Vendors, Solution Providers Say Fused IT Model Still Evolving

Michael Sotnick, Veritas' vice president of channels, said the need for tight relationships between his company, the channel and end users means a broader response to solving IT problems and a smoother sales process.

"About 65 percent of the calls we get are on the operating system software, on the API set or on the bios," Sotnick said. "It's not our software."

Sotnick spoke during a keynote panel discussion at the XChange technology and channel conference in Orlando, Fla., sponsored by CRN's parent company, CMP Media.

The "Fused IT" business model--the working relationship between technology manufacturers, solution providers and customers--continues to be a symphony growing ever-more complicated, said others on the panel discussion and solution providers.

And, there remains room for improvement, some said.

"One thing we encounter on a regular basis are salespersons who don't have a technical knowledge of the products they are selling," said Tim Davis, senior systems administrator for the University of Central Florida at Orlando's College of Education.

"I need to know a lot of specifics of how a product works [before buying it]," Davis said. "Sometimes I wish a salesperson would show up a little more prepared."

That preparation can be costly to solution providers, though, who say they have had to adjust some of their strategies as technology solutions have become more complicated.

"It is difficult to send out salespeople [into the field as] vendor-neutral, multivendor and have three backup [storage vendors] and know them well," said Joe Weis, CEO of Uinta Business Systems, Salt Lake City, Utah.

Pete Busam, COO at Decisive Systems, Pennsauken, N.J., said his company had concerns about having too broad a product line in its customer offerings to provide enough expertise in each.

"We've gone back and decided to only take a dozen or so products, and have been very strong on those products," Busam said.

Even in scenarios in which Fused IT models are carefully orchestrated, solution provider customers can create new challenges, said one solution provider.

"The most difficult question I've encountered is when a customer says, 'Tell me about a product,' and it's a product I've never seen before," said Ted Hunter, general manager of Champion Networks, a Brunswick, Maine-based solution provider who listened to the keynote discussion. "I have to research it [and] learn about it, and can't bill for [that]."