IBM Channel Chief Donn Atkins Retires

Succeeding Atkins is Ravi Marwaha, a 36-year IBM veteran who most recently served as Lenovo's president and Asia Pacific and senior vice president of the Lenovo Group.

"I'm going to devote my entire time to working on the channel. I will be passionate and enjoy it, and--in the tradition of Donn Atkins--take it to new heights," he said on a conference call with VARBusiness this afternoon.

Atkins, who in August was named the CMP Channel Group's Channel Executive of the Year, said he and Doug Elix, IBM's senior vice president and group executive for IBM's worldwide sales and distribution operations, mutually agreed to the timing of Atkin's retirement. However, Atkins will stay on in an advisory capacity for an unspecified period.

"I've been thinking about it for a while," Atkins said. "I'm proud of some of the accomplishments and things that have been done here. But there are some exciting things that I would like to pursue."

He wouldn't elaborate on what comes next for him, except to say he's going to take some time off.

Under Atkins' watch, IBM's partner-related revenue increased from 30 percent in 2004 to 35 percent in 2005. He oversaw the expansion of IBM's partner-to-partner networking and international partner collaboration, deployed IBM Global Services offerings to the channel, expanded the IBM Express Seller program to help reach SMB customers, and launched new partner productivity and profitability tools.

"The IBM approach with our partners has been one that followed through and stayed steadfast," Atkins said. "We're approaching our partners across the whole IBM with a value proposition of consolidation and simplification; if we look at the way we've brought the PartnerWorld programs together, we have loyalty with our partners that we earn every day, and we'll continue to do so."

IBM partners were surprised by the announcement, given Atkins was relatively new to the channel chief role. They give him credit for improving partner profitability, making it easier to do business with IBM and improving the partnering experience.

"Donn and his team did make some good things happen in the channel," said Harvey Najim, president and CEO of Sirius Computer Solutions, one of IBM's largest channel partners.

Marwaha is no stranger to the channel. During his three decades with Big Blue, he served as vice president of worldwide sales for IBM's Personal Systems Group (2003-2005); general manager for the Personal Computing Division, covering the Asia Pacific region (1999-2003); and general manager of IBM India (1996-1999).

"We look at the partners as clearly a part of our family, part of our ecosystem," Marwaha said. "Every single thing we do must be good for IBM and good for our partners. If we keep those two things in mind, we never get into a conflict--it becomes a fundamental philosophy."

Stability is the top goal during the transition, both executives said. Marwaha believes Atkins is leaving him a strong IBM channel that is moving in a positive direction. But, he said, enhancing the channel and making it easier for partners to do business with IBM will be among his priorities.

"This is an area we can win," he said. "IBM can do much better if the partners do much better."