News in the Channel - issue #41

SYNAXON

enterprise space is performing strongly with data centres, hyperscalers, cloud, cybersecurity and AI-driven solutions all performing well,” says Mike. “The SMB market has been more mixed. A lot of cost pressures and vendor price increases have posed quite a challenge. Of course, AI has also had an influence. All that has created a bit of hesitation in the market and has perhaps delayed the go-ahead on some planned projects. But there is still activity in the smaller end of the market – including some Windows 11 refresh still coming through and driving sales – and we’ve put things in place to mitigate those challenges and we’re ensuring we’re meeting our customers’ demands.”

Once something like AI is there, people will start to use it and that creates more opportunity in the channel.” But increasing use of AI also means increasing cybersecurity risks. “There’s a bunch of sophisticated solutions being made available by vendors, which I think are going to remediate some of the challenges that have been out there over the last two years,” says Markus. “Now vendors are thinking, ‘how can we make this easier, more consumable, how can we make sure that we provide a comprehensive shield and interaction between solutions?’ We have the advantage that the cybersecurity industry is so used to doing these things at a rapid pace, but I personally have never seen it develop this fast before.” While cybersecurity is the top priority, sustainability continues to be an increasing focus. Markus notes in Germany, where sustainability practices are generally more embedded than in the UK, it does play a major role and SYNAXON works with recycling companies to make the recycling process as smooth as possible to help partners meet their sustainability needs. “We are also seeing anything that reduces power consumption – given that the price of electricity is quite high in Germany – is seen as a fantastic plus. Personally, I wish this would be for sustainability reasons although I fear it’s just for wallet reasons, but I’ll take it.” The UK picture is similar, with increasing focus on reducing power consumption, adds Mike. “We partner with vendors that offer a sustainability programme,” he says. “We promote those programmes to our partners including recycling elements and refurbishing devices. A lot of tenders we see now from our partners have an element of sustainability. You have to offer and to be seen to be offering that element when submitting tenders. Sustainability is taken seriously and we embrace it and promote it as much as we can.”

Mike Barron

synaxon-services.com

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Everyone's got a lot to learn about AI. Future conversations are going to be around helping people to understand why they need an AI PC a lot more than they do now.

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Mike adds that AI will have an increasing role, especially as more end customers get to grips with what it can do. “Everyone’s got a lot to learn about AI. Future conversations are going to be around helping people to understand why they need an AI PC a lot more than they do now.” Markus agrees: “Is the hardware capability that’s in AI PCs used to its fullest potential as we speak here in June 2026? Definitely not,” he says. “Will this remain the case over the three- to-five-year lifecycle of the device? No.

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