It Just Dawned On Me: Musings For A New Year

We've been here before. A new year dawns, economic uncertainty abounds, executives are shuffled into new jobs or shown the door and big IT companies launch attacks at the small-business market, the most lucrative and promising of all opportunities. The industry's largest vendors including Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft and Cisco have been hammering away at this market for years as their sizable cousin, IBM, sat on the sidelines for the most part watching both rivals and partners chalk up SMB success. Well, we weren't even two weeks into the new year before IBM decided it was time to get serious about selling to small and midsize businesses. The executive charged with finally figuring out a way to capitalize on this opportunity is IBM General Manager Steven Solazzo, working in conjunction with the company's partner chief, Ravi Marwaha. In a meeting with both, they said all the right things, vowing to spend $100 million on sales leads and channel support.

ROBERT C. DEMARZO Can be reached avia e-mail at rdemarzo@cmp.com.

IBM's plan boils down to focusing marketing dollars and inside salespeople on generating leads for partners or working with them to help close sales. For the most part, IBM will no longer sell directly to SMB customers. However, the missing piece is an expansion of IBM's product portfolio for midmarket and small-business customers. If the company spends too much time on lead generation and lead management, it could fall short.

While IBM gets ready to build a serious SMB business, Intel just last week launched a modular server aimed at system builders looking to sell an integrated blade server and RAID solution to small and midsize customers. The Intel Modular Server—which accommodates up to six blades and 2 Tbytes along with its virtual presence software—was impressive. It is aimed at system builders, although it should appeal to VARs that sell branded systems but lack a low-cost blade and storage solution for small but growing customers. Prior to the launch, Intel did a private demo of the product for our Test Center. For VARs that like to build 'em, this is a no-brainer but for VARs that don't, it is definitely worth a hard look.

Let's move on to a few other matters. The old guard is clearly passing the torch.

Jeff Raikes, known as Microsoft's third man, will take his sports interest and fortune and retire this September. He joined Microsoft back in 1981 and helped build its Business Division into the company's largest. And Harvey Najim, who built Sirius Computer Solutions into one of IBM's largest VARs, is handing over day-to-day responsibility to Joe Mertens.

A final note, and a sad one. Richard Farber, 53, a channel executive with IBM for many years, passed away Jan. 8 after a brief battle with pancreatic cancer. I got to know him through the years and saw his bright mind at work when we trained together at Babson College during an IPED Channel Masters program. He will be missed.

CMP Channel Vice President and Editorial Director Robert C. DeMarzo can be reached at rdemarzo@cmp.com.