Vendor foe?

Some of the larger hardware vendors deserve to be trusted as far asthey can be thrown. But they are not necessarily as bad as each other,believes Annie Gurton, as she surveys the state of today's channelpartnerships.

A channel partnership is a dish best eaten cold. Resellers are no longer desperately anxious about being accepted by particular vendors: if one won't have you another will. The channel is becoming increasingly aware that there is not much difference beween one hardware vendor and another. Like the machines they sell, they are becoming increasingly grey and indistinguishable.

Yet resellers are the last to want to chop and change. They are looking for stability in their supply chain and want vendors they can stick with. They know that swapping suppliers causes nervousness among their customer base and is no good for business.

Top integrators no longer see relationships with hardware vendors as a priority. Most houses offer hardware as a platform for their software and services and are well able to switch beween vendors to suit themselves. With margins on products slim and fixed, resellers look for other incentives to encourage them to adopt a particular vendor. And the characteristic that most resellers seek most often is consistency.

Many resellers are signed up with more than one vendor. As Chris Brown, joint managing director of C-Cat says,