VoIP, Video, Wireless Provide Spark For Innovative VARs

*Editor's Note: This is the sixth of 10 installments of our 5 Hot-Button Issues series, in which we spotlight five things solution providers should keep an eye on over the coming year in various IT and channel categories.

For networking VARs, it's no longer just about routers and switches. A vast array of new opportunities is cropping up as VARs bulk up on technologies like VoIP, video and wireless that help customers do more with their networks.

As these technologies come together with networking infrastructure, channel players are finding new, innovative solutions to some of their customers' most basic problems. Here's what VARs have said recently about a few of the hot networking areas they are sinking their teeth into.

1. Unified Communications
Now that IP telephony is fairly mainstream, solution providers are taking the next step, delving into the applications that help morph VoIP into a productivity tool.

At the top of the list is unified communications, an application set that aims to tie together voice-mail, e-mail, fax, video and instant messaging. The opportunity is bigger now than it ever has been, said Gia McNutt, CEO of Special Order Systems, Rocklin, Calif.

"It's more critical today because there are more mobile workers, more devices than ever before, and it's more of a hassle to get in touch with people," McNutt said.

And with Avaya, Cisco Systems and Microsoft all chasing this market, there's plenty of room for VARs to plant a major stake.

2. Physical Security
While the 'V' in VoIP stands for voice, solution providers are finding booming business opportunities helping customers run video over their IP networks as well.

The physical security market is garnering a lot of attention, as solution providers tie in IP-based video surveillance cameras, giving customers a bird's-eye view of what's going on at the office, store or warehouse from anywhere in the world.

"Customers want to increase productivity of their employees as well as cut down on security issues such as theft," said J.R. Harris, associate director of marketing at Las Vegas-based Wave Link, during a recent interview.

Cisco's Linksys division got in the game earlier this summer with the launch of an IP surveillance camera for SMB customers, and Tech Data already has a specialized business unit dedicated to the market. 3. Application Delivery and WAN Optimization
What good are all of these applications if they don't run well? With application delivery and WAN optimization technology from F5 Networks, Juniper Networks, Packeteer and Riverbed Technologies, VARs are building solutions that help customers boost the performance of software and Web-based applications, even to remote users.

"Customers are saying that the vendors finally get it. It's not about the newest routers or switches, it's about the application," said Craig Nelson, executive vice president of practice solutions at MSI Systems Integrators, Omaha, Neb.

For customers, that means doing more with less: less branch-office infrastructure and less bandwidth. And for VARs, it means a wide-open opportunity in a market that's gaining steam.

4. Voice Over Wireless LAN
Solution providers looking for a business case to push widespread deployment of wireless technology throughout the enterprise may have found it in Voice over Wireless LAN.

The idea is to run VoIP over a customer's wireless network, essentially giving every employee a cordless phone they can wear on their hip, but with access to all of the calling features they'd have at their desk.

" 'Carpeted' customers really haven't deployed wireless because they've been waiting for a killer app. Voice could be that killer app," said Brad King, vice president of wireless at NetVersant, Houston.

With vendors poised to produce dual-mode handsets that can jump from the cellular network to the WLAN, the productivity gains -- and customers' interest -- will increase even more.

5. SMB Networking
Don't forget the little guys, because the vendors aren't. Cisco, D-Link, Linksys, Netgear, 3Com and others are counting on VARs to help drive sales of networking, VoIP and wireless equipment into the small- and midsize-business market.

Vendors are wooing VARs with promises of expanded product lines, stronger resources and enhanced programs. Some vendors are doing this as they try to move upstream from the consumer/SOHO market, while others are looking to the channel as they try to come down from the enterprise. Sitting pretty in the middle are solution providers, with the SMB connections that the vendors crave.