The Tech That Had VARs Talking in Hershey

This week's D&H Mid-Atlantic Technology show drew some 1,000 attendees to Hershey, Pa.  Besides great door prizes, the buffet dinner and the promise of a six-hour open bar, which products from the 128  vendors at the show had VARs clamoring to get into the exhibit hall? The results range from the practical to the frivolous. 

Henry Hassinger, owner of VAR Image Soft, says he's intrigued by Bountiful Wireless' products, and plans to give the company a second try. Hassinger says he purchased some access points from Bountiful last year but wasn't able to configure them to be compatible with his customers' legacy technology.

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"I'll give them another shot this year," Hassinger says, adding that he's also interested in checking out some wireless signal extender technology.

Brian Bembusia, one of the 15 former PestControl employees who in April purchased CyberPatrol's Internet content filtering software from Websense, says he's most excited to ink a possible distribution deal with D&H for the CyberPatrol software. He also says he's looking forward to checking out the Cisco Networking van, on site for the show, since his company uses Cisco infrastructure to power its technology.

And a VAR from Clarion, Pa., who wished to remain anonymous, said he's been coming to the show each of the past four years to take advantage of show pricing and stock up on "mostly minor stuff, like power supplies and memory."

Jim DeSalvo, owner of Bit by Bit Computer Support, said a few things caught his eye, including Tascam's digital Portastudio line of music recording and sound mixing applicances, and from the D&H housewares side of their distribution business, the Margarator margarita blender. 

On the business side, DeSalvo says the D&H show is a great place to restock some crucial summer necessities.

"I come here each year and stock up on modems, network cards and power supplies -- customers in my area get struck by lightning a lot in our area, so I find during the summer that my services are needed for replacement parts like that," he says. 

DeSalvo's business is located in Spring Grove, a more mountainous area of Pennsylvania ringed with former iron ore mines that's prone to lightning strikes during summer storms.