>If you have a product that you are selling and someone wanted to be a var for that product...
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>What is the typical percent or take that a var would normally get?
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>Do vars get full release runtime type license?
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>Are they restricted on how they market the product?
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>Thanks for your help.

It depends ;-) Usually the VAR get's a sliding scale percentage based on volume. So, if they only sell 4 copies in a year they'd make 25%, 10 copies 30%, 50 copies 45% (I'm just making up the numbers, it really depends on the market and how many copies they could reasonably sell). If I was having someone else sell my software I'd provide them with a "dealer" copy that they can use, train on/with, etc. Then for each sale I'd provide them with the software and a license or key to activate it (or even already keyed to the end user and burned on a CD). That way you can track sales and keep everyone honest. Most VAR's make a lot of money in the training aspect of the sale, and in some cases customizing the software is also a very big part of it. If you're allowing your VARs to customize the software you'll need to come up with some way of managing the source code - probably by breaking the software into modules and only allowing source code changes in them. Obviously you wouldn't want to give them access to the "key/license" part of the code.

Some VAR programs limit the geographical area, other's don't care. One thing to keep in mind is some way of resolving disputes between VARS going after the same customers. Maybe some sort of "first contact" rule where the VAR that had first contact with the customer gets the sale (if it's made) and the other VAR stays out of the way. But you definitely need something in writing about how all of this will be handled to avoid future problems.