2007 Alternative Vendors By Category

Francis Poeta, president of Cliffside Park, N.J.-based P&M Computers, is a designated Cisco SMB partner. Yes, he does the vast majority of his business with Cisco and enjoys a good relationship with the networking behemoth. But that doesn't mean Cisco is always the right fit for a customer's data-networking needs.

"I think you need to have at least two vendors," Poeta says. "You have to be able to say to a customer, 'Here are the options.' It helps the customer understand that you're giving them the opportunity to choose."

Poeta's data-networking alternative of choice is Netgear, which he says provides high-quality technology at a good price point for smaller customers. "It offers excellent ROI for a lot of SMBs, and for clients in less complex networking environments," he adds.

For Poeta, the criteria for selecting an alternative vendor are feature sets and price points. "Most of our customers looking at second- and third-tier providers don't have any IT staff at all and not much complexity, but they need equipment that will stay up and running and not affect their operations," Poeta says.

This year's VARBusiness Alternatives Study points to price opportunity as the No. 1 reason solution providers consider selling an alternative vendor in the data-networking space, followed by product performance and innovative technology.

While Cisco is often referred to as the 800-pound gorilla of the data-networking world, there are some alternatives that VARs are using to deliver quality solutions to customers. In this year's survey, the top three were Netgear, D-Link and Belkin.

"It's about due diligence for our customers," Poeta says. "We can't just always drink the Kool-Aid and offer one vendor's products. We have to go out and look for better solutions. The enterprise is going to spend the money one way or another. But when you're dealing with SMBs, it's a completely different sell. Instead of buying a new car or house, you're saying, 'Give me the money and I'll do something that's going to increase your overall value down the line.' If you're not looking at different possibilities, you're not doing the best for your customer."

Marc Haynes, vice president of operations at Blairstown, N.J.-based PlanIT Networks, also plays heavily in the SMB data-networking space.

He says that Cisco usually won't give him the time of day given the size of his company, so he relies instead on Netgear and 3Com to satisfy his customers' needs. "The price points are much better than either Cisco's or HP's," he says. "And the products work just as well. Netgear has done a good job of providing switches and everything else."

Haynes says he has a good relationship with both Netgear and 3Com. As far as he's concerned, both are primary vendors--not alternatives--for him and his customers. "They have the right technology. And they manage their price points very well and stay very competitive," he says.

3Com, in particular, became more appealing to Haynes when PlanIT started delivering powered switches and technology to smaller companies. And he's always open to evaluating new and different vendor products for his portfolio.

"We have to take a good look to make sure the economics will work," Haynes says. "Sometimes there's a company out there that has great technology, but are they going to be there next year? Aside from the product, they have to have the ability to deliver in the long term."

--By Cristina McEachern

NEXT: Price rules server choices