Many distributors already offer a variety of Web-based services that help engineers find parts quickly. Standard fare from leading distributors includes searches by part number and manufacturer, data sheet and application note downloads, reviews of up-to-date price and availability information, and online shopping carts.

But increasingly, some distributors want to take it one step further by offering more sophisticated Internet-based engineering tools. Such design services can be a source of revenue for distributors, particularly those that are highly design-oriented, and they can clearly help OEMs struggling with a shortage of engineers.

Tapping into the online design engineering community, Avnet Inc. is now partnering with Toolwire Inc., a Web-based provider of EDA tools on a pay-per-use basis. Giving designers the option of renting tools makes it possible for them to outsource the expense as well as gain access to a broad range of resources.

Said Warren Miller, vice president of strategic marketing and business development for Avnet Design Services: "We expect the design-productivity gains to dramatically improve our customers' time-to-market."

Elsewhere, Veba Electronics in April announced a strategic alliance with Aprisa Inc., a Web-based engineering service provider, to deploy CircuitNet. This Web-enabled design and reference tool aims to help engineers early in the research and development stage by providing a mathematics-based search engine to access the broadest range of up-to-date technical data.

Veba's North American distributors will add the tool to their engineering design services and will offer subscriptions through design centers and field application engineers. In addition, Insight Electronics is nearing the rollout of a program to distribute intellectual property over the Web.

This is just the beginning. With the proliferation of distributor Web sites, expect next-generation sites to cater to the engineering community by offering value-added services that tout improvements in design productivity, time-to-market and engineering collaboration.