Value-Add Viewpoints

The roundtable hasn't even officially started yet, but the conference room at the Hershey Lodge in Pennsylvania is already exploding with intense dialogue. I haven't asked my first question, and still the VARs around me are engaging in a spirited discussion. The topic? Intel, which every solution provider at the roundtable partners with, and has been given grief by with product shortages. The world's largest chip maker, they complain, has done a less-than-stellar job of meeting the channel's demands for some of its more popular chips, and it's hurting the resellers' businesses. The group even jokes about how the new marriage between Intel and Apple is fitting because both companies have become known for inventory issues lately.

Not more than an hour later, we are deep into the roundtable discussion, with all eight members in attendance. I ask each of them who their two best vendor partners are today--not their biggest vendors, but their best vendor partners. To my surprise, nearly every solution provider at the table names Intel. What happened?

"Intel is probably our top vendor because they really help with business development," says Jude Daigle, president of Computer Connections in Greensburg, Pa. "They're the No. 1 channel vendor because there's no other company I've seen that puts as much emphasis on my business."

Go figure. For all the talk about chaotic speed upgrades and AMD's superior technology, the roundtable members still love Intel, if for no other reason than the company knows how to generate demand for the channel.

"They've been very good about getting demo units and new technology to us," says Jim Brubaker, owner of JK Computing in Blairsville, Pa. "Our channel contact at Intel has been very easy to work with, too."

The love-hate relationship the VARs have with Intel is just one of the surprises at the colorful roundtable session. The participants tackle a number of issues and talk about why pricing isn't as important as product availability, what makes a good distribution partner and how resellers can still make a living in the PC market today. Here are the highlights from that session.

Making Money On PCs

It may seem strange to see VARs fighting the seemingly inevitable tide that threatens to sweep PC margins away for good. But some members of the roundtable are still making significant dollars from their computer businesses. In fact, when asked to name their two best vendors besides Intel, Acer was most frequently mentioned.

"Acer is great because they allow you to make margins, and they have the right pricing," Daigle says.

The VARs at the D&H roundtable praised Acer, particularly for its increasingly popular notebook models. In fact, Computer Connections has scaled back on its white-book business because of Acer's high demand and now offers only high-end, customized white books for a select group of customers. Ryan Bowman, manager of sales and service at Esh Computer Center, Gap, Pa., says the computer maker's ease of doing business is almost unparalleled.

"The one thing that Acer's done even better than Toshiba did way back when is they'll send us parts under warranty, like keyboards or hard drives, and allow us to swap them ourselves," Bowman says. "We get them parts the next day, two days at the most, and that turnaround time gives us much happier customers."

Thus, Acer's reseller partners not only get good margins on the attractively priced PCs they sell, but they are also freed up to provide warranty services, not to mention the ability to get replacement parts quickly. The roundtable brethren say those all-important elements help reduce the cost of carrying and selling Acer's product lines, while increasing the demand for the machines and parts.

Getting parts and products promptly has become increasingly important, the VARs say. Jiashi Duan, vice president of ApexCompu, Malvern, Pa., says when it comes to PCs and systems, availability is more crucial than pricing.

"We lose tens of thousands of dollars because of inventory issues, whether its motherboards or chips," Duan says. "It can be chaotic."

Of course, the resellers say, that puts a greater value on their distribution partners, such as D&H, which they say are more reliable when it comes to availability and delivery.