Why green data centers mean partner opportunities

customers, mainly in the B.C. area. Ellery said customers will also have the option of purchasing capacity on the servers that are already in the data center as well.

For IBM channel partners, Ellery said opportunities lie in finding customers who would be interested in renting out spaces within the data center in addition to selling them power equipment and other various IBM technologies and products.

"IBM's channel is key to helping us find customers and selling products and contracting services out to them," Ellery said. "Customers are heading down the path with things like server consolidation, but they're still in the early stages. Channel partners can then deliver and sell new equipment and services to them," he adds.

Another company jumping on the green business solutions bandwagon, is Xerox, which launched its Your New Workplace initiative earlier this year. Al-Karim Esmail, manager of software solutions and marketing at Xerox Canada, explains the initiative is a solution for customers that focus on six different criteria. One component in Your New Workplace is called Go Green, where Xerox resellers will go into a business and do a full analysis of how environmentally efficient a business is. Based on the assessment, Xerox partners can then suggest and sell the appropriate solutions based on what's needed in the organization.

"The assessment is free to our customers," Esmail said. "The value for the reseller is that this drives better margins for them because we find product conversations are getting into higher levels, so there's more revenue to be made because the solutions are often higher-end."