Whether it’s Smart Home, Smart Office or Smart Building, IT resellers, distributors and integrators find their interest in smart building rising. It’s not only inspired by the decline of the PC—the IT industry naturally takes to any industry that moves to an IP-based backbone. Once an industry becomes digital and network-driven, the IT folks have an edge in constructing, integrating and maintaining the IP network. We interview the man in the center of this transition, Jan Nintemann, the head of The Center of Smart Building at CeBIT’s Planet Reseller.
Jan, tell us why Global Fairs TT-Messe created this initiative at CeBIT’s Planet Reseller?
For more than 15 years, we have had one of the most successful pavilions inside Planet Reseller, the trade-only area of CeBIT. There we have always brought new technology and new trends to resellers and distributors from across Europe and the Middle East.
For example, we were the first to bring in mobile technologies. Today we see that the IT channels need to find new profit areas, new ways to make business grow. Many interesting resellers like Vanti and Redstone in the UK have shown the way IT partners can get into smart building. Far more IT channel partners are now selling smart home and smart office. But they need to accelerate.
These channel partners are following the big IT players--like IBM, Cisco and Google—into Smart Building and Internet of Things. But we feel they need to meet even more new vendors and gain more insight into the opportunity. It’s the future…
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