Network-Attached Storage Appliances: IBM

It was all about the channel in the NAS category.

Despite a weak showing on technical criteria, IBM squeaked out a victory as the network-attached storage champ on the strength of its channel programs. Big Blue scored an overall composite rating of 76.3, edging out its closest rival, Hewlett-Packard, by nine-tenths of a point and third-place Network Appliance by one point among a large field of seven vendors.

The message of the 2005 CRN Channel Champions Survey in the NAS category: With IBM signing a deal this month to OEM NetApp’s line of products, it could be extremely tough for any of the competitors to unseat IBM as the channel’s NAS champ in the coming year.

On the technical side, IBM didn’t win even one of the six criteria, falling 2.6 points behind HP as it lost in key areas such as product reliability, security and price/performance of its NAS Gateway appliance. Little wonder it turned to NetApp to bolster its product offering.

IBM, meanwhile, made up for weak technical scores by nailing win after win on channel criteria. IBM had its best showing in the survey in the area of upselling opportunities, overtaking NetApp by 4.1 points. This perhaps indicated that IBM’s real strength here was in its broad offering across its storage and server lines as well as a revved-up channel program that has been incenting partners to sell more bundled solutions into the small- and midsize-business market.

Solution providers said good communication and a solid deal registration program made IBM a good channel partner.

“IBM has a better partner engagement model than the other storage vendors,” said Bob Venero, CEO of Future Tech, Holbrook, N.Y., which has been selling IBM storage for more than five years. “That really sets them apart.”

Venero said IBM’s poor showing in technical areas was largely due to a lack of mind share in the channel. But Venero said he expects that to change as IBM steps up efforts to attach storage to server sales. In the past six months, Future Tech has attached a quote on storage to every server sales quote that goes out the door, whether it was requested or not, and has seen a 22 percent uplift in storage sales. “It works,” he said.

By combining its channel strengths with NetApp’s product line, IBM is certainly upping the ante in this category.