It's A VAR's Market

It's your market, VARs and integrators. Major IT companies are laying off huge chunks of their workforces, but I haven't talked to a mass storage VAR or integrator yet who isn't counting his blessings that he decided to get into the business. Mass storage VARs and integrators are growing in revenue, adding staff, and moving to larger facilities. Most of them, like Ed St. Amour, president of Storage Sentinel (Irvine, CA) report that one of their biggest challenges is growth control. You can read Storage Sentinel's success story, "Check Your Ego At The Door," on page 18.

You know it. You've heard it. You've lived it. The data explosion is here. Everybody is having data problems. Small print shops grapple with a terabyte of data. And it's only going to get worse for end users. Their challenges translate into opportunities for the VAR or system integrator. One VAR I talked to said he knew he was in a good place when he saw the major storage and server vendors, like IBM, dipping their feet into the channel.

Can hardware and software vendors be everywhere at once? There's an old Jewish proverb that says, "God could not be everywhere and therefore he made mothers." Well, vendors can't be everywhere, so the smart ones rely on VARs. The channel is in place already. VARs have intimate relationships with their customers. They know the end users' business problems. They call their customers by first name.

Many vendors know this already. They know how to do the math. One vendor recently said, "Why should I pay one salesperson to contact one customer at a time, when I can pay her to contact one VAR who knows many end users. It's a pyramid effect, a mathematical equation, that works."

New or Established: All Vendors Need VARs
As mass storage editor for Business Solutions, a VAR magazine, I'm extremely pleased with what I see in the market these days when it comes to vendors' attitudes toward VARs and integrators. Vendors need you. And, because of the Internet and rich media technologies, everyone is going to need more storage capacity. More importantly, end users are going to have to be able to manage that storage. The end users need you.

New companies know this. At the SAN Conference 2001 in San Jose in June, I met with several new companies that must spend their resources on product development, so they cannot even begin to think of developing a sales force. Terri Glenn, director of marketing for SANcastle Technologies, Inc. (San Jose, CA) told me that her company absolutely must rely on the channel to get their GFS-8 fabric switch on the market. She hopes to have end user customers by the end of the year, and the only way to do it is through VARs.

The people at Raidtec (Alpharetta, GA) know how important resellers are, too. They are 100% channel-focused in both the United States and Europe. Recently they appointed power-hitter Johnny Cardosi as president of Raidtec USA. Bill Bedford, Raidtec's VP of marketing, told me that Cardosi came over from Adaptec to concentrate on Raidtec's strategic channel initiatives. Raidtec management believes VARs and integrators will aid their penetration in the storage networking market, and in turn, increase the company's market share and brand awareness.

Furthermore, most big server companies are starting to appreciate the channel now. IBM and Sony know how important the channel is. Both have been fostering relationships with VARs and integrators. But Dell hasn't quite gotten the message yet. Its new storage division started in Fall 2000 with a completely direct focus and a desire to commoditize storage. Bad Dell.

Channel Success, A Mathematical No-Brainer
Smart vendors know that VARs and integrators have their feet on the street. It's a mathematical no-brainer. Vendors have a strong desire to cultivate relationships with these valuable resources. Sometimes they aren't quite sure how to reach them, though. At many trade shows I attend, there are more vendors than VARs, integrators, and end users combined. They end up showing their products to each other, instead of the people who will buy.

So, VARs and integrators, what's the best way for vendors to reach you? How can these vendors get your attention and keep it? What kind of vendors do you like to deal with? What kinds of VAR programs and support help you do business? It's your market, VARs. Tell me what you think.