Dell strengthens partner scheme

Dell's efforts to build an indirect channel to provide customers with integration services has been given added impetus with the appointment of a senior manager to oversee its entire partner portfolio.

Julian Phillips, sales manager of the preferred accounts division at Dell, took up the post of head of alliances for the UK last week.

He will oversee all of Dell's partner initiatives - including the Preferred Solutions Provider (PSP) programme due for launch this month - and its alliances with key software developers and resellers.

This is the first time Dell has appointed a person to oversee all the partner programmes. In his first interview after the appointment, Phillips said his priorities were to outline Dell's alliance and partner strategy and to recruit the right partners.

He denied that Dell - which sells five per cent of its products through resellers - was looking to increase indirect sales, saying: "We are not looking for growth with indirect sales. We want to remove the mark-up for resellers that do nothing for the value-add.

"The market can't support mark-ups any more without causing a backlash. We will still support some vendors in niche areas that provide product with some element of mark-up, but we are not prepared to allow these margins generally."

Phillips said the reason for his appointment was due to the growth of Dell's enterprise business.

He said the PSP programme would be launched without fanfare this month.

Dell has already recruited five PSPs and wants to recruit five more before the end of the year.

The PSPs will deliver Microsoft Exchange, Oracle, Novell, SAP and Informix installation and integration services, while Dell will deliver the hardware, said Phillips.

Phillips joined the direct vendor seven years ago as a systems integration manager.