The VAR Guy

Are Dell and Hewlett-Packard trading blows in the enterprise networking market? Well, almost. Only a day after Hewlett-Packard launched a data center networking offensive, Dell fired back and rallied channel partners around Cisco Systems solutions. Here’s the scoop from The VAR Guy.

Following a surprise New Years Eve reorganization at Dell, the company is reaching out to partners and assuring them the PC giant remains committed to their success. Greg Davis, who makes the leap from North America Channel Chief to Global Channel Chief, offered up this blog to offer peace of mind to the channel and Dell’s PartnerDirect members.

Greg Davis, Dell’s North American channel chief, is moving up to a global post, according to the folks at ChannelInsider. Hmmm. That should silence conspiracy theorists who think Dell’s surprise New Year’s Eve reorganization could put the company’s PartnerDirect channel program at risk.

Pssst: Hey Greg Davis (pictured). You’ve just been named Dell’s global channel chief — in charge of the PC giant’s worldwide partner strategy. What are you going to do next? Here’s one suggestion: Offer some Ubuntu PCs to solutions providers. Here’s why.

Ah, even when he’s 35,000 feet in the air, The VAR Guy can’t escape from Dell channel news. While using inflight WiFi service, our resident blogger spotted these two small but important pieces of Dell PartnerDirect channel news.

The VAR Guy and his sister site, MSPmentor, are scheduled to record a podcast August 26 with Greg Davis, vice president and general manager of Dell Inc.’s Americas Channel Group. Davis leads Dell’s PartnerDirect channel initiative. If you have questions or comments for Davis, please send them to our editorial director, Joe Panettieri (joe [at] ninelivesmediainc.com).

For the first time in recent history, The VAR Guy was left speechless today. The rare event occurred when our resident blogger read a big feature story over on CRN, in which the trade pub made the following watershed statement:

When The VAR Guy heads to CompTIA Breakaway, he’ll be sure to poke around to see what Dell’s up to at the show. In the meantime, here’s some color commentary regarding Dell and its managed service strategy from our sister site, MSPmentor.