Dell's Channel Plans: Drumroll, Please

I can faintly hear a drumroll in the background. What can it be? Is it The Salvation Army drumming up quarters for its Christmas effort? Let's go find out what it is.

My goodness, it's the Dell PR machine getting ready for this week's "major channel announcement."

ROBERT FALETRA Can be reached at (781) 839-1202 or via e-mail at rfaletra@cmp.com.

I will reserve judgment about Dell's channel plans until they are made and I've had a chance to dissect them. But to be perfectly honest, I'm not expecting too much and I don't think you should either. We are not talking about a company that has channel DNA. We are talking about a company that has growth problems in a market that demands high-quality solution sales.

You have to give Michael Dell credit in that he fully understands his problem and the fact that the channel is a huge piece of the fix. But Dell has missed so many opportunities to build channel acumen since its announcement it would enter the indirect world, that it is proving the point I made at that time. That point was that the company doesn't think the way it needs to in order to execute in the channel.

Just take last week's earnings announcement and Michael Dell's statement: "We embarked this year on a long-term strategy to reignite growth, and our third-quarter results indicate we're making solid progress through investments in five key business priorities—consumer, emerging countries, notebooks, enterprise and small-medium business."

If I were inside Dell I would have been screaming, "How about mentioning our channel as part of this 'long-term strategy to reignite growth!'"Alas, another missed opportunity to send a message internally (let alone externally) that the company is changing its go-to-market strategy.

In the end, Dell is entering a marathon. It can't build a viable value-added channel overnight, and I don't really expect it to do so. But what I'm looking for is a sign that building channel acumen is truly something Michael Dell is drilling into every company executive's head.

I don't see that yet. So, in the meantime, we will sit and wait for this week's announcement and then I will weigh in on whatever it is.

What are you expecting from Dell's channel announcement?
make something happen. E-mail CMP Channel President Robert Faletra at rfaletra@cmp.com.