SYNNEX launches SAAS portal 8 October, 2009 By Mark Cox

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"We started a dedicated SaaS group about 9 months ago and we realized VARs needed to be able to position their products better, and that led us to building the portal," said Denna Mensch, vice president of software at SYNNEX. Since then, SYNNEX has added over 10 hosted solutions to its' offerings.

"We expect the portal will make it easier for VARs to see those offerings and make quicker adoption across the platform," Mensch said.

SYNNEX is touting the portal as a state of the art offering, which supports multiple SaaS applications by aggregation into a single, managed console, which offers VARs a dynamic, real-time mode to provision the end user environment.

The portal's capabilities include: Quote on Demand, offering VARs an automatically generated web-quote of the MSRP and associated cost with a transaction; Contract Creation and Customization in a centralized online environment, allowing VARs to adapt their end user's environment in real-time; and aggregation point for more than 10 hosted software-plus-service solutions; and multiple "bill to" options with automated capture of end user usage.

"This will make it easier for the VARs, so they aren't going to multiple sites and will have a single point of contact," said Bob Stegner , SVP Marketing North America at Synnex. "It will also make it easier to recruit new attractive SaaS providers."

While there has been a lot of talk in the last year about SaaS being a magic bullet for VARs, especially in a down economy, adapting to it is a major shift in many of their business models.

"It's recurring revenue, and I haven't met many VARs who wouldn't rather start the day in the black than in the red." Stegner said. "But it's not easy to flip a switch and become a managed services company. It's a major shift in the company, with a longer sales cycle, which requires a buy-in from staff."

That's why, while some resellers embrace managed services fully from the beginning, some will just put their toe in the water, said Stegner.

"They need to make sure it will adapt to their business," he said. And the SYNNEX portal is designed to make it easier for them to go through this transition.