Aussie channel still viable despite economic doom and gloom

Dimension Data reported significant growth in revenue and profit when it released its results in November, said Martin Aungle, corporate communications manager.

"We're not in the distribution business so I guess any kind of correlation with results from the integrator space I think doesn't necessarily match up," said Aungle.

Smaller resellers also said they had so far found little effect of the global financial crisis on their business.

Ian Grieve, part-owner of IT reseller, Computer Ambulance, said the IT channel in Australia isn't slowing down.

Computer Ambulance is based in Toowoomba, Queensland and Grieve claimed the business was booming and sales hadn't slowed down.

Grieve said regional businesses like his were thriving, partly due to the Federal Government's stimulus packages.

Olof Elvingson, owner of NSW-based Avalon Computers, said he had seen business boom in recent times.

"Looks like our segment of home and small business people would rather spend $200-$300 on repairs/upgrades than heading down to Officeworks to buy a new computer system," he said.

"I think "spare parts" distributors like Altech etc. will do alright."

Elvingson claimed the local channel had changed with most small, "mum and dad" retail resellers already long gone from local shopping strips.

Most service and specialised resellers would do OK, in these global economic times, claimed Elvinson.

"Especially if they have a large and loyal customer base," he said.

"We will get a lot of 'budget upgrade' requests to carry people over until [they] know what's over the horizon.

"Also, Microsoft is not helping by dithering over XP-Vista-Windows 7, keeping some people sitting on the fence with their two- to four-year-old XP systems," he said.

Web based retailers and other IT businesses just getting started would suffer the double whammy of higher prices due to the dollar and less demand from customers, Elvinson said.

"We monitor the computer-repair section in the Manly Daily newspaper, and there are a lot more ads by local technicians looking for jobs than six to nine months ago," Elvinson said.