automatic data capture
point of sale
the POS dealer of the past might now be asked not just to manage POS but also monitor the front door, the back door, customer loyalty cards, inventory control, mobile point of sale, NFS or NFC near frequency, communications, digital signage and so on.”
Convergence BlueStar’s president and CEO Steve Kuntz, believes one of the biggest trends in BlueStar’s market space is the growth of convergence, both in retail POS and in AIDC. “There is a strong convergence of mobile applications,” he said. “We’ve always seen BlueStar’s position as managing data that’s input into an enterprise and that also comes out of the enterprise. Data management is the business we’re in, and so I’ve been extremely excited to see busy booths at Vartech Europe showing product offering touch-pad mobility that can be used for things such as retail stock check, mobile table service and healthcare applications.”
Mark Fraker, vice president of marketing at BlueStar, reflected that before the advent of convergence, resellers, VARs and systems integrators often had their own slice within the technology cake. “All some companies did was Point of Sale, for example,” he said. “They might have just dealt with the front end of a retail operation. Now you have resellers that are being asked not just to focus on mobility or IT for security but in effect to become full technology consultants. So
Intertwined technologies Fraker added that all of these areas are converging on to a person that might previously have only concentrated a small section of the market. “Because of convergence, these people need to educate themselves and absorb all of these technologies,” he said “This is because now the technologies are converging; they’re all intertwined from cradle to grave. This is why our VARs are becoming much more savvy and sophisticated; really full IT consultants dealing with technologies such as ID card security, RFID, ADC, POS and digital signage.” Fraker pointed out that part of the raison d'etre of Vartech is to evangelise BlueStar’s VAR partners in terms of making them even more aware of the changing marketplace and the opportunities it affords. He also referenced the fact that, throughout the year, BlueStar offers webinars and seminars. BlueStar can also provide expertise on-site in the form of ‘lunch and learn’ sessions; these sessions can also include insight from vendors with regard to where they see the strongest business opportunities within a given technology channel.
Re-defining SaaS Fraker also sees the SaaS model as
something that will play an increasingly important role within BlueStar’s and its partners’ technology space. However, he believes the acronym should more readily represent a wider technology pool than software, and stand for Solutions as a Service, rather than Software as a Service. He believes SaaS should be a term that embraces the software, the hardware, warranties, the help desk agreements and more.
Successful format
In conclusion, Steve Kuntz said of Vartech Europe: “At the event our vendor partners and resellers have not only encouraged us to continue with the same type of format into next year, but have also indicated that they’re getting extremely high value from attending. This is important for us because, as a distributor, we rely on their marketing funds to make Vartech Europe happen. This has been a highly successful event for us.”
www.itrportal.com
IT RESELLER – NOVEMBER 2011 25
INTERVIEW
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