Enterprise Partners Ready For HIP Replacement

While he liked what he saw, it still took some telephone calls to people in high places to expedite an order for $1 million worth of hardware to meet a year-end deadline to deliver the system to the customer. The order was placed Dec. 6, and Nth was promised a Dec. 23 delivery date. Concerned that a one-day delay could effectively derail installing it for the customer due to the holiday, Baldwin asked HP to do better. In the end, HP delivered the system Dec. 17 -- 11 days after the order was placed.

"That's not too bad for the size of the order, but they're still working on shortening that process significantly," Baldwin says.

What impact the new enhanced HP Integrated Partner (eHIP) program, which HP is about to kick off Feb. 1st, will have on turning orders around remains to be seen. Announced in late August, HP had initially targeted Nov. 1st to roll out the program, but distributors and partners thought that was too soon, especially in the critical forth quarter, so HP pushed it off.

The new eHIP program changes the way partners get pricing for and acquire high-end Unix and storage products. Under the old program, HP set pricing and provided a fee for services. Under the new program, HP's authorized enterprise distributors will set pricing and partners will take title to the gear and book revenue off of it.

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While partners are hopeful the shift won't affect inventory turnaround, other concerns are pricing and the impact on their own internal logistics systems. While eHIP does require partners to select distributors for specific product lines, they have the option of switching if they've had a relationship with them for more than a year. Does that mean some partners will look at switching? David Buttler, CEO of Enterprise Computing Solutions, says he would absolutely consider doing so if the need arises.

"I have very good flexibility if I'm not happy," Buttler says.

Other concerns are more general.

"I have some concerns but they are more from the unknown," says Don McDowell, vice president of server solutions at Skokie, Ill.-based Forsythe Solutions. "I'm optimistic this thing will be good for the channel at some point in time -- once we get through the implementation heartaches in the first 90 days."