Avnet, Arrow Pave Way For OpenView VARs

Avnet, Tempe, Ariz., launched the Partner Assist mentoring program to help solution providers build their own OpenView practices through personalized training, presales and implementation assistance, customized lead generation and pre-qualified selling opportunities.

Arrow has an entirely different tactic. The Melville, N.Y.-based distributor reached a deal with Pepperweed Consulting, the nation's largest OpenView partner, that allows solution providers to leverage Pepperweed resources so they don't have to build their own OpenView practices.

For the past year, HP asked solution providers to broaden their HP offerings to include software, services and storage. Avnet's PartnerAssist is not a direct extension of that strategy, but it does complement it, said Tim Fitzgerald, director of marketing for the HP business unit at Avnet Partner Solutions Americas.

"This is not a cause and effect, but there is a lot of alignment between this and other HP portfolio programs," he said. "Our new fiscal year begins in July, and our OpenView expectations are aggressive. We're going to add more partners to the program, but we want to do it with a discipline and methodology to support them where we need to. We don't want to make this available to any partner unless they are willing to make a strategic commitment to OpenView solutions."

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At its recent OpenView conference, HP, Palo Alto, Calif., unveiled a partner-to-partner program that rewards resellers for sharing OpenView opportunities with each other. In the past, HP only rewarded resellers for passing the leads back to the vendor.

"There's a a lot of opportunities not being serviced by HP partners because of the investment [to sell OpenView]. You need significant investment to be in the software solutions business," said Michael Haley, vice president of Arrow's HP business unit.

Comport Consulting, a Ramsey, N.J.-based solution provider, plans to leverage Pepperweed because it could not afford to start its own OpenView practice, said Jack Margossian, president of Comport. "It's too big an investment to still maintain everything else we do. You pick your battles," he said.