Dell cherry-picks Compellent partner perks

Vendor rolls out Compellent's "best-of-breed" partner tools, including Relationship Registration, to its existing channel

Dell has begun the integration of Compellent's channel, re-classifying the SAN vendor's partners under the Dell banner and making some of its partner tools available to its wider channel.

The hardware giant's $940m buyout of Compellent was finalised last month, with the release of a joint statement confirming that plans to combine their partner programmes were underway.

Speaking to ChannelWeb, Bob Skelley, global director of the certified partner programme at Dell, said the process has already resulted in Compellent's partners being re-classified as Dell Certified Storage Specialists.

"This has created a pool of partners that are completely new to Dell," explained Skelley. "The aim is that all partners, both new and legacy, will have the opportunity to be trained up in the Dell storage portfolio, which includes PowerVault, EqualLogic and Compellent."

The vendor has also added Compellent's Relationship Registration deal registration scheme and its production quotation tools to its partner programme, added Skelley.

The former offers partners protection on deals for as long as they continue to work with that customer.

"That is one of the best-of-breed parts of the Compellent programme and, for existing Dell partners, it is a great new addition," said Skelley.

Compellent's online Quote Centre tool is also being incorporated into the merged partner programme. It allows partners to design, customise, and generate quotes for storage area networks.

Michael Beach, vice president of sales operations for Dell-Compellent, told ChannelWeb that Dell is planning to roll it out across other product lines.

"For partners, it is a very effective way of managing their quotes and after some involvement on the software development side, it is hoped that a wider range of products [other than storage] could be covered by the tool," said Beach.

In terms of what Compellent stands to gain from the merger, Beach said Dell's backing will accelerate its global expansion plans.

He said: "Before the acquisition, we had a presence in 35 countries and were expanding into new ones at a rate of three to five a year, which was the full extent of what we could expect to do.

"Now, we can ship products to 50 countries, and we have a very aggressive growth plan in place to make the most of the support Dell is giving us."