Only the SBS Group of Woodbridge, N.J., has signed more than one. The one-hour presentations were by SBS on Tuesday, May 1; Tribridge, Wednesday, May 2, and Socius, Thursday May 3. Master VARs enlist other Dynamics resellers which  remain independent, but buy product from them and go to market under the Master VAR’s brand. There was some talk that affiliates pay 10 percent of revenue. That would make this a franchising program without a formal franchising program. My conversation at Convergence in March with channel VP Doug Kennedy left the impression that program goals have changed. It had seemed at first the goal was to keep good smaller dealers alive. But Kennedy spoke about using affiliates to reach smaller prospects. Maybe the two are inseparable. It also occurred to me that a similar consolidation happened in the Sage channel over the last two years via DSD Business Systems of San Diego. Owner Doug Deane quietly brought together many quality small VARs. While they are owned by DSD, this did the same thing without vendor hoopla. The difference is local VARs keep their names while operating via DSD.