News in the Channel - issue #36

PREDICTIONS

The future’s bright? As we head into another year, a range of thought leaders from across the channel give their opinion on what 2026 might have in store for the channel and what the major trends could be.

After a mixed 2025 for the channel, with resellers and MSPs looking to innovate and provide a wider range services against a background of continuing economic uncertainty, attention is now turning to 2026 and what that might bring. With political uncertainty around the world and continuing negligible economic growth, there are challenges ahead, but

nevertheless there is optimism in the channel about the coming year, with technological advances – particularly involving AI – providing new and varied opportunities. Over the following pages, a range of thought leaders from across the channel give their perspective on what 2026 could look like. n

Jason Chibnall , managing director, Hammer Distribution As we enter 2026, Hammer Distribution is extremely optimistic about the future. This optimism is built on a year of

AI will become increasingly embedded in desktop compute and devices, transforming how people work and fuelling new opportunities for the channel to enable this shift. We anticipate the consolidation and rationalisation themes seen in 2025 to continue, creating a new dynamic that vendors and partners must adapt to. The primary challenge for businesses in the infrastructure channel will be supply chain constraints. The huge, global demand for data centre technologies will undoubtedly strain the supply of storage and memory categories. This is likely to affect the direct supply of components and impact finished solution technologies, leading to significant price increases across many segments. Existentially, geopolitical uncertainty will remain a constant theme, requiring the channel to maintain the agility shown in 2025 to manage shipping, tariffs and regulatory adjustments. For those in the channel ready to embrace change and invest in next-generation technology like AI, 2026 promises to be a pivotal year of progress and innovation. For Hammer, this is not a challenge, it’s an opportunity to lead with clarity, confidence and collaboration. n

successfully relaunching the Hammer brand, which clearly communicates our core identity: a long-standing association with market-leading enterprise storage and highly technical sales teams that design real solutions. This confidence leads us to a new, bold discipline for 2026: AI Works. This initiative leverages our existing expertise and portfolio to help customers navigate and solve AI infrastructure challenges. We will deliver differentiated, tangible AI platforms through direct access to our unrivalled team and our trusted vendor community technologists. Furthermore, our European Reach programme will continue to drive the Hammer Difference into the Netherlands, Benelux, Germany and the Nordics with further investment in facilities and people. We believe 2026 will be a good, albeit dynamic, year for the wider channel, offering significant opportunities. The major trend for infrastructure will be the unprecedented demand driven by hyperscaler and sovereign-sponsored data centre projects worldwide. For the end user,

Jason Chibnall

hammerdistribution.com