Although Compaq took second place in the support subcategory and has enthusiastic resellers such as Manchester's Gagliano who praise the vendor for its support efforts, Compaq is planning to bolster its support strategy with new services and solutions in the coming year. And EMC, Hewlett-Packard and IBM, which brought up the rear in this year's network storage category, each have specific improvements in mind that could influence their scores next year.
Despite a reputation for selling direct, EMC is already making inroads in the channel with its new CLARiiON storage systems, acquired from Data General.
IBM is banking on newly released products such as the IBM TotalStorage NAS 300G and yet-to-be-released products to attract storage-focused solution providers to its fray. And although IBM's last-place score in ease of doing business dragged it down, the company is planning to streamline its business across multiple product lines to correct the problem.
While plans may change post-Compaq acquisition, HP is currently planning to build out its storage channel team. "We will increase [the team] by 150 percent by next year," says Kevin Gilroy, general manager of North American Channels. "Quite frankly, we have been under-resourced." Gilroy also promises special compensation plans for HP server resellers who build storage into their solutions.
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Five Companies That Dropped The Ball This Week For the week ending Feb. 10, CRN looks at five companies that were either asleep at the wheel or just didn't make good decisions. |
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Five Companies That Came To Win This Week For the week ending Feb. 10, CRN looks at five companies that brought their 'A' game and made moves to beat out competitors |
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10 Challenges That HP Wants Partners To Tackle Right Now CRN speaks with HP's business unit chiefs to get a sense of where they'd like partners to focus in the coming year, as well as how CEO Meg Whitman is making a difference. |
 More
Slide Shows |
- 2001 Annual Report Card
- Sun Edges Out Market-Share Leader EMC
- Sun Edges Out EMC: Making It Work
- Partner-First Strategy Makes Sun a Channel Champ
- The ARC: A Tool For Picking the Best Vendors
- Cognizant Sales Soar, Exec Promotions Follow
- VAR500 Company EPAM Systems: IPO Update
- The Daily App: KyWiki for iPad
- The Daily App: Scan To PDF Free For Android
- Oracle VARs Worry New Channel Incentives Mean Delays, Lower Prices
- Oracle Unveils Storage Strategy In Wake Of Pillar Data Acquisition
