For VARs, Wall Street Mess Creates Upheaval and Opportunities

"For the near term, those who sell IT to the I-banking segment wirehouses will likely feel some pain," said Brian Caron, who handles investor relations for ASP Trintech. "But for every worker who starts a new firm or joins a new firm, that is a potential new account and as the capital markets industry becomes more fragmented, that may be a good long term situation for smaller and newer players as there will be more decision makers."

For those with expertise in the financial sector that has been carefully cultivated, there may be the opportunity to parlay it into other segments. Products that can enable customers to implement new business initiatives will have legs.

"For example, bring a new SOA solution to allow partners to have a more efficient online ordering system. So there's not only opportunity for that kind of product, but also the security that goes along with it. As more infrastructure is opened up, the right security must be put in place," said Guardium's Neray. "Many financial services companies have outsourced day-to-day operations to offshore facilities. The right security and controls are needed around those DBAs." A layer of security is needed by many companies to protect against intrusion, whether accidentally or intentionally.

VARs shouldn't assume that because there's a crisis in one part of the financial sector that the entire industry should be abandoned.

"There is something to be said about domain knowledge," said DiSano. "Financial services is pretty vast: Commercial, investment, insurance, hedge funds. Some sectors are really hurting, but still there is money on the sidelines. So, take a hard look at your skill sets internally, and see what sectors within financial services you could support."

Controls and data governance are the key to minimizing risk and avoiding loss, and will likely be the types of products finance firms will want to implement in the near future, said Erik DiGiacomo, a managing director at ALaS, which offers its industry-agnostic DocPort product to VARs. DiGiacomo has first-hand experience in the financial world, having come from leading the securities group at the Shared Services division of Washington Mutual Bank.

"Producing usable information that shows the health of a process is how Risk Managers will demonstrate their value to the firm. Firms won't avoid risks forever (despite the current logic) and will start taking them again," he said. "[Former Fed Chairman Alan] Greenspan said that today's market is a 'once-in-a-century type event.' I suggest that 75-100 years is about the collective memory of an industry and once we recover from this period I expect the devices we deploy will last another century or so. With the expansion in data and automation, those devices will need to cross divisions, entities, market-players and likely industries."