Media won over by Dell's angel image

So effective is the vendor's marketing machine that even journalists are caught up in the epidemic of Dell worship, writes Guy Matthews.

Another Channel Awards has come and gone. There are always more losers than winners, and some pride was hurt. But enough about the dance floor.

One award missing, but which perhaps should make it into next year's ceremony, is the prize for self-promotion. If such an award existed, who would you give it to?

My answer would be Dell, a wonderful model of efficiency. Dell sells direct, except where it doesn't. Dell does services, printers, networking and storage - all through partnerships.

Dell does marketing. And boy, does it do marketing. Never has a company entered a market in partnership and taken over that sector's image so completely. An example of this was on 28 October, one year after Dell signed a deal with high-end storage vendor EMC.

On this anniversary, and Dell understands that there is nothing the media likes better than an anniversary, EMC announced the latest member of the Clariion range, the CX200.

Dell will assemble and re-badge this product, but from the ensuing media coverage one would have thought that Dell had designed and built the thing from the ground up, and that only Dell would ship it.

One would almost have been forgiven for thinking that EMC's direct sales force - not to mention its channel partners - would have no access to the product.

Within minutes of the announcement, the story stopped being about a product and turned into whether Dell was going to buy EMC. 'Dell president says company not interested in buying EMC' was one headline that day.

But it got better. An example of how partnering with Dell can lead to a company being practically elbowed out of its own market came that very day.

Dow Jones, the venerable Wall Street information service, was forced to run a correction headed: 'EMC to get, not pay, licensing fee from Dell.'

It went on: 'EMC will receive an undisclosed licensing fee from Dell for use of EMC technology. A story at 4.52pm EST incorrectly reported that EMC would be paying Dell.'

One day Dell may do the lot, probably when it has bought up all those partner companies. That will be the day that we can say that Dell is truly a direct vendor and not just the world's biggest reseller.

Of course, Dell does not control the media. It is simply there to take advantage when the media loses control of itself.