VARs Voice Value-Add of Vista, Viiv and VoIP

The Harrisburg, Pa.-based distributor expects the V&'s—Vista, Viiv and VoIP—to be the biggest opportunities for VARs in 2006.

“[Intel&'s] Viiv [platform] and video content will catapult opportunities in the digital home and SMB. Meanwhile, VoIP is ready to enter the SMB market, which it hasn&'t heretofore. Linksys and others are working hard with third-party providers and [VoIP] is a big opportunity for the channel,” said Dan Schwab, vice president of marketing at D&H. “Finally, when Microsoft launches [the] Vista [OS] in the second half of the year, that will be a major leap forward. These are channel-centric opportunities that will not compete with retail.”

The digital rights management functionality built into Intel&'s Viiv platform should become an important marketing strategy for solution providers this year, Schwab said.

“We&'ve had the Media Center technology tie disparate components together, but you never really had a platform that was plug and play.”

Meanwhile, VoIP vendors have made the technology not only more affordable, but more simple to install in SMB environments, Schwab said.

“Before, the technical expertise required far [surpassed] what most resellers could do. It&'s more ubiquitous now and what it really means is that resellers today are the data content managers. Their job is to make sure the system is up and running with safe and secure data instead of a second company in charge of the voice,” Schwab said.

D&H plans to host educational road shows for all three technologies and is putting together an online training program, Schwab said.

Jude Daigle, president of Computer Connections, Greensburg, Pa., said D&H&'s “Killer V&'s” focus closely matches that of his company.

“The combination of hardware with Viiv giving us standards, and software with Vista, will provide better connectivity and a better interface to make the end-user experience much better than it is now,” Daigle said. “Initially we thought [digital homes] would be a bigger [opportunity], but the commercial opportunity will be even better.”

D&H&'s revenue topped $1.5 billion in 2005 and sales increased 19 percent in the second half of the year compared to the year-ago quarter, according to the company.