TechBuilder.org Celebrates First Anniversary

TechBuilder.org celebrates its first anniversary. One year ago, the editors of VARBusiness magazine and CRN launched TechBuilder.org, a site designed to meet the unique needs of professionals engaged in building systems or integrating white box technologies for their customers.

Techbuilder.org provides a mix of news, how-to articles called Recipes, opinion columns, and discussion forums, and all its content is carefully selected by TechBuilder's editors to ensure its relevance for system builders. System builders today are a crossroads in their business model as they struggle with margin pressure, price competition from major hardware manufacturers and the realization they must grow their services revenue.

Techbuilder.org has helped identify new market opportunities for systems builders such as expansion into the notebook space. Recent research from CRN shows that unbranded notebooks, or "whitebooks," are now tied with Dell notebooks as the most profitable PC systems available in the channel. This finding is a milestone for system builders, confirming the vital importance of system builders to customer organizations, and reinforcing the need for an online community that supports their information needs.

Since TechBuilder.org's launch in October 2003, the site has passed some impressive milestones:

• To date, nearly 2,800 system builders have qualified for TechBuilder.org membership.
• Visitors to TechBuilder.org during the first year generated a half-million pageviews.
• TechBuilder members have posted hundreds of messages in the TechBuilder Forums. The more than 120 technical and business topics under discussion have included how to build "whitebook" notebooks, why small businesses can't get volume discounts, the best ways to optimize Windows XP, and the pros and cons of vendor certification programs.
• The site has posted an original and exclusive Recipe every week since its launch, for a library that now stands at 55 Recipes and counting. Especially popular topics have included speeding Windows XP, using SATA hard drives, teaching Linux to run Windows applications, hacking TiVos and Xboxes, and fighting spam and spyware.
• The site sponsored its first live event -- XChange TechBuilder -- in May in Las Vegas. Nancy Hammervik, Director of XChange Events, paid tribute to the value provided by the TechBuilder community, saying, "The true motivator in custom building has always been customer-centric service. Many white-box integrators have become trusted advisers and experts in specific vertical markets."

Frank Ohlhorst, director of CRN Labs, said, "TechBuilder.org has proven to be a valuable resource for systems builders the world over. It's driven by knowledgeable writers who know how to get into the nitty-gritty of designing and implementing a custom solution. TechBuilder is quickly becoming the first place to visit when you need to know the latest in technology and how to build it for your customers."

In the coming year, Techbuilder.org will be adding a number of new features including new system builder recipes, blogs and research from CRN and VARBusiness.

PETER KRASS is the Managing Editor of TechBuilder.org.