There will always be a place for IT journalists inthe channel community. At least, as an admittedly-biased IT journalist, I’dlike to think that’s the case. Increasingly, though, vendors are turning to the Weband to video to bring their messages, and their messaging, directly to the VARcommunity.
Last week saw two examples of this around twostories that have raised a good deal of debate and interest in the channel: thedivorce of Cisco Systems and Hewlett Packard, and Oracle’s plans for to takemore business direct as it integrates Sun Microsystems.
In the first case, rather than make himself orother Cisco channel organization executives available for interview to the ITmedia, Cisco channel boss Keith Goodwin released a video instead where heoutlined the action taken with HP, and the reasoning behind it:
While Oracle has been talking questions about itsSun integration plans, channel boss Judson Althoff also used video last week totake his message directly to the channel community. On hos blog, Althoff poseda video FAQ around the acquisition, with 11 videos where he takes on suchquestions as the direct plans and what they mean for partners, roadmap andframework issues, and where Sun partners should focus. Here, Althoff discusses theimpact the overall combined company will have on partners:
Oracle’s use of video here is particularlycompelling as it seeks to bring detailed answers to important questions beingasked by a skeptical channel community, offering a degree of openness that canbe compelling in itself. The more information flowing to the channel, thebetter for all.
Vendors are likely to increasingly make use ofvideo to bring information directly to their communities of interest. That’s apositive, but the downside that can’t is that these videos are aone-way medium. There can be no questioning of the narrative the vendor isputting forward. That’s why such videos can’t, and shouldn’t, be a replacementfor making executives available for questioning. That’s a temptation of going moreheavily into video, but let’s hope it’s resisted.
