Bite the hand that feeds you
When vendors are reliant on consultants to sell, implement and support their products; don't screw the consultants. It's called biting the hand that feeds you.
Remember a company called "Novell"? Bypassing the consultants that built the company (as Adornoe points out, who didn't work for Novell) was one of many mistakes that resulted in the demise of the company.
One of the reasons Apple has never been a player in corporate IT (iDevices aside, a consumer oriented and relatively recent development) is they have regularly screwed their partner channel.
Remember the first Linux IPO? It was from a company called VA Linux. They screwed their channel. RedHat didn't. RedHat is still in business. VA Linux now runs the ThinkGeek catalog. A paper catalog. Think about it.
Companies regularly court the consultant and partner channel for a very simple reason: a channel is MUCH less expensive than building, managing and staffing an in-house sales and consulting organization. Again, Adornoe states "they don't work for you".
But if a vendor is going to rely on and benefit from the channel, do not abandon, circumvent or outright screw the channel. It's bad business.
