You’re familiar with Uncle Sam’s Cash for Clunkers financial program for car buyers. The VAR Guy started to wonder: Will Cash for IT Clunker incentives emerge for channel partners? The answer: Sort of. The VAR Guy reached out to several vendors to see how they currently incent VARs to refresh customers’ hardware. Here’s what’s cooking at Cisco Systems and a range of other IT vendors.
According to a Cisco spokesman:
“Cisco’s global Trade-In program is called the TMP (Technology Migration Program), which offers significant trade-in credits for old networking gear.
In addition to a standard system value based approach, there are also a number of special trade-in promotions integrated into the TMP system that can offer even higher trade-in values based on specific conditions or time periods, the spokesman said.
Oh, and here’s the key line from the spokesman: “As you’ll see, Cisco offers trade-in credits for both Cisco gear as well as non-Cisco equipment.”
Let’s Make a Deal
Cisco isn’t the only company promoting hardware trade-in programs. Similar efforts — some launched recently, others long established — include:
- The Barracuda Networks Trade-Up Program
- Check Point reaching out to Nokia customers
- Dell Exchange trade-in program
- The HP trade-in program for government, health and education customers
- The Juniper Competitive Trade-in Program
- The Xiotech Corp. “Cash for Disk Clunkers” program
- Oh, and just about all the networking companies have trade-in programs that target Nortel gear. Examples include Citrix and F5 Networks.
But Wait, There’s More
Back at Cisco, the networking company also offers partners back-end rebates through the Trade-In Accelerator Program (TAP). Those rebates are based on the net value of the trade-in credits that were assigned to a partner’s deals (10% of the net trade-in credit value), the spokesman says, before adding:
“Bear in mind that these same deals can also qualify for even more partner profitability incentives including via deal registration (Opportunity Incentive Program -OIP) and Value Incentive Program (VIP).”
Alas, The VAR Guy isn’t in the market for network hardware. He’d settle instead for a Nissan 370z … but alas, his current car doesn’t qualify for the Cash for Clunkers deal.
Follow The VAR Guy via RSS; Facebook; Identi.ca; Twitter; and via his Newsletter; Webcasts and Resource Center.
Read More About This Topic
Share This Post
Interact: Add a Comment | Trackback Link | Permalink
Subscribe: RSS Feed
Don't miss Charlene O'Hanlon's weekly columns...
Both Shavlik and i386 have either announced their own Cash for Clunkers programs or leveraged the term in recent marketing efforts.
Hey Lane: The VAR Guy appreciates the additional leads. He’ll be sure to check out Shavlik and i386.
APC still does their TradeUPs program for trading in your old UPS to get a new one. Here’s the link: http://www.apc.com/trade-ups/trade-ups/index.cfm?ISOCountryCode=us&tsk=z247x
Brendan: Thanks for the tip on UPC. The VAR Guy has heard from multiple sources in the past 48 hours, and there might be an opportunity for a follow-up blog listing more cash for IT clunkers programs.
Good post VAR guy, but Cisco’s trade in program has been around for years. It is nice because Cisco will send for the call tags and pick up the gear, clean it up, upgrade the IOS and the resell it on the authorized refurbished site. Maybe even back to the same partner! Double sales for the same router always helps with profitability.
Aut30: Fair point. The VAR Guy mentions half-way into the blog post that many of the cash-for-IT-clunker programs have been in place for quite some time. But our resident blogger should have more clearly stated that fact regarding Cisco right up top.
It seems everyones getting onto the cash for IT clunker programme band wagon but are they working or just another form of discount. What are the pitfalls?
TC: The VAR Guy hasn’t had time to explore the pitfalls (yet). If he hears about any lemons he’ll be sure to spread the word.