No Enterprising Results With HP

“We all wanted to be in [the program], but so far I have to ask, ‘What’s the good of it?’ It’s much ado about nothing,” said one HP enterprise solution provider who asked not to be identified.

The plan, which HP unveiled in July and which went into effect Nov. 1, was to integrate between 50 and 60 key HP enterprise solution providers into the Technology Solutions Group’s end-user sales force. HP, Palo Alto, Calif., said the intent was to make sure the TSG sales force and partners were in sync regarding account engagement, solutions alignment and execution so that they could jointly pursue business.

Mark Darlington, COO of Trilogy Solutions, a Cranbury, N.J., HP enterprise solution provider mapped into TSG, said Trilogy gave an overview presentation of its capabilities to HP salespeople earlier this year.

“The HP reps are anxious to work with us and try to bring opportunities our way,” he said. So far, however, he hasn’t seen a significant uptick in business as a result. “But a lot of good things are starting to happen. Would I have liked to see it happen sooner? Obviously. If they can get this stuff going by the second half of their fiscal year, that would be great.”

One problem solution providers point out is that HP has been reluctant to share information about its installed base of accounts. “There is a very large population of old HP equipment that is primed to be replaced,” said one large HP enterprise solution provider who asked not to be identified. “If they could free that information up a little more, we could be involved in a lot more opportunities.”

Dan Vertrees, HP’s vice president of alliances and enterprise partner sales, TSG, Americas, said HP is working to generate more leads for partners. One new program, called Blast, compensates HP service engineers who while on service calls spot other service or product sales opportunities.

“We are capitalizing on that because then the [service engineer] can submit and link the qualified lead opportunities on products and services,” he said. “They then forward the information to the sales reps and these hot leads are then sent on to partners.”

John Thompson, HP’s vice president and general manager, Solution Partners Organization, Americas, added, “We will utilize these partners to spearhead a tighter integration from a field perspective. This core set of partners will clearly help drive the momentum for HP in that space.”