The write stuff from reseller to developer

As difficult as OpenStack may be for some, Adobe Flash is easy. 

It’s taught in high schools. And Flash Builder is now part of the Adobe Creator 5.5 suite; it’s about as turnkey a platform as you can get for software development.

Opportunities: Adobe Flash is a write-once-run-many-places platform for developers, and with emerging platforms such as the BlackBerry PlayBook and Android leaving footprints in IT, the opportunity to write client software as well as apps is strong.

Flash is also a nifty platform for writing multimedia applications for digital signage solutions, which often require video or high- intensity graphics for impact. VARs that dip into the digital signage pool will likely find nice value in writing software based on Flash.

Challenges: Apple doesn’t appear ready to embrace Flash at any time in the near future for its iOS platforms, at least not natively — which means a VAR investment in Flash, even a small one, may not provide a quick-and-easy way to build solutions for iOS and other platforms.

Differentiation: Apple aside, Flash is a premium development platform for the web, it’s still an important platform for a growing footprint in the mobility world, and it provides nice flexibility to create rich multimedia apps.

The bottom line: New platforms require software, and many reseller customers will require new platforms. With cloud and mobility, in particular, competition among vendor technology providers will only get more cutthroat, and, traditionally, this has been a time when they turn to the channel to win the war.

Each of the platforms we’ve evaluated in the CRN Test Centre, and discussed in this article, are platforms on which resellers have particular opportunities to extend their reach with investments that may be manageable or where vendors may provide assistance.