IBM Global Services Wants To Right The Wrong

This week's panel is focused on storage and data services, but future panels will look at different services for the channel, with servers probably coming next, said Paul Fried, vice president of storage and data services at IGS.

"We didn't want to do one overall partner council," he said. "It's hard for a partner with storage, servers, middleware, and so on to go to so many different meetings."

The panel, plus the ongoing introduction of new services to be sold through and deployed by partners, are aimed at helping IGS make up for its lack of channel focus in the past, Fried said.

"When I came into the services organization, I felt the channel should not just participate in services, but should take the lead," he said. "I want to make each slice of the services pie bigger—it's a $28 billion opportunity worldwide. It's the best way to grow."

IGS has had a challenging past with its solution providers, said Pete Elliot, director of marketing at Key Information Systems, a Woodland Hills, Calif.-based IBM solution provider. Key Information Systems is partnering with IGS for e-mail archiving and is looking at doing the same for other infrastructure services.

"The trend has been for them to reinvent themselves with new offerings, especially entry-level offerings," Elliot said. "That's good for IBM because we can handle such services locally, and good for the customer, who can get access to low-cost services."

David Stone, vice president of business development at Solutions-II, an Englewood, Colo.-based IBM solution provider that was invited to attend the panel, said the move to solidify a channel strategy comes as major vendors are looking at how to deliver services at lower cost with greater speed. That makes it important for solution providers to move quickly to adopt services such as those offered by IGS, he said.

"In 24 months, the services where we offer high value-add will have become commoditized," Stone said.

Kevin Hooper, director of worldwide IGS channel management and marketing, said that while only about 5 percent, or $2.5 billion, of IGS' total revenue currently comes from the channel, that revenue is actually doubling every year.

Even so, compared to the 25 percent of IBM software revenue coming from the channel, and the 70 percent of hardware revenue, it has plenty of room to grow, Hooper said. "It's natural to ask, where's the services?" he said.

The new channel push started in April when IGS was reorganized into two organizations, IBM Global Technology Services and IBM Global Business Services. IBM Global Technology Services consists of 10 services units. Five of those units, which Hooper called the "low-hanging" fruit in terms of the channel, are slated for strong channel participation: storage and data, server, security and privacy, business continuity and resiliency, and maintenance and technical support. Many of the new services slated from Armonk, N.Y.-based IBM are more labor-based services, Hooper said. "These are all based on somebody showing up with a screwdriver in hand," he said.

Last month, IGS unveiled several services related to storage and data management for the channel, including information life-cycle management, storage implementation services and data migration.

Other channel-friendly services are on the way, Hooper said. One of the first is contingency planning assessments, such as how to prepare in case the Avian flu hits in the next 12 months.

"We've had an offering for large businesses," he said. "Now we want to launch for SMBs, and give partners the opportunity to take it to customers. We are working off the notion that if this hits the U.S. or some other country, 40 percent of the population could be out for three to four weeks."

Also slated to go through the channel shortly are security services, including managed security, based on IBM's recent acquisition of Internet Security Systems, Hooper said.

For some solution providers, customer size still limits the extent to which they feel able to partner with IBM on services. Nathan Vincent, a consultant with Eagle Vision, a Billings, Mont., solution provider with a focus on IT support services, said that despite the move to reach a wider partner base, IBM's services have been aimed more at midrange customers than the small businesses he serves.

However, Vincent said the new IGS plans gives him hope he can bring such services to his small-business customers. "Now we will look again at the opportunities," he said. "We'll talk to them on the delivery of services, and about acting as a subcontractor to them. But we will need to see how they can repurpose those services for my customers."

IGS is serious about going to the channel with its services offerings, Hooper said. "We've stumbled and we've fumbled in this space in the past," he said. "We want to fix this."