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Talk about your message to partners around cloud.
Cloud is not something that is binary. Cloud is a bit of a catch word for a whole bunch of stuff. I happen to believe and I have said this many, many times that cloud is different for everyone and the pervasive business model of the future for the cloud is going to be hybrid clouds, some private clouds, some public clouds and whatever.
What is going to change is the engagement model that people will have when they are going to have to deal with the cloud. That means they need to have a more service-based business model. My advice for channel partners [that I have met] was: guys, look at your business model, look at the value-add that you provide, see how you can scale this, with the help of the cloud. Because if you don't then you are going to end up doing maintenance and not future business. It might take ten years. It might take five years. It might take three years. It is a different discussion. I don't know when. But for sure if we spend an hour and a half discussing cloud then we have to make sure that the business models that we are going to embrace are cloud centric.
And I think I got my message across really well to our channel partners, at least those that I met. I hope. And I will give it another shot when I go out to Vegas and have a chance to give a keynote. I will stress that point again and again and again. Our channel partners have a great franchise. They deal with a great company that will support them as much as we just can with great products, great services. Actually we will create space for them. They just need to go grab it. The one thing I can't do for our channel partners is actually do it for them. Otherwise they shouldn't be channel partners they should all be direct.
So how do partners have to change their business model to make sure they are going to work with the HP of the future, the HP that you are building?
Actually can I say this slightly differently if I may: they should change their business model so they work with the customer of the future, not with the HP of the future. Both HP and the channel partner would like to service the customer. At the end of the day it is a customer centric world out there, not an HP centric world out there. And I think they have to adjust to that. So what are the major things happening: talk about mobility, talk about the cloud, talk about all of these various intersection points. That is where the future for our channel partners needs to slowly and gradually move towards too. Because at the end of the day that is what the world will want from them. They should sell what customers want to buy.
Now on that continuum you can find various shades of gray and various gradations of what people really want to buy, and that is up to each particular channel partner, what their strengths are and what they really want to do. Some of the models are more capital intensive than others. Some of them are more service centric. Some of them are more reselling centric. But more and more they [solution providers] should start to really figure out how can they support the cloud strategies of their customers. And it doesn't matter if you are an SMB or a large enterprise or whatever else.
Next: Taking Aim At The VCE Coalition
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