Sun promises $1bn bonanza
Vendor to offer thousands of new accounts to European channel
Sun resellers look set for a boost after the vendor announced it will create $1bn worth of new business for its European channel over the next three years.
Despite recent turbulent channel conditions, the vendor said it will provide 12,500 new European customers for its channel. Of these, a potential 4,000, worth about $300m, will be in the UK.
Sun has created a new enterprise and mid-market business unit, and intends to push its Linux-on-Intel offerings into medium-sized firms.
It is also encouraging Channel Development Partners (CDPs) to offer application servers, as shown by CDP Clarity's drive into that sector (CRN, 2 June.)
Philippe Weppe, enterprise, mid-market and channel director at Sun EMEA, told CRN: "The new unit springs from a major analysis of what we have been doing.
"We came to a simple conclusion. When we focused strongly on something, it went well. When we didn't, [effectiveness] was below 10 per cent."
Weppe added that the firm's mid-market salesforce would open doors for VARs. The firm identified three major markets for the new business: infrastructure, Wintel and open source.
Greg Carlow, managing director of reseller Repton, said: "Work we have done with ISVs shows that about 60 per cent are committed to doing new code on Linux. Everyone will support Linux as a major platform."
But Sun's rivals won't go quietly. Internal Hewlett-Packard figures have claimed that Sun has about 86,000 installed servers in the UK, of which 46,000 have been described as "easy to displace".
James Governor, principal analyst at RedMonk, said: "If Sun doesn't work out a stronger channel strategy it can't succeed with its volume ambitions.
"It is critical that it invests in the channel and provides the right offerings and margins.
"It is easy to imagine a small firm buying a Sun box to run a few stateless desktops, but only if the solution is packaged the right way. That means application partners and VARs."