When the MIS Group folded this summer, several new reselling units were created. But it was also notable that two organizations on a growth path, Laguna Hills, Calif.-based Blytheco and Manhattan-based Net@Work moved into Texas in a much bigger way. Blytheco can already call itself a national VAR, while I'd call Net@Work a multi-regional VAR with national aspirations.

But nobody has proved that the national VAR model is a one that can dominate a market. ePartners is coming back from tough times, but it's nowhere near its size of the early part of this decade. Columbus IT Partner, operating largely outside of the United States, has spun off several subsidiaries. It's hard to tell how well Tectura is doing--its plans for an initial public offering were thwarted by market conditions a couple of years ago. But it just sold $7.5 million in stock in venture financing and companies hate to give away more ownership than they have to. Besides, I would argue that Tectura is not a VAR. It has VAR activities, but it's much more and I've used the term vertically integrated distributor to cover its business (a phrase that clearly isn't catch on).

Even consortiums have showed that they can have difficulty in spanning a continent. The Interdyn companies have generally done well. These largely Dynamics VARs include some that routinely get top Microsoft honors. But the group has had problems hanging onto members. Last year, Interdyn Pro Data was acquired by Aztec Systems (itself on the grow). Two years ago, Interdyn FMT went its own way and became FMT Consulting, with Interdyn Remington moving into southern California and the Southwest state to maintain an Interdyn presence.

Is it something about the cost structure of reselling operations? Is it simply, as one VAR put it, that the size of a reselling organization is limited by the distance a consultant can drive to a client location, serve that client and return home the same day? Or is that growing means serving bigger clients, because serving more cities adds costs and besides, clients that have locations in several regions are probably larger organizations to begin with. Growth requires changing how a company works; changes the kind of people that must be hired; changes the relationship between expenses and revenue.

It's not that it can't be done. We don’t know that for sure. But it's clear that selling accounting systems isn't like selling hamburgers - it requires skilled people who can deliver services, and some of them have to be on site no matter how much remote technology eliminates some of the need to travel.