It also meant he was under Hurd's constant scrutiny, being pushed and prodded every step of the way to make sure the channel was delivering.

HP has promoted Jones to a new post effective Nov. 1 running HP's Enterprise Storage and Servers business in Asia-Pacific and Japan. It's a well-deserved promotion for Jones, whose close working relationship with Hurd paved the way for a dramatic increase in the number of joint sales calls that Hurd and other HP executives made with HP partners. Through the first six months of 2009, Hurd and other top-level HP executives met with more than 300 customers and 100 solution providers, according to Jones. My challenge to vendors is to answer this question: How many joint sales calls have your CEO and top executives made with partners this year? My bet is that challenge is met by nothing but the sound of crickets.

The fact is that Hurd is the most channel-engaged CEO in this business. There are few executives that have his unique mix of sales and operations experience. No other company has as big and as broad a technology portfolio and channel. And no other IT company has as bright a future for sales growth.

That's because no other company has invested as much in driving channel growth. At a time when competitors are cutting channel spend, Hurd is spending more than ever. That's because he wants more sales coverage, not less. He is the only top executive among the major computer makers that talks about his company not having enough sales coverage.

Hurd understands channel economics and is drilling down into every nook and cranny of channel spend. He wants to make sure he is getting the maximum return on every sales touch. That's why he is pushing channel leadership directly into the business units. That will likely mean even more dramatic increases in joint sales calls between HP executives and its partners.

Having a tight relationship with Hurd is no picnic. Hurd was constantly pushing Jones on increasing channel sales, cutting costs and getting partners to sell the full HP product portfolio. Of all the channel chiefs in this business, my bet is no one was more aggressively challenged by his CEO than Jones.

HP's biggest challenge in pushing channel responsibility directly into the business units is that the channel chiefs in those units don't have that tight working relationship with Hurd. That ability to stay deeply connected to the channel is something Hurd should be careful he does not lose as HP gives its business units more channel autonomy.

No channel chief can be successful without the strong support of the CEO. Jones had that tight relationship with Hurd. Will Jones' replacement and the business unit channel leaders be able to say the same? HP's channel future depends on it.

Partners need to know if they are quoting a customer a price on a product -- even a single unit price -- that is in line with what the vendor is offering either on its own Web site or from a direct-sales rep.

One of the eye-opening moments from our recent XChange '09 conference was a solution provider complaining that Dell Direct is, in some cases, quoting prices that are 10 percent to 15 percent below the channel price on low-quantity servers or PCs.

"Our customer relationship is undermined by Dell based on the fact that when we do a [price] quote based on what we are getting, the customer then calls to check pricing and they are oftentimes getting 10 to 15 points better pricing than we are being given," said Leo Bletnitsky, president of Desktop Valet, a Las Vegas-based solution provider, during a question-and-answer session with Dell Worldwide Channel Chief Greg Davis. "So that spread becomes gouging in the customer's eyes."

That pricing spread, in fact, is keeping this partner from even quoting the price of Dell products.

Davis, who has received high marks for his willingness to address channel issues head-on, admitted that channel pricing parity is an issue for Dell on its mainstream hardware business. He said Dell is attempting to implement the same kind of pricing model it has used to great success with its EqualLogic business.

It's no surprise that this was a business Dell bought 19 months ago for $1.4 billion. That investment has paid off handsomely because Dell has done such a good job of maintaining EqualLogic's channel momentum. Channel partners, in fact, give Dell credit for not undercutting them.

"The pricing and the way that we have our storage product line set up is working very well," said Davis. "I never have an issue or a complaint with respect to storage because of the way we set it up. We are working to get that same process into our server product line and hopefully through the rest of the product line."

What the Dell case shows is just how difficult it is for a longtime direct-sales company to transform itself into a channel company. All the processes and policies that Dell has built since its inception 25 years ago were built to support a direct-sales model. Now Dell is changing that direct-sales DNA to make way for a channel model. It is not something that can be done overnight. It's a journey.

On the plus side, give Dell credit for improving its Annual Report Card scores, Everything Channel's annual report in which solution providers rate vendors in a range of categories. If Dell wants to continue to see its ARC scores improve, though, it needs to get this channel pricing issue resolved.

To that point, Best Buy has always had trouble providing technology services to consumers, businesses or any class of customers. That's why the local solution provider channel has thrived from its inception in the early '80s. And it's why there will always be a place for the local solution provider.

With technology product sales plummeting, the retail giant is making a big push on services. In fact, Best Buy's new CEO, Brian Dunn, sees services as the future for the company. In the most recent quarter, Best Buy's comparable domestic store sales were down 4.9 percent due to what the retailer called a decline in customer traffic. Interestingly enough, the sales decline was partially offset by what Best Buy called gains in notebook computers, mobile phones and repair services.

So are Best Buy's Geek Squad techs being pressured into making repairs that are flat out just not necessary? It's a question worth asking given the experience of one of our esteemed editors, Scott Campbell, and a number of other consumers complaining about the Geek Squad. To get the full impact of the services shenanigans, go to Campbell's blog post on our ChannelWeb Connect community at community.crn.com. Here is a short summary:

Campbell's wife bought him a $700 Dell laptop in January for his birthday. She also decided to go the extra mile (better safe than sorry) and buy the Best Buy three-year, $300 "Black Tie Protection" warranty. How much margin, by the way, does Best Buy make on this "Black Tie Protection" warranty plan? My bet is it's a lot more margin than it is making on the Dell laptop.

