It takes a certain chutzpah to start up a business these days. Many would say the cards are stacked against entrepreneurs. As established businesses are getting pounded in the flat economy, it's hard to see how any vendor could emerge successfully.

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But they do.

Following is CRN's list of Emerging Vendors for 2012 , and, at 160 companies, it's a substantial accounting. With unemployment hovering at 8.2 percent, job cuts continuing and businesses on hiring "hiatus," it seems more than a bit ironic. It may just be that the economy's dire straits is prompting the entrepreneurial "giddy-up." When times get tough, pink slips follow--but those with drive, imagination and an understanding of their marketplace, begin again.

CRN's Emerging Vendors know the value of good channel partnerships as well. Partnering with the right VAR can open up doors in a way that no amount of marketing could. A solution provider catering to the health care segment, for example, can place vendor products in myriad applications. That's why solid channel commitment is one of the few requirements for the listing.

This list includes vendors from different technology segments. Each must have been established or have undergone a major transformation in 2006 or later, and have a strategy to leverage the channel to go to market. They are unique because each offers its own perspective to technology.

What's important to these emerging vendors' prospective customers--and how to engineer such solutions--differs from vendor to vendor. Some of these youngsters are already making a mark in the technology arena.

Partly responsible for their success is the realization by large companies that the technologies offered by such emerging vendors are not simply "new," but, rather, effective in meeting business objectives. Cloud computing solutions offer cost efficiency, and mobile business apps can help expand a customer base, for example. It's a lesson that some large, struggling companies are slowly recognizing--emerging vendors can help big businesses get even bigger.