Vendors Make Their Buzz-Creating Moves

What better time than the dog days of summer to take stock of how vendors are getting ready to drive sales and create buzz in the third and fourth quarters. So during the past few weeks, a number of vendors made moves that will set the stage for an aggressive push in the remaining five months of the year. Here's a quick look at what's been going on over the past few months and some analysis on what it all means.

ROBERT C. DEMARZO Can be reached via e-mail at rdemarzo@cmp.com.

Let's start with Dell. After making a big splash with its disclosure to make a serious push into the channel, things have been relatively quiet on that front. VARs remain in a frenzy debating whether or not to trust Dell, but so far the biggest news was the deal it cut with Wal-Mart. Many observers are expecting some big news to come from Dell at the end of August, perhaps at the CMP XChange 2007 conference, scheduled for Aug. 19"22 in Orlando, Fla. The timing for a Dell announcement would be perfect, so stay tuned. Speaking of XChange, the event is shaping up to be one of the largest independent channel conferences with a record number of vendors signed on to attend. Conference director Nancy Hammervik has added a few twists to the event, including a new conference track that features more speakers and concurrent sessions than ever. And, of course, it's where we'll crown the VARBusiness Annual Report Card winners and Channel Executive of the Year.

Also, if my inbox is any measure of industry health or interest in the channel, I can honestly say I've never been so inundated with messages from emerging vendors looking for editorial coverage or announcing channel plans. Vendors are coming out of the woodwork. If there's any trend, it's in the area of virtualization, which is probably the most popular category by far. Speaking of companies with big plans for the channel, keep your eye on Netgear, the SMB-focused networking maker that markets the Smart Switch core router. Under Chief Marketing Officer Deborah Williams, the company is looking to build a strong presence in the SMB channel and re-engage with VARs. All I can say is, it's about time. The company is revamping its channel program and has ushered in a lifetime warranty for its products. Netgear, like several other companies, also is moving its channel tech support back to the United States from India as a way of boosting quality. When speaking to the executives at Netgear, I asked whether the company would make a good acquisition for a more enterprise-focused company like Juniper. Cisco did it successfully with Linksys, and it's likely that if private equity buys out 3Com, it will be rolled up with another infrastructure player.

Finally, it will be interesting to watch Websense's channel chief, David Roberts, roll up SurfControl into his company's growing channel. Since the deal was announced in April, things have been fairly quiet as the companies approach the October integration date.

Have you assessed any new gear lately or heard about nay new vendor channel strategies? Let me know at rdemarzo@cmp.com.