This article is part of the December 2010, Vol. 1 No. 4 issue of How cloud and virtualization are creating new channel opportunities

Customer needs are moving targets, so VARs that want to stay in the game are making some marketing moves of their own. The challenge is staying on top of what their customers will want next. More on the current VAR market VARs need to carve out their own market niche VARs weigh in on cloud computing In the past, IT customers typically wanted to buy only hardware and software products that they could deploy on their own to solve their business problems. Today, they want to buy solution -- or ready-made bundles that include everything from hardware to software to services designed to solve those same problems with a phone call to a trusted VAR. For many VARs, this bundled approach represents a lucrative and steady business as they combine their custom services with products from key IT vendor partners. Those vendors pay VARs only for the hardware and software they sell on their behalf -- not for providing extra customer services. The upside to this arrangement for VARs is they can keep a steady stream of customers in this tough economy. The downside is that ... Access >>>