ROI.

Channel partners will play a pivotal role in driving VDI adoption and shaping the broader cloud market. To remain competitive, they must address the growing discontent with public cloud providers and develop a diverse range of technical solutions to meet their customers’ evolving needs. By addressing client pain points and fostering innovation, channel partners can drive meaningful change and growth for their customers.