Solution Providers React To Vendor Splits

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This month two giant companies, Hewlett-Packard and Symantec, revealed plans to divide themselves by the end of 2015. It will be quite a while before anyone can determine whether the moves are helpful or harmful to partners, but what are solution providers' initial thoughts about the trend? When a giant company makes a drastic change in its size, what impact does it have on partners?

Michael Dell predicted that ’chaos’ will result from HP’s split, and David Geevaratne of Microsoft partner New Signature, did not disagree. ’I think it’s going to cause disruption. I think it’s going to cause some confusion. This is honestly why we have one partner, and one partner only.’

Other partners said their immediate concerns are around their own customers.

’The first thing we try to articulate is, ’What does that mean for our clients?' ’ said Michael Chapman, solutions architect at Corus 360. ’We need to make sure that we communicate on the same lines with HP and Symantec about what those trends are going to be and what the changes will be so that we’re prepared to make sure our customers are taken care of.’

’Ultimately it boils down to, if it makes sense for our clients, and the channel programs are there, then it makes sense for us,’ said Dimension Data CEO Mark Slaga.

Other partners said they simply do not know what to expect. ’I don’t know, really, what it’s going to mean,’ said AtNetPlus CEO Jay Mellon.

PUBLISHED OCT. 22, 2014