by Tom Venetis
One of the most difficult things VARs often have to grapple with in their day-to-day work is finding solutions that best fit with what their clients are looking for. Most solutions are simply not advertised well in the channel which makes digging them up an almost full-time job in itself.
"We estimate that only five per cent of the software that is currently available is in the channels," says Brent Gushowaty, director of corporate sales for the Vancouver-based SoftSearch Software Information Service. "That leaves a quite a lot of stuff that you can’t find."
In order to help VARs tackle this problem, SoftSearch has developed an Enhanced Developers Listing option for its searchable database of developers and solutions.
The enhanced option is an extension of SoftSearch’s Basic Developer Listing. For US$249 a year, a developer can use the enhanced listing service to post a description of their company, what solutions they carry and the kind of work they can do for a VAR. The enhanced listing will also carry the developer’s logo and a direct link to the developer’s Web site.
"In a basic listing, a developer’s information is presented in a white pages, telephone-book format," Gushowaty adds. "In the advanced, with the company logo, profile and link to their Web site...a company is getting a better presentation of their information that looks more professional."
Gushowaty says this option allows VARs to better track down the kinds of solutions that they are looking for.
Since 1989, SoftSearch has posted some 22,000 developers and their products on its database, which can be searched either using a key word search or a product name search. This produces a list of product names and developers who SoftSearch can contact on behalf of the VAR.
A paid search offers greater flexibility for the VAR and also a refinement in the search method.
"A paid search
offers a refined
search method."
"The search is in two parts," Gushowaty adds. "The first is that the site returns all of the information that matches the key words a VAR has given us.
"So what they see are descriptions of the program and technical details, but with all the marketing hype removed. They can then scroll down those programs and click on the ones that most closely match what they are looking for," he says.
Gushowaty adds that this extra information is particularly useful for searching out solutions that are made for specific niches, and which are often quite obscure.
"We had a person call up looking for point-of-sale solutions for jewelry stores," he remembers.
"I went in and found about 30 programs. Then we sorted through them to about 14 programs that could run a jewelry store from beginning to end, including splitting the gems to the adding of bar codes.
"We have had police departments looking for crime reconstruction software and we have had people looking for programs running travel bureaus. So a typical solution that someone might be looking for is one that will save a company money or better organize what they are doing. Certainly no one is going to use it to find a $29 dollar chess program."
The SoftSearch developer listing can be found by visiting the company’s site at www.softsearch.com.
- Computer Dealer News - March 2, 1998
