While professional services players such as accountants, lawyers, and marketing firms have operated on the IT channel’s periphery, they’re coming out of the shadows, and in greater numbers. Thanks to cloud computing and the Internet of Things (IoT), they’re joined by a cohort of non-IT manufacturers of consumer and commercial durable goods. Collectively, these are the specialized channel partners, and they’re part of a growing segment of resellers, service providers, and influencers that are opening new routes to market for IT vendors. Rod Baptie, president of Baptie & Co., has long talked about the potential power of specialized channel partners. Even with this influx of non-traditional partners, he believes the IT channel is still in the early days of leveraging specialized channels.