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When Dell began to bludgeon the channel and its margins a decade ago with its offer of cut-rate computers sold directly to end users, many resellers all but ceded sales of PCs to Dell and other direct marketers.

The VARs that survived and thrived in the interim reinvented themselves by focusing on more profitable and complex technologies such as storage, security and network integration, as well as the services focused on deploying and managing those systems.

While there's still a huge market for PCs and related support, few VARs would argue they lead with them. Many have spent the past 10 years offering desktops and laptops only reluctantly.

But the tide may be turning.

As 2006 nears its close, Dell is no longer on top of the PC heap. Beset by customer-service lapses and a massive battery recall, Dell lost the No. 1 spot in PC sales to Hewlett-Packard, according to both Gartner and IDC. Dell's growth for the most recent quarter was a paltry 3.6 percent compared with HP's 15.4 percent. While HP doesn't break out direct-vs.-channel PC sales, a growing number of solution providers say they expect to add more PCs to their product mixes in the coming year.

Nearly one-third, or 32.9 percent, of those surveyed for the 2007 VARBusiness State of the Market report see PCs as a key product area. The smaller the VAR, the more likely the provider is to be planning on adding PCs to the mix.

"We've had some customers say they're willing to buy through us as opposed to Dell because the [price] delta is no longer significant," says Jack Safrit, president of Axxys Technologies, a VAR based in the Dallas suburb of Frisco, Texas. But it's not just Dell's missteps that are leading more customers who once bought direct to now turn to their solution providers for PCs. It's because those customers are turning to channel partners for managed services of their entire infrastructures, Safrit says. "Because we have managed- services relationships and we're supporting their environments, they're going to listen to our recommendations more than they did previously," Safrit says.

Overall, PC growth is expected to be marginal, according to market researcher Forrester. "It should be up, but not by a lot," says Forrester analyst Andrew Bartels. If that's the case, why are so many channel partners adding PCs to the mix? Bartels agrees that Dell's slippage is opening an opportunity for the channel.

"You can call it the slowing of Dell," he says, pointing out that there's little if any price differential these days, and customers--notably small and midsize businesses--are willing to pay for the service and support. "It's more a slowing of the direct-sales model," Bartels says.

Mark Simons, vice president and general manager of Toshiba's digital products division, points out that the overall PC market is growing at a rate of 5 percent. "We don't see anything on the horizon that's going to slow that down," Simons says. Toshiba is among several PC vendors that have increased their efforts in the past year to assure partners that customers can't buy its notebooks direct for less than through a channel partner. Simons says that has led more partners of all sizes to step up their efforts to offer PCs.

NEXT: PCs as a convenience, not an opportunity.