Scenes From Synnex's Varnex Spring Conference, Orlando

Varnex Spring Conference

Synnex attracted more than 200 VAR executives and 40 vendor companies to the Varnex Spring Conference in Orlando, Fla. Bob Stegner, senior vice president of North America marketing at Synnex, talked about building the community to 240 members in two years. Sales from Varnex members grew more than 8 percent higher than Synnex's overall commercial VAR segment, Stegner noted.

Executives On Hand

Synnex CFO Thomas Alsborg (center), and Peter Larocque, president of U.S. distribution, talk with one of the Varnex attendees. In a keynote, Larocque noted that many end users now have "enterprise taste but an SMB budget." He challenged VARs to bring new solutions to meet their growing needs, including managed print services and virtualization.

Party Time

Lois Hardin (center), and Rick Hardin, of Orlando-based VAR Asystech, receive a lei while entering an opening reception. The Spring Conference marked the largest Varnex gathering to date.

Channel Talk

Synnex senior vice president of commercial sales Stephen Jow (l) holds court with a group of resellers. In his keynote, Jow noted that Varnex members saw first-quarter digital signage sales increase 200 percent year-over-year, while health care/EMR solutions increased almost 30 percent.

Skirting The Issues

Tim Phillips, vice president of product management at Synnex, is all ready for a night out on the town.

Circle Time

A group of VARs and vendor executives take time out to say, "Hi!"during a team-building exercise.

No Services Competition From Lenovo

Lenovo's Milko van Dujil, senior vice president and president of Lenovo North America, Western Europe, Japan, Australia and New Zealand, told VARs that he hopes the absence of a direct services business will be a key differentiator for Lenovo compared to its competitors.

Skylight

Van Dujil also showed off one of Lenovo's upcoming Skylight PCs. VARs should see plenty of services to capture in the mobile space, he said. "There will be great opportunities for software and systems management. Cost of ownership will come down and productivity ROI will be tremendous," he said.

VAR Vision

A solution provider panel discussed several issues, including vertical markets and improving profit margins. From the left are Steve Gay, managing partner at Strategic Sourcing; Don Zurbrick, sales and marketing manager at Big Sur Technologies; Synnex's Stegner; Lester Keizer, CEO of Connecting Point of Las Vegas; and Paul Whalley, vice president of Whalley Computer Associates.

Social Media Expert

Jim Markisohn, managing partner of Circa 65, held a session called Interactive Marketing: Beyond Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. He advised VARs to develop a social media strategy and policy that can support your company's business goals.

"Goals have to be measured in revenue terms, profit growth. If I invest in any social media, I want to see it tied to some kind of return," he said.

Mickey Mouse Show

Synnex's Stegner, known for wearing a costume on stage, decided against that on the first day of the show, but by the second day he had to break out the mouse ears. It was Orlando, after all.

HP Channel Update

HP's new channel chief, Stephen DiFranco, promised more channel consistency and more integration between the company and VARs going forward.