Seven Ways To Find Opportunity

I'm taking some family time the rest of this week, but before I go, I'll leave you with seven recent columns on the changing role of the channel and how to take advantage of opportunities to come.

A reader recently e-mailed me, "How come no one is writing about how the computer industry is killing the channel?" Well, one person not afraid to tackle the subject is our own Big Boss, Robert Faletra. In We Have To Move Beyond The Conflict Issue And On To The Opportunity, Faletra challenges vendors to re-align their compensation policies for partners and employees to make sure their actual incentives back up their rhetoric. A second is Luis Alvarez, a solution provider and member of CRN's editorial cabinet. He delivers this direct warning: The Days Of The Traditional VAR Are Numbered. So what's next? You've heard about services. Don't forget about skills and specialization.

Horizontal/Vertical

Big vendors can't possibly handle the myriad uses for which a network, or database, or application might be used. But solution providers, by specializing in important verticals, can provide better service to customers and earn more money. That's the point of T.C. Doyle's Key Vendors Want You to Go Vertical, which looks at how Cisco, Sun and HP are realigning their programs to lead partners into clearer, and hopefully more lucrative, specialties.

But don't give up on selling good ol' PC's just yet, cautions Bob DeMarzo. In Put Personality Into Personal Computing, Bob calls for some passion and imagination in selling computer hardware. Dell hasn't become the dominant PC seller because it's prices are the lowest, or its products the best, he says, but because their message is the clearest.

Hot Technology

Three technologies that are ripe for growth: Heather Clancy looks at tablet computing; Sonia Lelii looks at enterprise storage; and Rob Wright takes a trip to BEA Systems' eWorld to catch up on web services.

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