Most folks who follow me know that I grew up back when the Channel was characterized by weird terms like “shrink-wrapped software,” involved hard goods by Egghead, and was run by pick-pack-ship distributors.

Today, most of the location-specific value-add that 40 years ago gave birth to IT Channels of Distribution have disappeared.

In a new world dominated by B2B SaaS, almost nothing is physically sent through the channel, and physical proximity – a channel’s geographical distance from the ICP – is completely irrelevant. In fact, the Channel doesn’t even serve up the SaaS - SaaS is ‘delivered’ directly.

By Allan Adler.