At the core of those discussions is a fundamental decision about whether they should build their own cloud computing platform to deliver IT services to their customers. It’s obvious that many customers are keenly interested in cloud computing. But there is already an oversupply of cloud computing processing power available. And with companies such as Rackspace, Amazon and IBM all providing cloud computing services, many solution providers have to ask themselves if it’s worth making all the capital investments required to build their own cloud when they could make use of any one of a multitude of existing services.

At the same time, however, many solution providers will argue that it’s hard to give customers the level of attention and customization they require if the service they are providing is dependent on a cloud computing provider that is trying to reduce costs by managing IT as a set of discrete services with as little support as possible.

Both Rackspace and IBM have a full-court press on in terms of recruiting business partners. For example IBM recently added a monthly rental pricing option for IBM software that developers would use to create applications on an IBM cloud. According to Dave Mitchell, Director of Strategy for ISV & Developer Relations at IBM, IBM is trying to bring its terms and conditions in line with the way solution providers will actually be selling software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications that would be deployed on IBM’s cloud computing infrastructure. 

Meanwhile, Rackspace recently consolidated its channel programs as part of a bid to simplify the terms and conditions that solution providers need to navigate in order to leverage the Rackspace cloud. According to Mark Collier, Rackspace vice president of marketing and business development, Rackspace is counting in its reputation for providing “fanatical support” to help convince solution providers to make use of the Rackspace cloud versus having to invest in not only IT infrastructure, but the trained IT staff required to manage it.

Most of those cloud computing efforts aimed at solution providers in the channel as aimed primarily at independent software vendors that want to deliver their applications using a software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform. In fact, as cloud computing continues to evolve, many would argue that the only place a solution provider is going to be able to add value is by creating some type of application.

While that may be true to a degree, however, there is still going to be a need to manage the delivery of application services from multiple sources in the cloud. That will probably mean that there is an opportunity for solution providers to build and manage portals that centralize the management of cloud computing services in order to comply with regulations and control costs. In fact, Bob Hoey, general manager of IBM Global Technology Services, notes that IBM already builds portals for its customers, so it would not be that much of a stretch for IBM to help its business partners construct similar portals for managing their services. In that context, the cloud is also becoming the next great channel for software distribution.

At the end of the day, solution providers can either focus on helping IT organizations build clouds, become a cloud computing provider, develop applications that are delivered via the cloud, or any combination thereof. The challenge is going to be for each solution provider, based on their unique mix of business opportunities, to balance their cloud computing portfolio in the way that maximizes their profits most.

In sharp contrast to those approaches, the folks at Vidyo have developed a software-based approach to videoconferencing that leverage the processing horsepower of industry-standard client systems. The latest iteration of that offering is VidyoMobile, high-definition videoconferencing software for smartphones and tablet PC devices such as the Apple iPad 2 or the Motorola Xoom.

Vidyo CEO Ofer Shapiro says the company’s videoconferencing software VidyoMobile will not only span PCs, mobile devices and room-based systems, but will also be extended out to embedded systems and a wide variety of applications.

Rather than relying on CODEC processors, the Vidyo approach leverages  what the company describes as a Vidyo router, This approach not only allows Vidyo to leverage advances in standard processor technologies, it also means that via a standard application programming interface the VidyoRouter software can be embedded in any number of applications.

The VidyoMobile offering is designed to primarily run over WiFi and 4G LTE-class wireless networks, which the company expects will become more prevalent over the coming year. VidyoMobile provides support for up to 720p high definition resolution and can be connected to a variety of third-party HD videoconferencing systems.

The goal, says Shapiro, is to deliver HD videoconferencing for a few cents per minute, versus relying on hardware-centric approaches that ultimate wind up costing companies dollars per minute to deploy and manage.

Video represents of huge opportunity for solution providers over the next decade. But rather than thinking about video in terms of network hardware, Shapiro is making a case for treating video as a software-based communications system platform that solution providers depending on future opportunities will be able to extend in any number of future directions.

But the folks at Virtso Software, which just launched a new global channel program, think they have solved the storage issue, which in turn should also relieve the pressure on the network.

Virsto Software has launched a hypervisor-based storage system for Microsoft Hyper-V and Citrix XenDesktop environments running on release two of the Windows Server 2008 platform.

According to Gregg Holtzrichter, Virsto Software vice president of marketing, the Virtso approach works by logically tying each virtual machine to a virtual storage object in the Virtso software.  The core problem with virtualization storage in general is the random nature of the I/O requests created by each virtual machine, which becomes especially acute in VDI deployments involving hundreds of virtual machines. By linking each virtual machine to its own storage object, the Virsto software eliminates the randomness of the storage I/O requests being passed on to the underlying storage infrastructure.

For solution providers in the channel VDI has frequently proved to be an elusive opportunity. And while the bulk of that opportunity is currently tied to VMware, many of the VDI opportunities in the future will be tied more closely to Windows and existing Citrix environments. But before those opportunities ever move into a production environment, solution providers are going to have to solve the storage I/O problem.

Pricing for Virsto VDI is $2,800 per host, with 1 TB of logical storage per license.