Logical Signs Pact To Buy HP Products From Arrow SBM

John Hafen, president of U.S. Logical, said the Bloomfield Hills, Mich.-based solution provider would shift in excess of $100 million in annual HP enterprise product purchases to Arrow SBM. He said Logical chose Arrow SBM over HP's other HP-Unix enterprise distributor Avnet Hall-Mark, because unlike Avnet, Arrow doesn't have an integration arm that sells to end-user customers. "We know that Arrow SBM will not compete against us," he said.

Jeff Reed, Logical's executive vice president of product marketing, added that there was no financial benefit to continue buying direct from HP because Logical incurred infrastructure costs but realized no pricing advantage through its direct relationship. With Logical now buying its HP products through Arrow SBM, all of HP's North American solution providers source HP-Unix products from HP's Partner Development Manager (PDM) distributors. PDMs work on a fee-for-service basis, taking and managing orders, with HP direct shipping products to solution providers or their customers.

Joe Burke, vice president and general manager, midrange business at Arrow Electronics' North American Computer Products group, said Logical was already buying Sun Microsystems products from Arrow's Enterprise Computing Solutions' MOCA division and IBM products from its Support Net division. "This is an extension of our existing relationship with Logical," he said.

Burke added that Arrow SBM's focus on solution providers rather than end-user customers was key to winning the Logical account. "Our sole purpose is to support our resellers."