EMC goes after HP channel

Storage vendor woos 'dissatisfied' resellers with double-digit rebates

Storage vendor EMC is wooing Hewlett Packard's UK channel to sell its mid-range kit, offering double-digit rebates to win over "dissatisfied resellers".

As predicted by CRN, the Velocity Partner Programme is "a UK version of what EMC began in July in the US", said Colm O'Neill, EMC's partner sales manager for the UK and Ireland.

In addition to offering rebates of up to 13 per cent on hardware, EMC has made 504 UK accounts where it had adopted a mixed sales model into channel-only accounts. Just 196 accounts remain direct, EMC claimed.

EMC also lowered the cost of accreditation to resell its Clariion mid-range kit and ATA-based Centera box to under £2,000.

O'Neill said: "We detected dissatisfaction among HP resellers."

EMC hopes the rebates will help it prise partners away from HP's StorageWorks kit.

Roger Smith, managing director of storage reseller Solid State, claimed EMC's move was partly reactive. "HP is very aggressive, setting out to win bigger deals, irrespective of price," he said.

Rebates suggest EMC is going after smaller, independent VARs that normally only get discounts, Smith said. They are easier targets than bigger VARs with dedicated teams for different vendors' equipment, where the repercussions of a move to EMC would be bigger.

These firms sell HP's servers and networking gear, so rebates on those devices could be reduced if they begin pushing EMC storage, he added.

EMC also markets the Clariion range through its co-branding relationship with Dell.

O'Neill did not say what proportion of sales are Dell-EMC or EMC-only but said it was wrong to see Dell as EMC's principal route to the mid-market.

"We have ambitions to take a large share of the channel business and would be concerned if our channel was executing less effectively than Dell," he said.