Synnex CEO: 5 Technologies VARs Should Focus On In 2010

With signs of an economic recovery continuing into 2010, Kevin Murai, president and CEO of distributor Synnex, laid out five technology trends solution providers should focus on to help grow their businesses.

Murai detailed the points during a keynote session to 250 VARs during Synnex's Varnex fall conference in Indian Wells, Calif., Tuesday.

"The big question is, 'Have we reached the end of the recession?' In the U.S., we believe we have," Murai told the crowd, noting that the U.S. gross domestic product increased 3.4 percent in the third quarter and that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke announced the end of the recession in September.

"Let's hope that keeps going forward. That being said, the general consensus is that 2010 will be more muted growth. Don't expect the arrow to go up very sharply," Murai said.

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Synnex has identified five areas where it plans to seek growth in 2010 and Murai advised solution providers to focus on those areas as well. They are:

Mobility: Murai noted that mobility has been a hot technology for several years, but he expects netbooks and handheld devices to help continue that trend in 2010.

"Everybody has e-mail on a handheld device. Going forward, it's going to be more about the applications. From a commercial standpoint, as we start to deploy applications on a handheld, it will free us up to be more productive," he said.

Synnex is looking at new vendor partnerships to help round out its line card in that regard, he said. "For you [solution providers], a lot of applications may not be off the shelf, but how do you deploy them in a customized way to customers?"

Cloud Computing: Murai said end users' concerns about putting data in the cloud are temporary and will not impede the long-term importance of this technology.

"Cloud computing is real. We are partnering with infrastructure companies and also establishing tools that do metering and single sign-on," Murai said. "We are forming a community of ISVs that put their applications up in the cloud, folks like MessageLabs, iLinc and NetSuite. This is a nontraditional business for us but we are looking for partners to help you deploy a complete solution."

Green IT: As overall IT infrastructure usage increases, so do the power costs of running all that equipment. A VAR's ability to help customers reduce those costs, aside from environmental benefits, will be a big selling point in 2010, Murai said.

"Many utilities today have said they cannot support that growth going forward. Not only is it a good idea to figure a way to reduce energy consumption -- you may have to," Murai said. "It makes us better corporate citizens, but it also saves real money at the same time."

Synnex has undertaken its own green initiatives that have saved the company $60,000 thus far.

"We will continue to establish relationships with power utilities that offer rebates to support the deployment of more efficient IT. We are at the beginning stages of this. It's not good enough to say we are a member of EPEAT or Energy Star; we want to help you get in place and help your overall value in this area to customers," Murai said.

Next: Managed Services Point To Profitability

Managed Services: Synnex has developed a program to help solution providers get started on managed services and offers its own print managed services offering in PrintSolv. Those offerings will expand in 2010, Murai said.

"This is a trend you need to pay attention to because it helps solidify your services business. Aging equipment is out there and you can say, 'Here's where I can save you money, improve productivity and refresh parts of your environment,'" Murai said.

One of VARs' biggest concerns today is sustained profitability, and managed services is a key answer for those worries, Murai said.

"It's the way IT is being sold today. Managed services is a model that gets [VARs] enabled with customers in a more effective way."

Lifestyle Products: VARs should expect to see more professional audio, video, surveillance and home controls solutions start to take hold in the commercial sector, Murai said.

"There's going to be shared technologies, fully integrated where you have the network at the core," Murai said. "More robust deployments are drawn from the IT side and the CE side."

These technologies in homes can also be an incremental market for solution providers, Murai said.

"VARs have shied away from the home market because really you're on call 24/7. Think about mission-critical situations, and nothing is more mission critical than the Super Bowl is on and the TV is not working. But as the opportunity goes beyond the network itself and gets more integrated with other technologies, that opportunity might become large enough [for VARs]."