This month, Novell Inc. will be releasing a kit designed to help VARs tap into the lucrative remote network management market.

The kit goes by the moniker "Service Opportunities Kit: Remote Network Management Vol. I." It is a collection of materials aimed at making it easier for VARs to start offering remote network management services, while bypassing much of the hassle usually associated with opening new revenue streams.

James Simzer, director of field and channel sales for Novell Canada Inc., explained why using the kit makes sense. "It goes out and establishes a business plan and a business case for our partners to go into the remote network management business with their customers. Right now, the Internet is really driving the cost of software down, because there are so many ways to acquire software. Customers are able to purchase products at the lowest cost, so what we've done is we've put together some kits that allow our VARs to actually increase the services that they provide to their customers."

Novell's research shows that in a typical sale, a VAR's services represent 15 per cent of the total sale and 48 per cent of the total gross margin.

The kit provides VARs with all the documentation they need to get this section of their business up and running.

"What we've done is we've put it together as a full business plan. If you're a sales manager, if you're a CEO, CIO, whatever, it lists the things that are important to you about remote network management. Along with that are several letters that you'd send to customers, sales presentations that your sales people would use, actual business models for calculating various parts of remote network management to estimations of installation and setup costs, and a bill of materials calculator that allows them to put together a bill of materials of what you will need for each of your customer solutions," says Simzer. "What it does is it helps VARs understand what they will require to provide the solution from the software needs."

Simzer says he believes there is a great demand for remote network management services in the market, a demand that isn't being filled because VARs don't have the time or the means to expand into that segment.

"This service is something that people have been looking for and wanting, and (that) our small businesses have been asking for. But one of the things that happens with many of our VAR organizations is that they become so busy in the day-to-day running of their business that it's hard to start carving out new niches inside a growing or an emerging market,and develop a business plan and all of the things required to that plan and go after it," he says, "It's pretty resource-intensive."

The kit itself is still in beta version, but should be available sometime in November.

"The program will be available to our gold and platinum partners. It has not been given a price tag as of yet," says Simzer, adding it may be given to some partners free of charge.

If Novell does end up giving the kit away for free, where will it realize a profit to make the cost of creating the kit worthwhile? From an increase in sales of Novell products, Simzer hopes.

"A lot of what the kit does is help outline the capabilities of ManageWise and our directory-based applications. That's where we would see the increase in sales, because those are really the products that consume the directory and allow the return on investment that both a partner and a customer would need to make this worthwhile," he says.

Andrew Peters, managing partner with Peters & Associates in Elmhurst, Ill., is one of the kit's beta testers. He says the package was "well done," and that it raised a lot of issues about moving into the network operations centre business.

"It gave us excellent cost models — about how the customers would be charged — which has given us enough information so we can have those discussions with the customers right now."

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