|
|
|
Hewlett Packard has received a cautious reception from the channel following its announcement that it wants resellers to play a vital role in helping it to deliver services to SMEs.
According to Francesco Serafini, general manager of HP services EMEA, resellers in the firm's PartnerOne programme will be instrumental in delivering IT services such as storage, servers and mobile computing.
"[PartnerOne] is a strategic concept for HP's business, and especially for the SME market. We want to be sure we work with resellers to deliver best value for our customers," said Serafini.
Further reading
HP Services is working with its European resellers to offer more training in deployment of infrastructure, services and support, he added.
"In return we ask VARs to provide value-added consultancy to customers," he said.
In addition to the SME market, HP will focus most of its business on four key market areas this year: government, financial services, manufacturing and telecommunications.
Serafini said a key focus will be selling more virtualisation systems, which provide on-demand usage of key services such as storage, server space and messaging systems. This means firms can scale their IT systems in line with business demand.
Simon Gay, practice leader at Computacenter, said there is a risk that HP Services' direct sales teams could erode the channel's share of the value-added services market. However, Gay said the opportunities outweigh the costs.
"It's risky, but IT solutions rarely fall into one vendor's domain - and this is where resellers come into play," he said.
"Companies will look for independence and best of breed, rather than a single vendor."
Greg Carlow, managing director of VAR Repton, said the relationship between resellers and vendors has always been tricky.
"We have clear areas where we're doing something different, but there are other areas where we stamp on each other's toes and muddle things up for each other," he said. "The problem comes when you try to draw lines where HP stops and the reseller starts.
"If there's a real tiny firm we're working with then HP won't be interested; likewise, HP will be very keen on big firms. But the problem is in the middle, knowing what size HP will go for.
"Resellers need to stitch together a solution because sometimes there are holes in a vendor's offering. It's our job to pull it together and make it work."
Related articles
In this video find out about the fast-growing Chinese vendor's plans for market domination and how the channel is its route of choice
Find out what gifts Acer has in store for partners for 2012 in this exclusive roundup of its recent conference
CRN's premier networking event is back on 17 May at the Ricoh Arena
Date: Thu 17 May 2012
Channel fighters preparing to square up once more on 24 May
Date: Thu 24 May 2012
The proliferation of endpoint devices within the enterprise has highlighted the shortcomings of one of the traditional approaches to data security
This Forrester report compares the costs and benefits of legacy email and productivity software with Google Apps
Is encouraging young people to work for a few hours in exchange for their job seekers allowance taking advantage?
Dave discovers that rozzers are seemingly living in the technology dark ages
HP's new boss made all the right noises at HP GPC - but are words enough, asks CRN deputy editor Doug Woodburn
|
|
|
Do you agree?
Have your say