The noise level at Chicago's Fairmont Hotel seemed surprisingly high during the Intuit Solution Provider conference this week, someone observed. "That's because it's a younger crowd than the typical mid-market reseller conference," I replied. Yes, for the first time in a long time, the audience in the VAR channel featured a noticeable number of younger people, not just the same dealers who have been showing up the last 20 years.

Usually, press releases like this leave me cold. "BuilderMT Roars Out of 'The Great Recession.' In Just the Last 90 Days, Builders Totaling 4,000+ Starts Sign with BuilderMT." But given how bad the economy has been, and the construction market in particular, reports like this help build a convincing case that the economy has moved off the swamp floor. That doesn't mean we're near the roaring success of a couple of years ago. But we can realistically hope for better.

Before the economy started crumbling in September last year, specialized ERP vendors looked like a group on the rise. Deltek was actively recruiting a channel through the efforts of Taylor Macdonald. Activant had made a nice move buying Intuit's distribution business. Few of us had heard of Versata and CDC Software was preparing to spin out of its parent.