Dell-EqualLogic: One Year Together In The Channel

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This week marks the one-year anniversary of Dell's acquisition of the storage vendor EqualLogic. At the time channel partners were concerned if Dell -- whose history with the channel had been questionable at best -- would affect their relationship with the storage vendor. Now, with a year of working with Dell in the rearview mirror, channel partners are able to gauge whether or not Dell has become a company with a real channel strategy.

But Dell must be doing something right, as it has seen its enterprise architecture channel grow over the past year. At the time of the acquisition, EqualLogic had 185 preferred partners and about 480 total partners in North America. One year later, the preferred partners, now called Dell certified partners, numbers over 400, with more than 930 total partners.

Dell, as a whole, has more than 35,000 partners in 148 countries worldwide, with 16,000 in just North America.

At the time the acquisition of EqualLogic was confirmed, channel partners like Pete Kennedy, chairman for Kraft and Kennedy, were wondering exactly how their business with EqualLogic would be affected.

"My initial reaction was kind of a mixed bag," said Kennedy. "I wondered what does this mean and what's the impact going to be on me?"

Meanwhile, some EqualLogic partners were less inclined to be optimistic about the purchase, said Ron Dupler, CEO of GreenPages Technology Solutions.

"We were one of the early dissenters," said Dupler. "We were cautious because we'd been a strong EqualLogic partner at the time the transaction was planned to take place."

In fact, some resellers whispered that the purchase of EqualLogic would act as a sort of de facto channel program that Dell could simply tap into to swell its reseller numbers while using it as a framework for its own partner program.

"From the technical side, EqualLogic's product mapped well to Dell's strategy of simplifying IT and to be more strategic," said Dupler. "What I was told early on was that EqualLogic's strong channel program was a key driver for Dell."

Dell added to that perception announcing its partner program just one month later, though the company stated the program had been in the works for quite some time.

But importantly, Kennedy notes, Dell retained key people from EqualLogic to be part of the burgeoning channel program to bring channel expertise to the operation.

"Dell was astute enough to keep on key EqualLogic people that had developed a successful channel program and then added to it," said Kennedy. "Once Greg Davis [Dell's global channel chief] started his group, that's when some longtime Dell employees got the religion of the reseller channel."

One astute move was to keep then-global vice president of channel for EqualLogic Bob Skelley on board to help ease the transition. Skelley, now director of enterprise architecture at Dell, knew there would be some hesitation by EqualLogic partners over the purchase, but saw an opportunity to expand the EqualLogic product line while working with Dell to build out its channel program.

Dell, Skelley admits, wasn't a channel-centric organization in the same as EqualLogic. But after speaking with Davis and Michael Dell, Skelley believed he saw a commitment to the channel.

"At the time, Dell wasn't thought of as a channel company," said Skelley. "I have the opportunity to help Dell mold and craft a great organization. Greg [Davis] gave me the opportunity to build enterprise architecture in its entirety as a viable way to accelerate what we were trying to accomplish."

Once on board, Skelley and Davis put in place an aggressive strategy to retain partners by dropping the minimum on deal registration requirements to $50,000 from $75,000, grandfathering in existing EqualLogic partners.

"Grandfathering EqualLogic partners into Dell's channel was the right thing to do," said Skelley. "It took a one-hour phone call. We wanted to reward partners for their investment and not take anything away from them. It showed that the commitment and attitude around embracing the channel here wasn't just corporate speak."

Next: Reaching Out To Partners

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