Dell opens up to channel

Vendor announces slew of new partner initiatives after revealing channel now generates a quarter of revenues

Dell's channel revenues grew 45 per cent in its fiscal Q1

Dell is opening the doors of its Solution Innovation Centres to resellers as part of its ongoing efforts to woo the channel.

Figures issued to CRN today reveal the channel generated a quarter of formerly direct-selling Dell’s revenues in its fiscal first quarter.

Sales through Dell's channel programme, PartnerDirect, surged 45 per cent year on year in the three months to 30 April - more than double the vendor’s overall growth rate of 21 per cent.

PartnerDirect growth stood at 39 per cent in EMEA, where the vendor now has 313 top-level Certified partners. Some 180 more resellers in the region are in the process of becoming Certified.

Kathy Schneider, channel marketing and programmes director at Dell EMEA, said the vendor would continue to court partners with a slew of programmatic improvements in the coming quarters.

From July, Certified partners will be able to make use of the vendor’s two EMEA Solution Innovation Centres in Limerick and Frankfurt. This means they can perform demos of technologies including storage and virtualisation, either on site or remotely.

“This is a huge step forward in terms of empowering partners,” Schneider said.

Dell made a number of enhancements to its partner portal during Q1, added Schneider, including the launch of a campaign builder facility.

She said Dell would follow this up in Q2 with the launch of a find-a-partner function, enabling end users to hook up with the most appropriate Certified partner based on a number of criteria.

Since its formal entry into the channel two-and-a-half years ago, Dell has habitually come under fire from partners as they came into conflict with the vendor’s vast direct sales force.

But Schneider claimed Dell has made strong headway since it neutralised compensation for direct sales staff working with partners a year ago.

“The first thing was to make it a reality,” she said. “Then we had to educate the sales community that it was a reality. It really started to come through in the middle of last year and now we are seeing the results of that hard work.”