State of the Government Market: Methodology

GovernmentVAR's 2006 State of the Government Market explores the business climate and economic forecast among IT solution providers that target government (federal, state, local), education and health-care sectors.

In building this business intelligence report, GovernmentVAR--with the help of Answers Research--surveyed more than 260 public-sector VARs and integrators. The Web-based survey was conducted over three weeks in January and February. The margin of error was +/- 6 percent at a 95 percent confidence interval. From that sample, GovernmentVAR editors and researchers uncovered critical public-sector channel business and technology trends.

Study participants were recruited from CMP Media Channel Group's circulation of public-sector VARs. The random sample includes traditional VARs, IT consultants, Web integrators, ASPs, ISPs, ISVs and VARs that specialize in vertical or niche markets. For purposes of the survey, small VARs are defined as those with less than $1 million in annual revenue; midsize VARs, $1 million to $9.9 million; and large VARs, $10 million or more.

We also looked at VARs that generate more than half their revenue from the federal government or from state, local or education customers. Go to www.governmentvar.com/SOGM for additional BI and a searchable database.