Lots Of Love For EMC And HP

Report Card survey proved to be one of the closest races in any category. EMC and Hewlett-Packard tied for the top spot, both barely ahead of last year's winner, Network Appliance.

EMC and HP both compete not only for storage dollars but also for bragging rights as the No. 1 overall vendor based on different ways of measuring market leadership.

Now, tied with overall 70 scores, they both have ARC bragging rights as well. Network Appliance came in second with an overall score of 69.

EMC shared the top spot in terms of product innovation with NetApp, with a score of 74, followed by HP at 73. HP balanced its rival's win by grabbing top honors in the channel partnership subcategory with a score of 68, followed by EMC at 67 and NetApp at 65.

For Pete Koliopoulos, vice president of EMC's global channel marketing, tying with HP for the ARC award for Network Storage vindicated his and EMC's strategy of continuing to build a strong channel program.

EMC has continued to build best-of-breed products and make it easier for partners to get trained and certified on those products, Koliopoulos said. "We worked across the company to up-level our products and support across the board," he explained. "I think everything we are doing resonated with partners."

Koliopoulos said partners are now very clear on what to expect from EMC. "We now offer full hardware, software and services solutions through the channel," he said, adding that "there's no surprises."

HP did well because its strong focus on small and midsize businesses and the solution providers that serve them is paying off, said Patrick Eitenbichler, director of marketing for HP StorageWorks.

For instance, HP changed its partner portal--from what many called the "pain cave" because of its lack of a storage page--into a relevant source of HP storage information that is updated on a daily basis, Eitenbichler said. The company has also eliminated the pain that, until this year, was associated with special pricing, and has made it easier for solution providers to deliver HP-branded services, he said.

Jamie Shepard, vice president of technology solutions at International Computerware, a Marlborough, Mass.-based EMC partner, said EMC has proven itself a top storage innovator. Specifically, products like EMC's new Celerra NS20 and NS40 appliances work in Fibre Channel and iSCSI SAN environments, and in CIFS and NFS NAS environments. They are also two of the first to allow true iSCSI replication. The company also offers "fantastic" technical and sales support, Shepard said.

Keith Norbie, director of the storage division of Nexus Information Systems, a Plymouth, Minn.-based EMC partner, said EMC deserved the scores it received. "They put a lot into making this a good program for the VAR," Norbie said.

Hewlett-Packard is heavy on R&D spending, and has the top technology to show for it, said John Vigliecca, vice president of client solutions at Dasher Technologies, a Watsonville, Calif.-based solution provider. HP has some of the best training and certification programs in the industry, he said. "HP has the virtualization technology to reduce the amount customers have to spend on storage technology," Vigliecca commented.