Earlier this month, we attended our third XChange event, hosted by The Channel Company. The show took place in Las Vegas, Nevada -- the go-to city for escaping the monotony of the everyday. We escaped the monotony in the best way possible through exploring new and emerging technologies including 5G and edge computing. The possibilities were seemingly endless.
At XChange I was able to hear Bob Skelley, CEO at The Channel Company talk about the evolution of cloud computing and its impact on the channel. It was great insight and validation around the quickly changing landscape that we’re seeing here at Scale Computing. Specifically, how cloud computing is being utilized in today’s environments and how that is evolving into the next era. There were also some great discussions around IoT and the revenue opportunities that this is creating for managed service providers - a topic that we can certainly relate to.
Scale Computing hosted 11 packed boardrooms, covering two different topics at XChange. During these boardrooms, I was able to discuss industry trends we are seeing at Scale Computing as well as the next generation of IT infrastructure that is a result of those trends. Fitting the event’s theme of leading the customer forward perfectly, we also talked about how our partners can help their customers future-proof their IT infrastructure for this next generation, and how MSPs will benefit from and be able to enhance their service offerings as a result.
At the beginning of the event, I asked one of my boardrooms, “How many of you have heard the term edge computing?” I continued with, “How many of you feel hyperconverged solutions are only for your larger, upper mid-market or enterprise customers?” Everyone nodded in agreement.
After I explained how Scale Computing HC3 Edge hyperconverged infrastructure brings together virtualization, servers, storage, and backup recovery into a single solution, I rephrased my previous question. “Now, how many of you see where edge computing and hyperconvergence can fit into those markets you formerly thought it was too expensive and complicated for?” Almost every hand raised. This led to further conversation about how hyperconvergence and edge computing could help to evolve managed service practices and better enable solution providers with a solution that is simple, highly available and scalable - at a price point that a smaller 20 employee shop up to a distributed enterprise with tens to thousands of sites would be comfortable with.
I was able to engage in hundreds of conversations during XChange. One of the most exciting parts of this event was being able to see people gain a greater understanding of the functionality and advantages of edge computing, just over the few days that the event was held. During the boardrooms, I was able to see that the audience was evolving their thinking about edge computing and hyperconvergence.
This is an amazing event because it not only allowed Scale Computing to see new and existing partners and be able to have conversations around IoT edge and the future of IT, but it was also exciting to see other companies starting to talk about edge computing.
XChange comes after a record-breaking year for Scale Computing. With 2018 came hundreds of new customers and successful installations, significant funding from new and existing investors, and a portfolio of new partnerships. The year rounded out with Scale Computing announcing a new global partnership and joint solutions with Lenovo.
Growth is on the horizon for edge computing. It is an exciting time for Scale Computing to hold its position as a market leader in edge computing, virtualization, and hyperconverged solutions.
If you would like to learn more about edge computing, I recently hosted a webinar where I discussed the effectiveness of edge computing and the benefits of HC3 edge from Scale Computing. If you would like to listen, you can find it here.
I also want to add a huge thank you to The Channel Company for being such an amazing leader and hosting this incredibly productive event.