The Black Tie black eye for the Campbell family came after only five months when the hinge on the Dell laptop came loose. Campbell brought his Dell laptop back to Best Buy, which agreed to ship it out and return it to him in three weeks. How in the world can you justify a warranty that does not provide a one- or two-day turnaround in this day and age? Three weeks. Are you kidding me? What exactly are you paying for if you can't get a repair done in 48 hours?

We've already proven that the $300 Best Buy "Black Tie" warranty isn't exactly a barnburner. Then Best Buy's Geek Squad replaced the hard drive without so much as even a heads up to Campbell. To top it all off, Campbell proceeds to get a phone call from another Geek Squad rocket scientist asking if he wants to buy data recovery services from Best Buy.

There is no way any local solution provider could provide this kind of service and last more than a month.

From this vantage point, it looks like there is a lot more bad business than best buys at Best Buy. And it's that bad business that is sure to lead more customers from Best Buy to solution providers.

First and foremost, the MIS Group tale is a classic example of why it's just plain stupid for a solution provider to bet too heavily on one vendor. And by the way, Sage itself openly and aggressively encouraged that type of bet with a channel strategy that placed a premium on Sage-centric partners.

That strategy has left Sage with a black eye and could very well cause customers to reconsider their commitments to the Sage product line. The fact is far too many vendors have a homogeneous, focus on your biggest partners view of the world. They invest far too little in recruiting and refreshing their partner base and view smaller partners as less strategic. That's because they simply don't want to invest the time, money and resources to keep a healthy, robust channel.

So how does the Sage partner of the year, achieving the highest total sales of Sage products in both 2007 and 2008, suddenly post a note on its Web site that it was for all practical purposes insolvent and unable to continue as a viable business?

Just like AIG bet beyond reason on credit default swaps and watched its balance sheet crumble through a $600 billion bet on credit derivatives, MIS Group made the same kind of foolhardy bet, only this one on scaling its Sage business beyond all reason. It's no surprise that acquisitions that put a boatload of debt on the balance sheet are part of the story.

MIS Group CEO Robert Muir, who founded MIS Group 13 years ago, actually boasts in a WebCPA piece that while many solution providers have either sales or technical people, MIS Group has "veteran businesspeople who are applying largely a scale business concept to a traditionally smaller business." The strategy was simply to bet that scaling the Sage business would give MIS Group a pricing advantage over any and all comers. It was a Wal-Mart strategy run amok.

What's so interesting about the MIS Group story is that Sage itself was caught off guard by the death of its largest solution provider. In a ChannelWeb follow-up, Sage Vice President of Marketing Dennis Frahmann says the vendor was unaware that MIS Group would close up shop on July 6. He then goes on to say that it's obviously a difficult market out there. A difficult market is one thing. Your largest partner going out of business is plain and simple a sign of a faulty channel strategy.

There's a lot of blame to go around in this channel story. MIS Group made a foolish bet to scale its Sage business beyond all reason. And Sage was more interested in a focus on the big partners and a stick with your current lineup of partners strategy rather than cultivating a strong and stable channel force based on solutions breadth and depth.

In the end, MIS Group didn't get a bailout from the vendor or the federal government. That may be the only difference between AIG and MIS Group.

Many solution providers have gone into the bunker and put on blinders: refusing to bring on new emerging vendors or switch vendors based on the market conditions, tying themselves to the same old, same old even when those vendors have dramatically slashed channel programs. It's just plain maddening and it fits the thinking businessman's definition of insane: continue to do the same thing and expect a different outcome.

Many solution providers are missing out on products and vendors that could effectively help them pull out of a tailspin with some groundbreaking solutions. One problem, of course, is cutting through the market noise and clutter. That's where Everything Channel comes in with content like our Emerging Vendor blog and list, conferences, NetSeminars, etc. We take our role as channel advocates seriously and are constantly on the prowl for the products and companies that pass our channel litmus test.

There are many new horses to ride that could turn the tide for you. Here are five of the best that have come to my attention in the past few months.

Panasonic: A life saver. A 100 percent channel-focused company in a hot horizontal (rugged notebooks) that has just launched a slam dunk: the new H1 Mobile Medical Assistant. The H1 is a breakthrough product in a market that badly needs it.

Oki Data Americas: A 100 percent channel-focused company that is taking managed services to new heights and is also deep into helping partners crack into vertical markets like health care and education. Add a channel-savvy exec like Oki Data President and CEO Stewart Krentzman and you have a bona fide recession-busting partner.

eFolder: Once again, a 100 percent channel-focused company, this time with a brandable online backup and e-mail archiving product. A breakthrough technology and product with best-in-class terms and conditions. And a company that gets it: it's all about helping their partners make money and satisfy customers.

ORSYP: A Paris-based company that has a market-leading product in France and is moving into the U.S. channel with a hot new product, UniJob (an IT system task automation and consolidation tool) that has cost savings potential like VMware.

XIV: IBM bought this storage crown jewel 18 months ago and has been shining it up with a huge amount of field resources and a first-class channel program. XIV brings revolutionary simplicity to the too often complex and arcane market.

Solution providers that are able to take off the blinders and bring on products and business models from vendors like these will find themselves at the head of the pack. Those that don't are doomed to finish dead last.