Verio's viaVerio Partner Summit

Verio's viaVerio Partner Summit 2007 wrapped up today after two days of presentations and workshops dedicated to helping resellers learn more about Verio's partners and offerings and to get a sneak peak at the future direction of the company.

The event kicked off with a brief presentation by Verio's president and CEO Kiyoshi Maeda, or as they call him Maeda-san, where he shared one of the biggest announcements of the event, Verio's Business Solutions. Although the offering will officially be launched next week, Verio's CEO discussed some of the solutions that will be available to its resellers including Microsoft Exchange, SugarCRM on-demand, PC data backup, McAfee Total Protection for Small Businesses and a unique package of software as a service solutions from SaaS provider Accrisoft.

Philbert Shih from Tier 1 Research presented one of the keynotes at the event, where he discussed the evolution of the hosting space and how Internet giants like Amazon, Google, Microsoft and even Apple were dramatically changing the hosting landscape. He offered tips on how Verio's partners could enhance and alter their businesses to successfully grow with the industry by doing more than simply hosting and instead becoming a hub for application and services as well as an advisory resource to customers; essentially to become a one-stop online business services shop.

There were also 16 breakout sessions/workshops throughout the event, where attendees had the opportunity to learn more about effectively packaging and selling Verio offerings like Microsoft Exchange and e-commerce solution ShopSite, as well as listen to partners and other resellers discuss their own growing pains as a business and how they overcame them.

One of the more interesting elements of the event were the Whiteboard Solutions where attendees had the opportunity to write down their ideas on a giant whiteboard throughout the day and based on the most popular choices, break out into mini-sessions dedicated to what people wanted to learn about the most.

Although this is the first time I've seen this model of democratic discussion forum within the hosting industry, I've been very fond of its implementation in PodCamp and BarCamp unconferences where the organizers simply put up a wiki and the community chooses what topics are most pertinent to them and then actually get to learn more about what they're most interested in. I would love to see more of this in our own industry as I believe it would be an interesting way to engage more users within the hosting space, just as PodCamp has done for the podcasting/vlogging space.

Although some attendees had a few organizational qualms with the summit, and really some bumps on the road are understandable considering this is the first time in seven years the company has held this event, the overall sentiment seemed positive and from what I was told, Verio is confident it will be holding a partner summit again next year.

TAGS: Verio