Some VARs remain worried about Dell’s channel strategy. They keep asking if they can trust Dell. But perhaps those solutions providers should worry more about a potential betrayal by Hewlett-Packard. Here’s why.
Dell has been working overtime in recent months to assure partners that the company is sincerely committed to the IT channel. Meanwhile, HP has quietly entered a partnership with CDW to aggressively target small businesses with 500 or fewer employees.
Ouch. This isn’t going to be a fun weekend for HP, as partners will surely flood the company with complaints and concerns over the CDW relationship.
The folks over at Everything Channel broke the story. Now, a few Dell insiders are more than happy to make sure the world knows HP is sleeping with CDW in small business.
HP-CDW sure looks like a killer relationship — but will it kill HP’s relationships with VARs?
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Tags: Dell Small Business | Hewlett Packard and CDW | Hewlett-Packard Small Business | Small Business Channel Sales
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VAR Guy,
HP just dug in deeper with its biggest vendor and is a perfect example of HP funding one partner over the other. At Dell, we work with our partners in offering them the size and scalability of Dell’s business model to offload costs and actually compete with businesses like CDW. We at least make it clear that channel partners and their customers are our priority, whereas with HP/CDW, you’re not too sure where you stand.
Thank you,
APaxtonatDell
Channel Community Manager
The VAR Guy is about to shock some readers (surprise, surprise). On some levels, he doesn’t care about the HP-CDW relationship. Any VAR that’s competing purely on product price is doomed.
Break-fix VARs and product resellers will surely lose business to HP-CDW. But more sophisticated folks — especially those who have moved onto managed services, SaaS and custom open source will be around for a long time to come.
Still, it’s always fun to stir up a little controversy. No doubt the folks at Everything Channel live for that.
I think that you are missing something here, CDW is NOT a vendor, they are an HP VAR. I believe they are in fact their largest VAR. So what HP has done is created a tighter relationship with their largest VAR, one that has a lot of penetration in the SMB market and is known for it’s excellent customer service.
Sure HP is funding one VAR (not a vendor) but that is how MDF works, the more you sell the more you get. I am sure that HP continues to provide MDF to their other VARs as well, however in proportion to their volume of HP sales.
I don’t see this as favoring CDW, I just see it as good business.
Lane: The VAR Guy agrees – it’s good business for HP to work closely with its resellers. But there’s a difference between partnering and playing favorites.
Your blog over on MSPAlliance’s site hit the nail on the head, tho: Some vendors are increasingly competing with VARs and MSPs. Instead of complaining, VARs and MSPs should focus far more on their own sales lead efforts and stop begging vendors for leads.
Follow-up story on CRN describing how HP will also support other small business VARs. Details here.
It seems like Dell is quick to point fingers. Especially since they are just entering the “channel friendly” world. I think you hit it right on the head when you said “In recent months” CDW has been working on their channel relationships for years. Putting extra focus on small business is the only way to salvage that part of the market in these times. Dell loves to draw attention away from their own issues, and point fingers as quickly as possible.