Gearing Up For Education

For Nyland, that means going to town council and school board meetings where "wish lists" are discussed. Getting that kind of face time is invaluable, because it is the only marketing the vast majority of VARs will ever do.

"You can't advertise in the education vertical," says Roland Anderson, operations manager at Cypress, Calif.-based Daptech Consulting. "The best advertisement is word of mouth. For us, it's being introduced by people we've done business with to the decision makers,school administrators."

The efforts appear to pay off: In VARBusiness' 2003 State of the Market survey, 52 percent of VARs say they are involved in the education market, and slightly more than half of those say their sales increased in the past 12 months.

In addition to making school board rounds, Jay O'Callaghan, vice president of enterprise network solutions at Tempe, Ariz.-based Avnet Enterprise Solutions, suggests working with vendor partners initially. "Cisco, for example, took us [into the education segment, and that's where I would probably start," he says. "See what kind of government/education programs they have, because they've done a lot of the legwork to get you the right contacts in terms of educating you on E-Rate and other programs."

E-Rate is a Federal Communications Commission program that provides eligible K-12 public schools and libraries discounts on telecommunications, Internet access and networking costs. The discount is determined by the number of students participating in the National Free Lunch Program. "The City of Hartford is the fourth-poorest school district in the country," Nyland says. "So it is reimbursed at a higher rate. We started working with that district, helping them submit for the funds."

VARs that know how to fill out the forms properly and can guide the districts in making grant requests will have an upper hand in ultimately getting the contract. In fact, the forms require the districts to name the VAR that will be performing the work.

Education Technology

"There are a few areas that are hot in K-12 right now," says Tim Harr, vice president of corporate development at IP Revolution, Omaha, Neb. "[They are IP telephony, wireless and content filtering."

With many schools already wired for data, adding an IP telephony system directly to a data network avoids additional outside costs. Teachers are given classroom phones, providing better response time for either medical or security emergencies.

"A local cable-TV provider or local fiber provider often will give free access to schools," Harr says.

"That enables us to tie the IP telephony system to a centralized system with call accounting, voicemail, features and functionality. That access in classrooms also can improve parent/

teacher relationships," Avnet's O'Callaghan says. "Having phones in the room, e-mail access and the ability to download homework all provide ongoing communication."

Some schools are trying out wireless mobile labs,described by Daptec's Anderson as rolling carts with 30 laptops, all recharging in the cart after use,which go from room to room where teachers can send the day's lesson to each student.

With Internet access available to students in the classroom or computer labs, content filtering and security are also necessities. Administrators can choose from numerous filtering products available,such as NetScreen, SonicWall, SurfControl, SurfWatch and WatchGuard.

"Schools want students [doing schoolwork," says Bryan Woodcock, vice president at CommNet Plus, Indianapolis. "[Filtering products eliminate all the distractions, so you have the best environment [in which to learn." n