2009 VAR 500: What It Takes To Win

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All told, this year's VAR 500 is worth a grand total of $597,588,818,754.That enormous number includes IT consultants, solution providers, traditional resellers and vendor services arms.

The figure is roughly $220 billion more than last year's number, largely because of the inclusion of the vendor services arms. Students of the VAR 500 will recall that the vendors were placed on a separate list of 25 in 2007 and, in 2008, the Vendor Top 40 listing. This year, the vendors were reintegrated onto the list, recognizing their value as solution providers. IBM Global Services, ranked No. 1, does not, after all, simply sell IBM brands, but offers an entire spectrum of products to customers. IBM, as with the other vendor services arms on our list, provides clients with the equipment and services they require to design solutions with holistic consideration of servers, storage, application performance and manageability.

IBM Global Services reclaimed the top spot it last held on the overall combined list in 2006; this year it appears at No. 1 with revenue of $57.3 billion. Though it's increasingly difficult to post increases at such high sales rates, the technology services company saw a 3.6 percent rate of growth. Remarkably, $28.2 billion Cognizant, ranked second, saw tremendous growth of 31.8 percent.

During an earnings conference call in February, Cognizant's CEO Francisco D'Souza said that in a soft economy, customers want partners that provide service innovation. "Cognizant has continually demonstrated its ability to bring new services to its customer base," he said. "This is of particular importance at this time ... when customers are reacting to the pressures of a weak economy and are looking for ways to limit costs and to improve productivity."

The combined list of VARs grew despite an economic recession: The total revenue figure climbed 58 percent in 2009.And last year's list was up 24.3 percent from 2007. That, despite what some in the media are calling the worst economic climate since the 1970s -- and some reach back and point to current times rivaling the Great Depression. In fact, the total revenue figure of $597.59 billion is larger than the gross domestic product of Poland ($525.73 billion) or of the Czech Republic, Ukraine and Hungary combined ($553 billion). You could build 1,000 Citi Fields (if you're a Mets fan) or 398 new Yankee Stadiums (if you follow the Bronx Bombers) for that amount of money.

Obviously, the largest systems integrators and consultants contribute a great deal to the $597 billion figure. The so-called "billion-dollar club" has 89 members, contributing $484.8 billion to the list's bottom line, or 77 percent of its total.

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