IBM Snags HP Partner Executive

Louise Bishop, the channel marketing manager for Hewlett Packard's worldwide partner organization, has jumped ship to take a channel post at arch-rival IBM.

Sources said Bishop, a longtime HP executive, has taken a channel position in IBM's global business partner organization. It's rare for IBM to snag a top channel executive from rival HP.

The executive departure comes after Hewlett-Packard last year took away the top spot from IBM as the world's largest technology company. HP has also surpassed Dell as the number one PC company worldwide.

Hewlett Packard would not comment. IBM had not responded to a call at press time.

Before taking the channel marketing manager post for the HP partner organization, Bishop was Americas marketing manager for HP's ProCurve organization. Under her leadership, HP's ProCurve made significant channel gains against Cisco.

"I'm glad to see it," said Jay Tipton, vice president, Technology Specialists, a Fort Wayne, Ind., IBM Blade server solution provider. "I think it will be a nice addition. IBM still struggles to get to the small medium reseller. Louise has experience IBM can benefit from."

Tipton said he has seen big gains in terms of how IBM deals with smaller resellers, but still needs more help in that market segment. "I remember back in 1998 and 1999 the only thing the small reseller got from IBM was a cold shoulder," he said. "They are getting better but they are still struggling, trying to deal with all of the resellers."

"All of the big companies struggle to work with all of the small resellers," added Tipton. "HP has done a good job of getting to the point where they are working well with small resellers." That said, Tipton noted that he is putting a lot of time and energy into a tighter partnership with IBM. "They have put a lot of energy into us and I'm putting a lot of energy into them," he said.

Pete Busam, vice president and COO,Decisive Business Systems, a Pennsauken, New Jersey HP partner,said he was sorry to see Bishop leave HP. "You have to roll with the changes when you see your old friends and people in the industry move around," he said. "You hate to see it. This would be a loss to any organization just because of the type of person she was. She gave so much."

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