MSI Systems Integrators, one of IBM's largest business partners, said Monday that it has added Hewlett-Packard to its roster of vendor partners.
The revelation came at HP's America's Partner Conference in Las Vegas when Jim Simpson, president of MSI, Omaha, Neb., took the stage with two other HP solution providers for a question and answer session with HP CEO Mark Hurd.
Simpson, who landed a spot on CRN's 2007 Top 25 most innovative industry executives, said he needed to add HP in order to grow his business and better serve his more than 3,000 customers. MSI had 2007 revenues in excess of $300 million.
"Our clients have asked us to represent HP for a couple of years and we felt the time was right," Simpson said. "A lot of our customers have standardized on HP products and we felt that we could no longer tell them we couldn't serve them. We're not going into this [the HP relationship] to be a small player. We expect to be a large player for HP."
Simpson noted that MSI has been an IBM business partner for 14 years and would continue to be a large IBM partner in the future. Simpson said the he doesn't plan to have separate HP and IBM divisions but would simply be client centric.
"We're not exclusive today," he said. "We like to think of ourselves as a good systems integrator. We have over 250 engineers aimed at all sorts of different software projects."
During the Q&A session with some 1,100 HP solution providers, Simpson asked Hurd, "Does being a loyal partner mean being an exclusive HP partner?"
Hurd responded, "No. Although we'd take that. You're going to have multi-product lines just like we're going to have multiple partners. The world just isn't that precise. What we want is that optimization that makes sense when we get the opportunity to leverage the portfolio. We're not after exclusivity. We're after a clear back and forth relationship where you understand our needs and we understand yours and we can align those resources to create a better opportunity."
Other solution providers were glad that Hurd clarified that he doesn't equate loyalty with exclusivity. Romi Randhawa, president of HPM Networks, an platinum HP solution provider in Fremont, Calif. noted that his HP business grew 80 percent last year. But he said that for solution providers to continue to grow their businesses, it's difficult to remain exclusive to a single vendor. "As long as we lead with HP, that's what he's looking for [in terms of loyalty]," he said
Simpson said that Hurd and his enthusiasm and support of the channel was a big part of MSI's decision to sign up with HP. "This has been two years in the making," he said. "IBM is well aware of this and we didn't try to hide anything."
Simpson said he would not rule out acquiring an HP solution provider in order to jumpstart his HP business. "We look at all sorts of acquisitions all of the time and it's certainly a possibility [acquiring an HP VAR]."
The addition of MSI to HP's roster of solution providers fits in with Hurd's plan to focus on growing HP's U.S. market share. Hurd noted that while HP is the world's largest IT company, HP is not the IT leader in the U.S. in terms of market share.
"We need more coverage. We need more help," Hurd said of the U.S. "I don't think we need more partners; we need better alignment with our current partner base. The U.S. is a key focus for us."
