Next week, as the record numbers of iPads purchased this holiday season are finally unwrapped, millions will be pondering the countless ways to use their shiny new devices. They may pause to think about the iPad’s workplace advantages, but IT managers have already been thinking about (and fretting over) the huge flood of personal devices logging onto corporate networks and accessing sensitive company data on January 2nd. The prospect of a “BYOD IT Cliff” has never been greater.

This past year has been one of the most successful in Acronis’ history – and much of that success would not have been possible without our strong channel partner program. In 2012, our partner community grew significantly – from January to October alone, we added 735 new partners, and, from the first half to the second half of the year, we saw a 40 percent increase in partner deal registrations!

At the Gartner Data Center Conference in Las Vegas this week ,Acronis’ CMO Scott Crenshaw was among the great technology minds attending (and tweeting!) on the future of the IT landscape. The hashtag #GartnerDC was created to allow attendees to share their thoughts, engage in conversations and discuss industry trends – and let those of us not as fortunate to be in attendance follow along. Some of the trending topics stemming from this week’s show included issues surrounding Big Data, data storage and, of course, the cloud.

Welcome to the fourth quarter, the time when most IT departments are working hard to tie up loose ends and complete projects before the end of the fiscal year. Economic conditions have caused organizations to do more with less. They are tasked with protecting a growing amount of mission-critical data, often with a shrinking budget.