Crosstown Rivals (3)

As IBM, Armonk, N.Y., trains its vast arsenal of weapons on HP in the enterprise and midmarket space, the company needs an Eisenhower, not a Patton, to win the day. Atkins seems up to the challenge of getting and keeping all the brand teams at IBM on the same channel playbook. “As an organization for solution providers, IBM has all the tools in the toolbox to be successful,” said Bob Venero, president and CEO of Future Tech, an IBM Business Partner in Holbrook, N.Y.

Atkins says not to expect big change in the future. “The message [to IBM Business Partners] is going to be that we’ve got great feedback on what we are doing, and it’s not about big change,” he said. “This is about enhancing what we are doing and continuing to build the relationship and value between our partners and ourselves.”

HP exec John Thompson’s success, meanwhile, may well depend on what the Palo Alto, Calif., company’s board does next. Less than a year into his job as vice president and general manager, Solution Partners Organization-Americas, his tenure of progress and hope was waylaid by the ouster of HP Chairman and CEO Carly Fiorina last month.

Before Fiorina’s departure, Thompson was fast gaining a reputation as a channel leader who could get things done. He’s already turning over some 250 direct enterprise accounts to the channel and is crafting new rules of engagement for HP’s small-business partners similar to those in place for enterprise solution providers. “There has definitely been an attitude shift [to remove channel conflict] at HP in the last 60 days, and the only thing I can attribute it to is John,” said Don Richie, president of Sequel Data Systems, an HP enterprise solution provider in Austin, Texas.

But Thompson’s business-as-usual plan may have a short shelf life if the board doesn’t move quickly to replace Fiorina with a strong channel advocate.
—Craig Zarley