One year ago, Netscape had twice the share of Microsoft, as 60 percent of resellers said Netscape sold best versus 32 percent citing Microsoft. High scores for Microsoft's support could explain the trend. Microsoft discounts might also be helping matters. The number of resellers earning between a third and half or more of their sales from volume-discount programs such as Microsoft Select rose to 19 percent in January, up from 7 percent six months ago. Products included in the Fast Ethernet category range from adapter cards to hardware such as hubs and switches.
Lower prices are a major factor behind the accelerated adoption rates.
Hewlett-Packard Co.'s Workgroup Networks Division, for instance, announced Q1 price cuts of 46 percent. The CIS estimate is based on a North American value-added channel population of approximately 95,700 companies. The CIS Channel Universe database contains approximately 124,600 reseller companies in North America, of which, roughly 95,700 are value-channel firms, including systems integrators, ISVs and software developers, IT consultants, telecommunications VARs and corporate resellers. This 86 percent translates to 82,300 value-channel companies. The coverage ratio of reseller company to small business opportunity is 1 to 145.