ShadowRAM: February 16, 2004

Solution providers grouse that the deal smacks of the old Compaq network of alliances in which Compaq was tight with CDW and Pioneer Electronics (now Agylisys) and that the former Compaq people at HP want to take care of their pals.

Whatever the reason for the CDW authorization and alliance, solution providers say it comes at a time when there is a vacuum in channel leadership at HP as the vendor melds its enterprise and commercial channels into a single organization but still has yet to name a channel leader.

Isn't it a bit odd that HP preannounced its first-quarter earnings last week a day before Dell held its earnings call? HP said that sales for its quarter ending Jan. 31 would come in above expectations and earnings would be in line with analysts' estimates. Despite that, HP's stock dropped more than 2 percent on the day the market had one of its strongest gains of the year.

What do high-tech and beer have in common? We're not sure, but a connection may yet emerge. Shoreline is supposedly changing its name to ShoreTel and has hired the woman who did the Coors Silver Bullet ad campaign to market it.

And in case you weren't one of the lucky attendees at Cisco's partner summit in Hawaii last week, we'll fill you in. Comedian Ben Stein poked fun at John Chambers during one ceremony. Feigning shock, he expressed pleasure on meeting Chambers and said he thought Chambers was a hologram because of his ability to appear on all business TV networks simultaneously.

Meanwhile, word outta the great Northwest is that Microsoft's biggest of the big,Steve Ballmer,is taking over Windows Server System marketing. Look out for new "serious business" advertising, as opposed to those goofy Office ads.

There are several reasons for the about-face at Microsoft. One is that the whole Windows Server System message hasn't gotten out there very well. And now that some of those very same servers (Content Management Server, as well as SharePoint Portal Server and a good chunk of Exchange Server) are now coming out of the erstwhile client group instead of the server group, someone has to help drive these groups to coalesce their marketing.

We expect more consolidation among IBM's solution providers. It seems that IBM does such a good job of protecting incumbency in its existing accounts that it's difficult for large partners to grow organically. So some are planning to buy rival solution providers to gain the business.