Dell Calls Town Meeting To Address VAR Concerns Over EqualLogic Deal

Executives from both companies have spent the last two days calling on partners individually, said Bob Skelley, director of the Americas Channel Group at Dell. The town hall session will provide a chance to reach more partners and provide any follow-up answers, he said.

On the day after the acquisition closed, Skelley said the companies have made great efforts to ensure no disruption to solution providers.

"Transition is not easy. Partners used to working with EqualLogic want a good experience on Day 1. If partners want to place orders, or register deals, we will continue to facilitate through all the EqualLogiic tools. We will handhold them through the process. We will provide a SWAT team of people to support [partners] while we're matching up deal registration systems. All those things are critical to the partner experience. We want to make sure it's a comfortable and rewarding experience for our partners," Skelley said.

As expected, most partner feedback thus far has revolved around two topics: pricing concerns and customer data concerns, Skelley said. Dell and EqualLogic said they have both issues covered. "One of the things we need to impress upon is the customer data is protected and sealed off from other sales organizations within Dell.The integrity of [VARs'] customer data is paramount. That's a guiding light principle we will follow," Skelley said.

Greg Davis, vice president and general manager of the Dell Americas channel organization, said the fact that Skelley and other EqualLogic channel executives are staying on is evidence that Dell wants the business to succeed.

"They've done a great job to build channel program that's respected by lot of partners and the level of trust with those partners has come across," Davis said. "One of most impressive things that I first learned about Dell was their unwavering commitment around making the Dell channel successful. I am 100 percent convinced this is going to be successful. I would not have joined this company if I didn't believe that," Skelley said.

Another concern Dell said it is addressing revolves around partner profitability.

Dell said it will restrict its direct sales force to sell EqualLogic products on "historical street price," which is about 10 percent to 15 percent off of list price, Davis said. Solution providers, meanwhile, should be able to register deals and win 18 percent to 28 percent margins, he said.

"We are trying to honor our commitment to [VARs]. It's the right thing to do for our channel partners, who have invested a lot of time and resources to make the EqualLogic product successful. We will make sure there is margin opportunity and going through the deal registration tool, we will minimize conflict with the direct sales team. Thus far, we've closed about $23 million in [registered] opportunities and we've had no escalations on deal registration," Davis said.

EqualLogic has about 560 solution providers in the U.S., about 150 of which are preferred business partners, said Davis. Those 150 will be grandfathered into Dell's new Enterprise Architecture certification, joining about 200 solution providers who were legacy Dell enterprise partners. The remainder of Dell and EqualLogic solution providers will join Dell as "registered" partners in their PartnerDirect program and Dell will look to upgrade them to certified status, Davis said.

"Our focus is meeting the needs our current set of partners, who are overwhelmingly looking for certifications in the enterprise space. We think we have a terrific partner in EqualLogic to get us there," he said.

The Town Meeting will be from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m., EST, Feb. 5. Call-in information will be made available from Dell at a later date.