HP Arms VARs With Rebate Boost

"[HP is] making it more lucrative for partners," said Pete Busam, COO of Decisive Business Systems, an HP solution provider in Pennsauken, N.J. "If we are getting skinny on margins because Dell is getting skinny on margins, HP is making sure they are going to take care of us. They are giving us the ability to get down and dirty with Dell."

The new incentive plan, which will run the second half of HP's fiscal year beginning Aug. 1, will be unveiled by John Thompson, HP's vice president and general manager of the Solution Partners Organization, at the vendor's Americas Partner Conference this week in Las Vegas.

In addition to the server and personal systems rebate increases, HP said it will nearly double the rebates for color and multifunction printers.

The Palo Alto, Calif., company also said it will begin offering PartnerOne New Business Opportunity rebates on personal systems products and ProCurve Networking deals less than $25,000 beginning Aug. 1.

Solution providers said the move should encourage them to go after deals they previously would have ignored. "Before, if it was a $5,000 deal, there was no point registering the deal. If I'm not going to make money on it, why would I do it?" Busam said. "Now, they are giving you the opportunity to come down to protect the account and protect your margin."

Thompson also said that HP is increasing by 20 percent its channel support resources, including additional field sales support in the form of more channel business managers, sales specialists and system engineers.

Chris Ferry, executive vice president of Technology Integration Group, an HP solution provider in San Diego, said he wants to make deeper connections with the HP channel support people.

"HP has been somewhat internally focused on their organization makeup and how it works, and we are still trying to figure out all of the attachments and how it works for the channel," he said. "It's been somewhat difficult to understand."