Mark Stellini, Please Say It Ain't So!

My apologies to the New York Daily News, which ran a similar headline years ago when the world's most famous bachelor at the time, New York Jets quarterback Joe Namath, got married. But the headline here is referring to one of the solution-provider community's most likable and visible characters, who has decided to pack it in as an independent. Mark Stellini, as some know, is selling his company--Info Systems--to MTM Technologies, which is snapping up regional VARs to amass a nationwide integrator focused on midmarket customers.

Stellini is the storybook VAR, and the story of his company is a reflection of how this industry has grown and the crossroads some solution providers find themselves standing in. Stellini transformed Info Systems, which was built by his dad, into a modern-day solution provider that has embraced managed services while branching out to new customers and territories as a result of a new legal application it deployed. Stellini often had the ear of major vendors, such as Microsoft, Cisco, Citrix and Avaya, to name a few. He was a fixture at their partner conferences, where you'd find him walking quickly from one meeting to the next or sharing a cocktail with a peer or vendor exec.

Stellini also earned the distinction in 2001 as one of the VARBusiness 500's Executives of the Year. But his firm, like many successful regional solution providers, was coming to grips with a litany of issues. For example, Stellini says he was struggling with how to service a customer base that was growing far outside his home base of Delaware, Md.

So the offer from MTM and its backer, Pequot Ventures, was one he couldn't refuse, he says. The deal brings him 70 percent cash ($8.3 million) and the rest in stock, making him a small stakeholder in MTM, which trades for around $3.19 a share, and enabling him to reward some of Info Systems' longtime employees.

Despite the huge windfall, Stellini says his decision to sell was not an easy one. Certainly, many VARs who have built businesses have no intention of selling, but in Stellini's case, he was able to cash out at the right time, though he'll remain with the company for another year. Still, like Namath after he settled down, things are bound to be much less interesting without Stellini at the helm of Info Systems. So I can't help but lament: Oh, Mark, say it ain't so.

Dare to be Different. That was the theme at Juniper Networks' first partner conference held earlier this month in Las Vegas. The company assembled a few hundred partners to help usher in its one-year anniversary in the channel under the banner of the Alternative Route. Indeed, the company is clearly the quintessential alternative to market leader Cisco today and, under worldwide channel executive Tushar Kothari, is making all the right moves.

The conference, long on sincerity and short on PowerPoint slides, was one of the best I've attended in a long time. The partners who gathered have a relatively small amount of their business coming from the Juniper platform, but clearly have high expectations of the networking and security gear vendor. For example, Gary Jackson, president of Rochester Hills, Mich.-based SunTel Services, says he expects his Juniper sales to "double or triple" this year. (SunTel is also a Cisco partner, so those Juniper sales will likely be at the expense of new Cisco gear.)

As Juniper rolled out its position to solution providers, I couldn't help but wonder how much longer it can be viewed as an alternative. Juniper is clearly surpassing every other networking company--including 3Com, Enterasys, Nortel and Avaya--as the primary challenger to Cisco. It's a company with an exciting story, as it carefully crafts an image of an upstart, an innovator, a firm that doesn't take itself too seriously given its cartoon ad campaign. It also is distinguishing itself by its incredible focus on partners. The channel is Juniper's Holy Grail and its future. As Juniper CEO Scott Kreins told partners at the event: "We are building a deliberate dependence on you."

But, with the exception of Apple, the alternative angle can work for only so long. Now that Juniper has caught the attention of the channel and many enterprise customers, what will it do? What can the channel say to clients about Juniper's security strategy, its strategy for data-center consolidation, for monitoring, securing and processing IP traffic? That's Juniper's next battle and, frankly, one much harder to win as it faces Cisco.

Drop me a line and let me know what you think of Juniper's chances at [email protected].