CRN Interview: Gary Grimes, Sun Microsystems

Gary Grimes, vice president of partner management and sales operations at Sun Microsystems, discussed the vendor's iForce partner summit and channel plans in an interview with Senior Editor Joseph F. Kovar.

CRN: What can we expect at iForce this year?

GRIMES: We will have somewhere between 500 and 700 partners in attendance--iForce community members. They'll range from systems integrators and service providers to OEMs, traditional VARs, ISVs and master resellers. It's going to be an exciting event. We've got a full agenda. Most Sun management will be present, and we'll be participating in breakouts or general sessions. We think it's a great opportunity for our partner community to hear what's going on at Sun and get a sense of our direction for the next year to year-and-a-half.

CRN: What is Sun's direction for the near future?

GRIMES: Without getting into any details, because we haven't worked them all out, we have a channel architecture and a channel model that was originally developed back in the early '90s. It was designed around our needs and partner needs in those days. And I don't think there's any question the market and the industry have changed. I think partners have different expectations of vendors today and, certainly, vendors have different expectations of partners today. So we're taking a hard look at all of our programs around the channel, certainly in the U.S., and trying to figure out how we can adjust them so they offer a better business proposition and a little more relevance for our partners--and also meet our needs a bit better than a program that was designed for the marketplace 12 years back.

CRN: What's going on these days in the the SMB space that's driving Sun's channel approach?

GRIMES: Generally, SMBs tend to lag corporate America, for lack of a better term, in terms of IT expenditures. They tend not to adopt technologies as readily as large organizations, for obvious reasons. One, their pockets aren't quite as deep. Perhaps more importantly, they tend not to have large IT staffs. So large corporate environments taking advantage of productivity-enhancing technology, and they tend to do that before small businesses do. Similarly, the large enterprises have gotten large staffs and large investments. We've been very successful in a number of the large corporate industries--[e.g. finance, telecommunications and a number of others. And we feel like now it's time to take our message to smaller enterprises. We have products coming downstream that were announced about a month ago at the analyst conference in San Francisco that we think will play very nicely with partners in that small/midsize space.

CRN: What were some of those products introduced last month?

GRIMES: We talked about a more significant commitment to Linux--native Linux running on the x86 architecture as a platform from Sun. That's a space that we've not played in directly in the past, and we're going to be moving into that market. And I think that--coupled with the Cobalt product line--represents a real opportunity for us to sell systems into what has traditionally been the high end of the PC space. That's a market that's best served by working through partners.

CRN: It also appears to be a tremendous shift in Sun's business.

GRIMES: I think it's an acknowledgement that there is a large customer set out there that has articulated and demonstrated an interest in Linux-based computing at the edge of the corporate environment, and for small businesses at the core of their environment. So it's an attempt on our part to meet the needs of a market sector that we've never bothered with in the past, because our systems tended to be more powerful and appealed more directly to corporate America and data-center kinds of applications.

CRN: Besides Linux, what else will Sun be talking about at iForce?

GRIMES: We're going to talk to the folks about what we've got coming at the low end, in terms of native Linux in a Solaris architecture and those capabilities. We'll be talking a lot about the markets where we'd like to see them go, the markets that we think are important, exciting and represent the future for us--particularly with our channel partners, our iForce community. And we're just going to talk in general about developments at Sun and tell these folks just how much we appreciate what they've done for us in the past and how important they are as we move forward.

CRN: What about new market areas?

GRIMES: I alluded earlier to the fact that we think we've done a pretty good job in some of the more traditional markets--telecommunications and finance being two, government also pretty significant for us, and education and manufacturing. But there are a lot of new emerging markets, and we see them as real growth opportunities. They tend to be markets dominated by smaller firms, although there are certainly large firms in that space, too. Things like life sciences, biotechnology--areas like that where we have historically not played. Retail is a huge market opportunity for us as well.

CRN: Is Sun going to be talking about anything new in the server arena at iForce?

GRIMES: No, actually I don't think we're going to be announcing anything new. We're certainly going to reiterate the announcements we made recently at the analyst conference in San Francisco. We will be certifying partners to actually sell and deliver Sun-branded professional services, which we think is an exciting opportunity for our partner community. And it really demonstrates once and for all our commitment to not compete with our partners, but instead to help them build practices around their expertise and take advantage of some of the value around the Sun Microsystems professional services brand.

CRN: Are partners starting to do that?

GRIMES: I honestly don't know what the number is today. We're looking to have, by the end of [March, somewhere between 12 and 15 partners certified and authorized to deliver those [professional services. I haven't heard that we aren't on track, so I assume all is well there.

CRN: Sun appears to be aiming its professional services offerings more at its higher-end solution provider partners and its Linux and entry-level offerings more at smaller solution providers. With Sun's upcoming Linux push, does the company plan to expand the number of solution providers it works with?

GRIMES: You know, I don't really know the answer to that. It seems to me that the profile of the solution provider that thrives in the small- and medium-enterprise space is a little different than the profile of our traditional partner--the folks who are on board today who are much farther up the value chain in terms of their ability to provide services and design environments, whether it's from an architectural, networking or infrastructural point of view.

But they tend not to build turnkey kinds of solutions around vertical markets. The majority of our partners have historically been infrastructure kinds of players, with lots of consultants and architectural types of expertise. And I'm not sure that their business and financial models play particularly well with SMBs. So those are questions that we have yet to answer. But obviously we're thinking about it. So to the extent that our existing channel can pick this work up--and expresses an interest in picking this work up--then I'm just going to be more than happy to work with them to do so. But if they're not ready, willing or able to pick it up, then obviously we're going to have to think about expansion [of our partner base in some fashion.

CRN: The pending merger of Hewlett-Packard and Compaq--is that something you think is good news or bad news for Sun and the channel?

GRIMES: I thought it represents an opportunity, because it created of a lot of confusion, and everybody's attention and energy was diverted from the task at hand--doing daily business and generating revenue--to what's going to happen if this [deal comes together, or if it doesn't. So it was a huge distraction, if nothing else. There are tons of partners out there who are wondering which architecture of the nine or 10 that exist between HP, Tandem, Compaq, Digital [Equipment, SGI and everybody else they've purchased over the years is going to survive and where the R and D dollars are going to go. So if I were a partner today, I'd really be curious about which architecture is going to survive. And if I happen to have an Alpha-based business, and Alpha isn't going to survive in the new entity, what am I going to do? I've got to make a decision. And if I have to make a decision to port my applications to a new platform, then I may as well consider alternatives to HP.

CRN: Do you see any pros and cons for a combined HP-Compaq channel organization vs. the two companies' existing channel organizations?

GRIMES: I guess the question I would have is, which channel model will prevail in the new day? Is it going to be Compaq's channel model, or is it going to be HP's channel model? Is it going to be a proposition like [HP's Hard Deck, or is it going to be blood in the streets in a free-for-all? You know, [HP Chairman and CEO Carly Fiorina already has a lot of people concerned with her announcement about the HP direct business [strategy. The channel is a little confused about what that means, or may mean, in the long term.

CRN: What would you suggest to Fiorina in terms of the channel?

GRIMES: Give me your list of partners, and let me make a few phone calls.