Networking Opportunities: David Strom, VARBusiness

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David Strom is the Senior Technology Editor for CMP's VARBusiness and one of the leading experts on network and Internet technologies. Having written extensively about technology for than 17 years, he brought a number of insights to the conference's keynote phase. According to Strom, there's a big difference between "Fad" technology and usable technology that can make VARs money. Fad technology, he says, are those gadgets and semi standards that suffer from inconsistent standards, lengthy paybacks, Microsoft's meddling and the plain old "out with the old, in with the new" march of time.

VARs should concentrate on technology that provides profit potential, a true interoperable standard, commodity usage (which bring high margins for services or support) and the ability to kick off recurring revenues. His discussion mostly dealt with the things that VARs are looking to support and sell: communication, storage and other things that customers will be looking to use and trust on a daily basis. Key emerging networking technologies include Gigabit networks, IP telephony, real time apps and customer analysis, printing and web services. For viable VAR markets coming into play in the near future, here's how he broke it down:

Gigabit Networks

Faster is better, especially in communication and here are the drivers for Gigabit Networks, per Mr. Strom:

Desktop deployment is driven by near zero marginal cost for 1G networks; Wire plant needs upgrade beyond CAT 5; New wiring test tools are needed; More new apps that require will require Gigabit speeds; Gigabit Ethernet will soon be available in more motherboards.

His main concern here, however, is whether PC buses can keep up with 10G speeds - another upgrade opportunity for VARs.


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