Dell to roll out partner drive

Dell will beef up its accreditation scheme and has said it will sign about 40 PC and Poweredge partners, five months after its 450-dealer channel cull. The vendor said it was looking for value-add partners, not box-shifters. Of the 40 to be recruited by the end of 97, 15 will be Poweredge server partners. Pim Dale, director of Dell Europe?s server business, said dealers relying on hardware for margin were not the right channel for Dell. ?We want partners that bring Internet, networking or application skills to the party.? Compaq commercial market- ing manager Peter Blampied said: ?When it doesn?t understand a market, it uses the channel to amass knowledge and then dumps it and goes direct.? According to Dataquest research, Dell?s share of the Intel-based server market in the UK increased to 9.6 per cent in Q3 1996, a 104 per cent leap over its 1995 Q3. Compaq?s share increased by 27 per cent over the same period to 39 per cent.