D&H Canada held its annual THREAD Technology Roadshow in Calgary on March 5 at the Hotel Arts. The event featured seminars from Microsoft Surface, Cisco, HP Inc., Hewlett Packard Enterprise, HPE Aruba Networking, and Lenovo. The day-long engagement spotlighted product categories ranging from AI-PCs and enablement, to cybersecurity, computing components, mobile devices, and pro audio.
Here are some photos and details from the event.
Peter DiMarco, Interim General Manager of D&H Canada, delivers a business update to the audience of integrators, resellers, retailers, managed service providers, and vendors, detailing his plan to drive “Growth Unleashed” for the D&H partner community in 2025 and beyond. This includes and enhanced AI-readiness roadmap, new internal tools to streamline quoting and bidding, additional THREAD Technology Roadshows in Toronto and Montreal, and other specialized offerings to boost the D&H Canada business experience. Strategic investments led D&H Canada to notable year-over-year category growth in 2024 in areas including ProAV (61%), collaboration/videoconferencing (125% gains, with Microsoft Teams emerging as the dominant platform), and Microsoft solutions overall (101%).
D&H Canada Interim GM Peter DiMarco (far left) moderated a panel discussion with members of the organization’s leadership team, providing updates on various areas of business. Topics ranged from the impending Windows 11 device refresh to AI readiness and D&H’s “SuccessPath to AI” training series, to enhance Modern Solutions offerings in areas like infrastructure and storage. (L-R) Peter DiMarco; Vice President of Sales David Stephens; Executive Director of Vendor Management Chris Ralston; Director of the Modern Solutions Business Unit Daniel Reio; and Senior Cloud and Professional Services Development Manager Ian Cumming.
Lisa McWilliams, Senior Account Manager at Lenovo Canada, delivers one of the event’s six vendor-led seminars, this one on “Lenovo’s Role in Shaping the Future of Computing.” The session touched on Lenovo’s most recent advancements in AI inferencing techniques, including its role in predictive modeling through data analytics. Lenovo recently introduced what they’re calling a “first-to-market, entry-level AI inferencing server designed to make edge AI accessible” to enable more powerful edge computing environments.
Amina El-Sebai, Microsoft Surface Sales Specialist at D&H Canada, meets a customer for the first time on the Technology Showcase exhibit floor, digitally sharing her contact information. Establishing new business relationships to support future sales opportunities is a key part of the THREAD Roadshow events, in addition to live presentations from subject matter experts on the vendor side. Manufacturers who exhibited their latest innovations on the show floor include CyberPower, Eaton, Epson, Extreme Networks, Logitech, Neat, Netgear, APC, TP-Link, and Trendnet.
“2024 was an exceptional year at D&H Canada, marked by tremendous growth and honours like Distributor of the Year awards from leaders CDW and HPI,” says Interim General Manager Peter DiMarco. “The combination of D&H Canada’s strategic investments and the maturation of AI-based solutions will empower us to manage another year of growth for our partners.”
Living up to its theme of “Strength in Connections,” the March THREAD event in Calgary provided attendees with accessibility not only to the D&H Canada leadership team, but to vendor experts and a roster of technical gurus to whom they don’t often have face-to-face exposure.
Pictured here, D&H Canada Director of Purchasing Mike Dekok (left) fields questions from a pair of customers on the Technology Showcase floor. Future THREAD events will feature special offerings like French language content for the Montreal Roadshow. D&H Canada has focused its recent investments in areas including ProAV, collaboration, networking, AI readiness, and storage/data centre—all areas that analysts such as IDC have identified as having a high growth potential in 2025.
This demonstrates D&H’s ongoing acuity in predicting and adapting to market changes, and its ability to remain resilient through challenges as it has through the pandemic, several recessions, and other market variances. Even as the distribution market overall is flat or declining, D&H Canada has seen growth.
Over 20 vendors showcased exhibited their latest technologies and solutions, including AMD, APC, Eaton, Epson, Extreme Networks, Logitech, Micron, Neat, Poly, TP-Link, and Ubiquiti.