IBM Looks To Recruit Regional ISVs, Integrators

IBM's global channel chief says the company plans to step up recruitment of Hewlett-Packard and Sun Microsystems solution providers with a renewed focus on regional integrators.

"There is a whole set of partners that I would consider regional ISVs and integrators," said Mike Borman, general manager of global Business Partners at IBM. "I want to recruit them."

Borman said he met a number of potential recruits at last week's IBM PartnerWorld conference in Las Vegas.

>> In the past 18 months, IBM added about 400 large HP and Sun VARs globally.

"IBM is aggressively going after HP VARs,and with success," said Don Richie, president of Sequel Data Systems, an HP enterprise solution provider based in Austin, Texas.

Richie said he met with a number of IBM executives at PartnerWorld but is reserving judgment on whether to go with IBM.

"Personally, I am so entrenched with HP that I doubt I would take them [IBM] on," he said. "Part of the problem is the numbers they are%A0adding to their reseller list, which is not appealing to me. With HP having far fewer enterprise partners, I think we have better chances of being heard [by HP]."

Borman said that in the past 18 months, IBM added about 400 large HP and Sun VARs globally. He said his two-pronged strategy is to get those new recruits to ramp up sales with IBM, as well as recruiting new regional players.

But IBM sales from the new partners are already making a significant impact.

"It's what's got us to some of the double-digit growth I've talked about," Borman said. IBM's Business Partners generated or influenced about $29 billion in sales in 2003, up 16 percent from the $25 billion reached in 2002, he said.

Eric Williams, executive vice president at Support Net, the Indianapolis-based IBM division of Arrow Electronics, said, "It's a natural progression for IBM to go from recruiting large, national integrators to small, regional ones."

He said that the new VARs Support Net added as part of IBM's earlier competitive recruitment drive generated $25 million in new IBM business for the distributor last year.

Borman added that one of his priorities for 2004 is to make it easier for both existing and new Business Partners to work with IBM. As such, IBM is in the process of revamping qualifications to become a Premier Business Partner.

Under the plan, which will be formally announced next month and rolled out in phases throughout the year, IBM Business Partners will qualify as Premier across their entire company rather than for individual product lines or skills.

Borman said IBM is still working on the exact details of the plan, but that the number of North American Premier partners should remain unchanged at about 600. "Our goal is,based on [the Business Partners'] skills,to be Premier across all of IBM," he said.