CRN 2011: Always On

We at CRN have a host of new initiatives -- including new editorial projects -- that we hope you will find useful, as well as some IT projects that will make your experience with CRN a more enjoyable one. The bottom line: As we enter the new year, we resolve to be everywhere you are.

First, we now have a digital edition of CRN in the form of an iPad app and plan to do even more around iPhone/iPad apps this year. The iPad is truly a game-changer for both personal and professional use, as eMarketer projects that 8.5 million iPads were sold in 2010 with 70 million more to be sold in the next two years. I bought one over the summer and love the user experience (as do my kids, unfortunately, who beg for it and fight over it constantly). So go into the app store, search on CRN and download our magazine onto your iPad. We are also working on an iPhone app, and we will create a better interface for those of you who have BlackBerries and get our news there.

We are also launching CRN topic-specific e-zines around the technologies that offer the most opportunity to you. During the past few months, you may have gotten an e-mail about some of these offerings. We created an e-zine on building out the data center, one on security trends, and another on opportunities in health care. If you are interested in getting these, contact me. We have many more to come in 2011.

You will also see some new projects in the pages of CRN, no matter how you access it—iPad, iPhone, BlackBerry, the magazine or on our Web site. In this month’s issue, you will see a “Need to Know” list. Each month we will focus on a particular technology and name vendors and their channel chiefs that you need to know if you are interested in investing, entering or broadening your offering in that market space. We will also highlight emerging vendors that have some very interesting and innovative technology and may be a partner that can help you differentiate. Lastly, we will list VARs that are leaders in the space, nationally or regionally, so you get a sense of the VAR market and opportunity as a whole. This month we focused on security and next month we will take a look at the unified communications/VoIP space.

This month we also have the Data Center 100. This is a larger list like the one we did last January on cloud computing where we will offer you a list of 100 vendors and explain their products. We have chosen areas that have the most promise based on our State of the Market research and survey from our 2010 Fast Growth 100.

Next month, we will also publish a list called the Tech Elite 250. As vendors push for VARs to make investments in their technologies, we decided that we would highlight the VARs that have really invested in technology and the benefits and wins it has provided. So this list will be the top 250 VARs that have made investments in certification, training and technical expertise in the infrastructure space -- networking, VoIP, storage, network security and virtualization.

These are just a few of our new offerings in the next few months. Stay tuned for more news from the editors of CRN. It is going to be a great 2011!

BACKTALK: Kelley Damore is VP, Editorial Director for Everything Channel. You can reach her via e-mail at [email protected].