By Andy Slawetsky – This year’s IT Nation Connect Global 2025 felt like a reset button for the channel. The message was clear: keep customers front and center,build real automation,clean your data,and grow with purpose.ConnectWise set the tone with a well-attended Office Technology (OT) Pre-Day, a rebuilt RMM, unified billing, and a push toward adaptive UX and shared community content. Microsoft added to the message with new SMB-priced security and governance bundles and a stark reminder: your customers plan to use agents soon-help them or someone else will.
Office technology Pre-Day: Print-born dealers at IT Nation Connect
Table of Contents
Sponsors: BTA, DXOne, ECI, GreatAmerica, Proofpoint
Attendees Included: DEX Imaging, Marco, Applied Innovation, blue Technologies, ElevityIT, Fishers, Kelley Create, LDI Connect, Les Olson, Loffler, Novatech, Pearson-Kelly, Spectrum Technologies, UTEC, Visual Edge IT. CEO Juice had people on hand as well.
* Kickoff: “OT dealers are uniquely positioned to win in IT.” That set the table for the day.* Automation, Hyper-automation & AI: Decision Digital’s Rick Harber walked through practical use cases dealers can implement now.
* Dealer Power Panel (Print→IT): Hosted by Mitch Leahy of GreatAmerica and Rick Harbor, Les Olson, Kelley Create, Marco, and LDI Connect shared how they built IT divisions, scaled cybersecurity, and turned early challenges into wins.
* The OEM Shift: Kyocera opened up about their IT Services playbook-what worked, what didn’t, and how they’re driving cultural change internally.
* Lightning Growth Plays: Five quick vendor sessions, each delivering one usable growth idea, moderated by Patricia Ames.
ConnectWise updates: product, people, and purpose
After taking us through the program and some company highlights, Peter Kujawa introduced CEO Manny Rivelo who addressed pain points head-on-support, billing, and feature sprawl-and announced big internal moves:
- New leadership across revenue, post-sales, and product.
- Compensation tied to partner success metrics (adoption,renewal,outcomes).
- Dedicated teams for onboarding and Automate-to-RMM migrations.
- community-driven growth: partners literally voted for features with chips at the booth.
ConnectWise says they are unifying its data layer and focusing its roadmap on tools partners actually use, not just features that look good in a slide deck.
Day-2 Keynote highlights: adaptive UX, unified billing, rebuilt RMM
- Adaptive UX: conversational interfaces that adjust to each user’s workflow.
- Bundled services: password management, reporting, and dashboarding rolled into the platform.
- Unified billing: one pane for M365 and service reconciliation, with or without PSA.
- Community Exchange: share workflows, scripts, and templates among partners.
- Device Service overhaul: merges RMM
- Superposition: A qubit can be in multiple states at once, unlike a classical bit which is either 0 or 1.Imagine a coin spinning in the air – it’s neither heads nor tails until it lands.
- Entanglement: Two or more qubits can become linked together in such a way that they share the same fate, no matter how far apart they are. Measuring the state of one entangled qubit instantly reveals the state of the other. Quantamagazine provides a detailed explanation of entanglement.
- Quantum Interference: Qubits can interfere with each other, similar to waves. This interference can be harnessed to amplify correct solutions and suppress incorrect ones.
- Drug Discovery and Materials science: Simulating molecular interactions to design new drugs and materials with unprecedented properties. IBM details the use cases in drug discovery.
- Financial Modeling: Optimizing investment portfolios, detecting fraud, and assessing risk with greater accuracy.
- cryptography: Breaking existing encryption algorithms and developing new, quantum-resistant cryptography.
- Artificial Intelligence: Accelerating machine learning algorithms and enabling the development of more powerful AI models.
- Optimization problems: Solving complex logistical and scheduling problems, such as optimizing delivery routes or managing supply chains.
- Qubit Stability (Decoherence): Qubits are extremely sensitive to their environment and can lose their quantum properties (decoherence) very quickly, leading to errors.
- Error Correction: developing robust error correction techniques is crucial for building reliable quantum computers.
- Scalability: Building quantum computers with a large number of qubits is a major engineering challenge.
- Programming Complexity: Quantum algorithms are fundamentally different from classical algorithms and require specialized programming skills.
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Quantum Computing: A Beginner’s Guide
Quantum computing is a revolutionary field poised to reshape industries from medicine and materials science to finance and artificial intelligence. Unlike classical computers that store data as bits representing 0 or 1, quantum computers leverage the principles of quantum mechanics to store information as qubits. This allows them to tackle complex problems currently intractable for even the most powerful supercomputers. This guide provides a foundational understanding of quantum computing, its core concepts, potential applications, and current challenges.
What is quantum Computing?
At its core, quantum computing exploits the strange and counterintuitive laws of quantum mechanics. Classical computers operate on bits, which are definite states of either 0 or 1. Quantum computers, though, use qubits. qubits can exist in a superposition, meaning they can represent 0, 1, or a combination of both simultaneously.This is a basic difference that unlocks exponential computational power for certain types of problems.
Key Quantum Mechanical Principles
How Does Quantum Computing Differ from Classical Computing?
The difference isn’t about speed in all cases. Your laptop will still be faster at tasks like word processing or browsing the web. The power of quantum computing lies in its ability to solve specific problems that are exponentially difficult for classical computers. Hear’s a comparison:
| Feature | Classical Computing | Quantum Computing |
|---|---|---|
| Information Unit | Bit (0 or 1) | Qubit (0, 1, or both) |
| Processing Method | Sequential | Parallel (due to superposition) |
| Problem Solving | Efficient for many tasks | Potentially revolutionary for specific complex problems |
| Error Rate | Low | High (current limitation) |
Potential Applications of Quantum Computing
The potential applications of quantum computing are vast and transformative:
Current Challenges and the Future of Quantum Computing
Despite its immense potential, quantum computing faces important challenges:
Despite these hurdles, significant progress is being made. Companies like IBM, Google, and rigetti are actively developing quantum hardware and software. The field is rapidly evolving, and we can expect to see increasingly powerful and practical quantum computers in the coming years.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Q: Will quantum computers replace classical computers?
A: No. Quantum computers are not intended to replace classical computers