Manage Your Business

The VAR Guy has spent the past two days at CompTIA’s SMB Summit in Bonita Springs, Florida. When he wasn’t busy lounging by the pool and sipping cocktails, he did overhear some rather interesting attendee debates and discussions. Here are seven key trends for VARs to keep in mind as they attempt to maximize their SMB profits.

Unlike many solutions providers, MJ Shoer doesn’t lose sleep about cash flow and falling hardware margins. As president of Jenaly Technology Group Inc., Shoer has successfully transformed his seven-person company from a VAR into a true managed services provider.”We are a virtual outsourced IT services firm,” says Shoer. “We rarely use the term managed services, instead referring to it as ‘virtual IT services.’ We are our clients’ trusted IT partner and work as an extension of our clients’ organizations.”

The VAR Guy usually yawns when a research report lands in his inbox. Tech industry researchers, after all, mostly want to tell you a market is about to boom — but you’ll need to pay up to get the exclusive data. Still, AMI Partners did catch The VAR Guy’s eye with a new report on Unified Communications in the SMB market. Here’s a quick overview.

The VAR Guy isn’t looking for a new job. But if he were a channel expert (rather than a pretender), he’d send his resume into fast-growing open source companies that are seeking partner program expertise. Two prime examples: MySQL and SugarCRM both have open positions for channel veterans.

Here’s another quick tidbit from Tech Data. The distributor has expanded its TDSolutions Center to help VARs build, test and demonstrate unified communication systems from 3Com, Cisco Systems, Microsoft, Mitel and Nortel Networks. The 4,500-square-foot solution center hosts technologies from more than 120 manufacturers and software publishers with a total value of products used in the lab topping $5 million.

No juicy gossip here, folks. Just some straight news: Tech Data is now offering 25 Red Hat professional training courses through TDEducation, the company’s technical training and certification services team. The courses are designed for resellers obtaining or reselling training for Red Hat Certified Technician (RHCT) or Red Hat Certified Engineer (RHCE) certifications.

If you’re a Lenovo reseller, membership will soon have its privileges. The PC giant has rolled our Club Lenovo, a new loyalty rewards program for Lenovo SMB resellers in the U.S. and Canada. Beginning in October, the program rewards solutions providers and their sales force for selling Lenovo PCs, monitors, peripherals and services. Hmmm. The VAR Guy is in the market for a Linux-based PC. Is it time for him to get in on the Lenovo action?

Symantec sees big opportunities for solutions providers in the small and midsize business market. The company has launched an SMB Specialization for Partners, which is designed for Channel Registered and Channel Silver partners in North America. It was one of several closely related announcements Symantec made at company’s partner summit near San Diego.