Jamcracker is offering a new service to help VARs quickly add software as a service to their lineups.

The Santa Clara, Calif., aggregator of on-demand software applications—including those from Microsoft, WebEx and McAfee—is opening up its Webstores model to VARs.  The company also offers the services to telcos and large service providers. Webstores provide front- and back-end services delivery infrastructure, billing and settlement, as well as customer administration and support for SAAS. All VARs need to do is add the stores to their Web sites and provide the sales support.

"We think there is a great role for the traditional VAR who has relationships with customers and has established himself as a trusted adviser," said Steve Crawford, vice president of marketing at Jamcracker. "They are the ideal conduit to deliver these services to end users."

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And the service provides VARs with a quick entry into the SAAS space with little to no commitment to infrastructure. Participating VARs get a source of monthly recurring revenue.

Through Jamcracker's service, which acts as a marketplace for applications on demand, VARs have access to multiple applications, including Microsoft Sharepoint and the company's new Dynamic CRM offering, WebEx conferencing, and IT security, among others.

Interested VARs can start the registration process at the Jamcracker site. The company will then qualify those who are existing MSPs (managed service providers), VARs or Web hosting companies.

Once qualified, the VAR would set up his Webstore, upload his logo and then market the site to his end customers.

"We will help them in terms of doing sales and marketing to their end customers," Crawford said. "Because we have a lot of different channel partners over the years, we've been able to learn best practices for how to take these services to market. We succeed when our channel succeeds."

The company has been piloting the program for a few months already and currently has more than 20 resellers who are in the process of going live with their stores.

Jamcracker was founded in 1999 by K.B. “Chandra” Chandrasekhar, who also founded Exodus Communications.