The VAR Guy

The VAR Guy couldn’t make the trip to Avnet Technology Solutions’ New Frontiers Conference this week in Boulder Springs, Colorado. But he is monitoring the conference — which serves Sun Microsystems partners — from after. Here are four key trends for VARs at the event.

1. Money Matters: Sun is doubling the marketing dollars it offers to partners and adding other channel-centric incentives, notes CRN. It’s good to see Sun investing in the channel at a time when Sun’s overall financial performance hasn’t been too hot.

2. Managed Services: Avnet Technology Services continues to expand its OneTech Managed Services Lineup. The move reinforces growing distributor interest in the MSP space.

3. Virtualization Remains Real: Sure, some of the virtualization hype died down when VMware announced slightly slower sales growth. But Avnet Technology Solutions remains upbeat on the technology. In fact, Avnet is evangelizing the VirtualPath initiative to New Frontiers attendees.

4. Healthy IT Opportunities: Avnet also is emphasizing its HealthPath and GovPath strategies. Generally speaking, both of those vertical markets tend to hold up well in a down economy.