IBM Intros Data Center Specialization, Fronts Select VARs Up To $100K

The initiative, which was first discussed at the IBM Partner World conference in April, is aimed at giving solution providers the skills and training they need to help customers with such data center issues as migration and reducing power consumption and physical space, said Rich Hume, general manager for IBM's global business partners.

Hume, who took over as channel chief in April, said IBM is responding to customers who are looking for new ways to help them with green issues and data center consolidation.

"As we carry out out these initiatives, we need partners to work with us," he said. "And we need them to help us reach out with these initiatives."

The entire program, revolving around what IBM calls the New Enterprise Data Center, or NEDC, is about delivering solutions, not products, into the data center, Hume said.

"In the past, we trained partners around silos: z servers, p servers, storage, software," he said. "But with NEDC, we will be driving solutions."

Those solutions include virtualization assessments, data center temperature assessments, and other similar services solution providers can use to help their enterprise customers prepare their data centers for the future, Hume said.

To help them get ready, IBM on Wednesday introduced the Business Development Fund, an up-front payment to qualifying solution providers to help them invest in marketing, certification training, and even personnel salaries, Hume said.

Partners who qualify at the Specialty level are eligible for $25,000 from the fund, while those who qualify at the Specialty Elite level are eligible for $100,000, he said.

The Specialty Elite level is available to premier IBM partners with broad skills around virtualization, consolidation, security and business resilience, and who have IBM systems architects on staff, he said.

Also new is IBM Lab Services, under which solution providers can take advantage of mentoring from IBM personnel on new technologies and implementation services.

IBM also introduced its IBM NEDC Toolkit, which includes assessment tools to help identify opportunities, he said.

With the new program, IBM is going to be very forward-looking in terms of generating new opportunities for partners in the enterprise data center market and helping them generate their own opportunities, Hume said.

"It's our feeling that, given the types of solutions we are offering, these will be on the higher end of solutions and offer higher margins," he said.

The program is aimed at reaching about 50,000 new enterprise data center clients worldwide, Hume said. IBM has already signed up a number of solution providers and expects to sign 150 partners worldwide, including about 50 in North America, during the fourth quarter of this year.