AUSTIN, TX -- Here at the Intelisys Channel Connect annual partner summit, many attendees will tell you that this is where it all began some 30 years ago—the birthplace of the technology advisor (TA) channel. Believe it or not, back then the event was called InteliGolf, an informal gathering held in a second-rate hotel where business people—mostly proficient at selling communications services—gathered.

It is an understatement to say a lot has transpired in the TA channel since then. Intelisys was sold to a publicly traded company called ScanSource, and a feisty group of competitors called technology services distributors (TSDs) sprang up, all looking to help partners manage commissions, vendor access and contacts, and provide support.

Many people who showed up at the Fairmont Hotel for Intelisys Connect 2026 lived through that period. If they didn't live through it, they certainly have an appreciation for all that has transpired. The moment was not lost on Ken Mills, who today leads the Intelisys business along with a group of executives truly loyal to the TA community.

To honor this milestone, Mills boldly announced the company had formed partnerships with eight leading cybersecurity players -- CrowdStrike, Palo Alto Networks, Cloudidr, Horizon3, First Recon AI, Ping Identity, Red Hat, and TDK. His disclosure received a warm reception from the 1,000 channel partners and suppliers gathered. One longtime TA, Tricia Ward, called it a "mic drop moment." As a result, in the long slog of TSD summits that began in late summer, Intelisys might have made the most significant announcement impacting the TA channel.

Sure, distributors like Ingram Micro and TD Synnex make announcements about vendor additions all the time. But this was different for many reasons, which we will discuss in this edition of The TSD Wars and in coming posts. In this case, Mills and the Intelisys team had to convince these security innovators—stalwarts of the IT channel working closely with solution providers, global systems integrators, and MSPs—to take a chance on the TA channel, which presented a vast, untapped opportunity. A $25 billion opportunity, according to Mills. And that’s just the beginning.

It is a somewhat risky move because Intelisys is taking on the heavy lift of representing these brands to the TA channel, at least in the early going of this initiative. That is new ground for any distributor, which typically serves as a supplier to partners who are creating the demand via specific practices in security, cloud, or networking. In this case, a distributor is going to lead an entire channel into a new market.

There is no doubt a lot has to happen for this initiative to be successful. Intelisys did the hard work of lining up the best of the best in cybersecurity. The partners who work with Intelisys will now have to step up, invest in training their sales teams, upskill on the offerings of these vendors, and break new ground themselves. Will it work? In an interview with Channel Partners, Mills was more than confident. "We decided to go big," he said.

If Intelisys starts to build momentum with this initiative, the partners who work with competitors such as Avant, Telarus, or Sandler Partners might find a reason to move some business to Intelisys for strategic reasons.

"So that $25 billion opportunity is just the start. It should be $50 billion," Mills said.

The TSD talk among the more connected TAs here was what they see as the loss of the market value of some of the TSDs that are backed by private equity. That might well be true, but it deserves more digging. Market conditions in the communications sector, TAs said, are impacting profits and revenue growth of some distributors. That said, most of Intelisys' competitors are privately held. That makes Intelisys the only barometer of TSD market health, given that it is a division of a publicly held company. When this event took place last year, ScanSource's stock was trading around $41 a share. Today, its valuation has risen by nearly 34%, to nearly $57 a share. Some analysts have been tough on ScanSource, but it remains the standard for all TSD valuations.

As a public company, ScanSource's earnings reports provide great insight into how its Intelisys unit is performing. In the fourth quarter, ScanSource's Intelisys & Advisory net sales grew 7.2% year-over-year to $25.9 million. Its fiscal year sales of $101.1 million represented a 3.1% gain. The Intelisys and Advisory group’s gross profit grew by 8%. Those are real numbers from a publicly held company versus privately held competitors.

In a joint interview with ScanSource CEO Mike Baur and Mills a few weeks ago, both said they planned to be a great deal more aggressive going forward. This latest announcement on the security side, along with news that it will make several leading hardware suppliers available to tech advisors, are clear signs that the TSD Wars are heating up going into the new year. We’ll have more on Intelisys and the entire TSD sector as we analyze the results of the partner summits held by all of these leaders, with a few more to come.