What's The Score?

By Craig Zarley

Hewlett-Packard Co. and its workhorse servers held off IBM Corp. in a close race to capture the 2008 VARBusiness Annual Report Card Company of the Year in the Volume Mainstream Business Servers category.

HP, Palo Alto, Calif., garnered an overall score of 67, edging IBM, Armonk, N.Y., by a single point to win the category. IBM placed second. The product innovation subcategory proved integral to HP. VARs rated HP tops in quality and reliability, richness of product features/functionality, technical innovation, compatibility and ease of integration, and marketability, giving the vendor a four-point spread over IBM, which finished second in the product innovation subcategory.

"I hope this proves that we have a quality, reliable product," said Adrian Jones, HP's vice president and general manager, Solution Partners Organization Americas. "The reliability is what solution providers and end-user customers are looking for. We've also proven that partners can make pretty good money selling HP servers. Innovation, technology and quality are key in this market and I think we have the right tools to help enable partners to sell the product."

Jones noted that HP is moving forward with its strategy to "blade everything," including servers as well as storage and PCs. "Our server business is only going to get stronger," he said. "Ann Livermore [head of HP's Technology Solutions Group] wants to go from shipping a server every 12 seconds to shipping one every nine seconds. We have to figure out how to make that happen, but we are on the right track."

While HP won the overall category award, IBM bested HP in the support subcategory with a score of 61, compared to HP's 58. One weak spot for HP and a strong point for IBM was in quality of field management. IBM scored highest in that area with a score of 60, compared to HP's fourth-place finish with a mark of 52.

Rick Chernick, CEO of Camera Corner Connecting Point, a solution provider focused on the SMB market in Green Bay, Wis., sells only HP servers to his customers. "Servers are the most solid part of HP's line right now," Chernick said. "They just run and run and run. They are priced right, you can get the product, and HP servers are just the best."

Chernick said he used to sell IBM servers as well, but stopped selling IBM about two years ago because the servers were priced too high and the vendors' field support at the time was inadequate.

In the ARC survey, solution providers gave HP a big advantage in the partnership subcategory criteria of return on investment, where the company achieved a score of 71 compared with runner-up IBM, which got a score of 65. HP also scored significantly higher than IBM in the product innovation criteria of marketability with a score of 70 compared with 66 for IBM.

Chernick said that HP's dominance in the server market coupled with its broad technology portfolio plays into his hands.

He noted that in his market, HP ProLiants are the dominant server, which makes it easier for him to start a conversation around HP with new customers. Many customers have had a good experience with HP already and they're eager to hear about other products, he said.

"We'll walk into a lot of accounts for the first time and they might say they have HP servers and Dell desktops," Chernick said.

"That gives me the 'in' because I'll say, 'We love their servers. We love their storage. We love their laptops. Can we talk to you?'"

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