A little group of upstart telecom guys are biting at the heals of BuyerZone and OnForce. Telarus, Inc. announced today that they have reached a tremendous milestone - 1,000 Value Added Resellers (VARs) under their network known as VARNetwork(tm).
In under 6 months, they developed and launched VARSearch(tm), a database of telecom hardware dealers and network integrators. The VARSearch database drives VARNetwork.com and is accessible to the general public for use in finding a telephone or network equipment installers/dealers in their local area.
The current crop of VARNetwork VARs represent brands including: Cisco, NEC, Avaya, Toshiba, Nortel, Vodavi, Extreme Networks, Juniper, Foundry Networks, Artisoft and TalkSwitch.
"The 1,000th profile that we added to VARSearch marked the first major milestone in the development of our VAR program" commented Robert Butler, Director of the Telarus VAR Network. "As we add more VAR partners to our database, the results that VARSearch provides our users will continue to increase in quality. Users of our software are now finding multiple VARs in their area, usually under 20 miles away, as a result of the increase in memberships. As the results of VARSearch improve, so too does the number of people who choose to use our VAR search tool. Helping businesses find the right VAR is what this program is all about."
Over 800 unique leads went through VARSearch network to Telarus' group of partners in December '06. They rate VARs based on a number of factors including geographic proximity to the customer, previous customer and agent feedback, and VAR's level of participation with ShopforT1's core telecommunication services business. Those ratings determine which VARs are returned for a given search and in what order they will be presented to the potential customer.
I'm wishing them the best of luck... I love to see an underdog going up against well funded competitors. Especially when that underdog is using better ideas and technology to wage the war.
