Put Personality Into Personal Computing

So much brain power and time has been spent analyzing how best to sell PCs that we've missed the main issue: Selling customers on the technological advances of the PC. I may be oversimplifying things, but the gradual decline of indirect vendors' power came about because they focused on the wrong issues. The real reason why Dell outsold No. 2 player Compaq 2-to-1 last year in the United States is that Dell salespeople understand the product and its attributes, and they take this business personally because their boss does. HP finished the year in third place in units shipped, followed by Gateway and IBM, according to Gartner.

During the past several years, IBM, Compaq and HP have not delivered a clear, crisp message to their VARs as to why their PCs work faster, better, cheaper or more cost-efficiently than their rivals'. It's not about competing with Dell on price or distribution. IBM's huge contract with Kodak is testament to that. The 40,000-unit deal was won because of IBM's imaging technology, which reduces complexity and cost of PC management.

This issue really hit home for me at a recent XChange conference sponsored by the Technology Solutions Group that publishes VARBusiness. Several hundred solution providers and vendors packed a room to hear top executives from IBM software, Cisco, Check Point, Symantec, HP, Compaq, Sun and Microsoft talk about the opportunities surrounding their products. But guess what happened? The conversation took a pointed turn at Dan Vertrees, the man responsible for Compaq's partner sales and marketing initiatives. He was forced to defend the company's distribution strategy, which includes selling a growing percentage of products directly. This guy has taken more heat than Enron's Kenneth Lay.

While Vertrees zipped off his asbestos suit, Kevin Gilroy, his peer at HP, was busy fielding some piercing questions about the company's so-called Hard Deck program that VARs claim has more than a few holes of its own. Neither could redirect the issue to the technology, nor to the products' benefits. But the passion the solution providers still hold for the PC business amazed me. If Michael Dell were a fly on the wall, he surely would have been smiling, because the conversation hasn't changed much in the past few years. And speaking of Mr. Dell, here's a question: Who's in charge of the PC units at Compaq, HP or IBM? Do they have a recognizable face or name? About the only person I can name is Gateway's Ted Waitte, who is brave enough to take on Dell.

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Whether you sell PCs to consumers or business execs, you need to inject personality into your pitch. That's why we call it "personal computing." Dell is successful because its chairman is the best salesman in the business. For its part, IBM's PC business has had several top executives come and go. But the man behind IBM's PC business today is Robert Moffat, who has cleaned up the operation, jettisoned manufacturing plants and introduced a strategy aimed at leveraging technical advances in wireless, security and imaging. It looks solid and well-thought out. He believes IBM can match or beat competitors on every front. Moffat is a bright, savvy statistician who has accomplished a great deal in the past 21 months while holed up in Research Triangle Park, N.C. Still, he's not telling you all you need to know. IBM needs to make Moffat as omnipresent as Dell. And IBM is being handed a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity because of all the distractions facing HP and Compaq, not to mention Gateway's problems. It's hard to imagine a better scenario for IBM to reverse its fortunes. If it can tap into that emotion,the passion many VARs still have for the PC business,it might be able to reclaim some lost market share and the hearts of its partners.

Do PCs still matter to you? Do you know what IBM is up to? Let me know at [email protected]. n