HP Names Sales Managers And Prepares New Channel Details

At the time the merger with Compaq, HP officials said the company would disclose channel details within about 90 days of the close. The merger officially closed on May 3. HP officials told CRN this week that details would be made available to channel partners next week.

HP has passed a list of local sales managers to some of its solution providers on the West Coast, according to two of them. One Midwest solution provider said he expects such a list later this week.

The vendor is also starting to pass out a PowerPoint document entitled "Key Partner Opportunities" in which the company's customer base is divided into a five-segment pyramid.

At the top of the pyramid is "corporate" customers, which includes 100 global and 150 regionally-targeted global accounts.

The second level is "enterprise," including about 4,000 customers that are identified locally.

The third level, "commercial," consists of about 15,000 installed and emerging customers.

Next is "SMB," consisting of "hundreds of thousands" of businesses.

At the bottom is "consumer/microbusiness," which includes "millions" of individuals and SOHOs, according to a chart in the presentation.

The different customer levels in that pyramid are divided into two types of channel partners. "Enterprise" partners cover the pyramid from corporate to commercial, while "commercial" partners cover from the bottom of the corporate level to the consumer/microbusiness level, according to the PowerPoint chart. The two types of partners overlap in coverage in the enterprise and commercial levels.

No explanation of the terms "enterprise partner" and "commercial partner" were provided in the PowerPoint document.

However, an HP official said the terms refered to the two channel organizations, enterprise and commercial, which were discussed at the time the merger was closed. The enterprise and commercial channel organizations are operating under a single channel framework, the official said.

One solution provider speculated that the distinction corresponds to legacy Compaq channel terminology. "Enterprise partner" could refer to CAER, or Compaq authorized enterprise reseller, while "commercial partner" could refer to CAR, or Compaq authorized reseller.

Several solution providers said they expect that complete details, including HP's Hard Deck rules, will not be made available for a few more weeks. One solution provider said he was told by HP that implantation of all the new channel programs might not happen until the close of the fiscal year, expected in late October.

HP last Friday announced its account managers for its different product lines, and is now structuring the various sales teams, said Rich Baldwin, president and CEO of Nth Generation Computing, a San Diego, Calif.-based solution provider. "I suspect they are a few weeks behind," he said.

Baldwin said he sees HP as growing more open to having its services delivered through partners, including any and all server and SAN implementations. "Even the Hitachi (Data Systems) storage array -- HP will allow partners to get a large share of the revenue for that," he said. "They already have partners in a pilot program for it."

HP may need partners' help more than ever in the services area. One solution provider said he was told by HP that several senior engineers in the West have taken the early retirement package offered by the vendor in the wake of the merger.

"All the veterans are saying, we can get a year or two of pay, why not retire or get another job," the solution provider said.