Channel Best-Sellers: Systems/Storage

Blade Servers

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server blade

But solution providers say both IBM, Armonk, N.Y., and HP, Palo Alto, Calif., have opened up a new battlefront in the blade market by introducing new systems specifically designed for midmarket customers.

HP's new BladeSystem c3000 blade chassis runs all current c-Class server blades and can fit up to eight blades. IBM's BladeCenter S runs on 110-volt power and has room for six blade servers. Both are smaller-capacity systems that plug directly into a wall socket and are targeted at smaller businesses.

-- Craig Zarley

Desktop PCs

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Dell says it's trying to do right by resellers. But the NPD Group/Distributor Track, which provides an aggregate monitor of products sold through distributors affiliated with the Global Technology Distribution Council, says that when it comes to selling desktop computers through the channel, it's all about Hewlett-Packard.

HP's aggressive pricing, strong product line and stellar channel support combined to give the world's largest IT company a commanding lead in distributor desktop sales over the first half of 2007. NPD reports that the Palo Alto, Calif.-based IT giant logged 61 percent of desktop revenue as measured by U.S. dollar volume.

"HP is our No. 1 alliance partner," said John Convery, vice president of marketing and vendor relations at Denali Advanced Integration. The Redmond, Wash.-based system integrator is an HP Platinum Partner—one of the vendor's fastest growing, he said.

-- Damon Poeter

Disk Drives

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Seagate and Hewlett-Packard finished as the top two best-sellers for disk drives for the first half of 2007 and also gained the most market share. But it's still a fragmented market with most purchasing decisions based on availability and price. (HP's numbers are based on drives sold for storage arrays.)

Several system builders said their ultimate purchasing decision is based on price per gigabyte, given similar speeds, and that figure changes constantly.

Seagate, Scotts Valley, Calif., accounted for 22.8 percent of the market through the first six months of the year, followed by HP, Palo Alto, Calif., at 20 percent.

According to data from the NPD Group/Distributor Track, HP gained the most share compared to the year-ago quarter, jumping 7.8 points. Seagate (6.5 points) and Western Digital (3.6) also gained market share while IBM (-1.7) and Hitachi (-1.6) lost some share.

-- Scott Campbell

NAS

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Buffalo Technology still has the best-selling brand of NAS products through distribution, but Hewlett-Packard is the rising star of NAS channel sales thanks to its combination of entry-level and high-end products.

According to data from the NPD Group/Distributor Track, Buffalo Tech accounted for just over 22 percent of U.S. channel sales through distributors during the first half of the year, with HP and its 16.6 percent share and NetApp and its 16.3 percent share placing them at a virtual tie for second place.

Adaptec came in fourth with an 11.3 percent share, while IBM followed with a 5.2 percent share, according to NPD.

HP's growth of 13.4 percentage points over the year-ago period stems from the two ways it approaches the NAS market, solution providers said.

At the high end, HP has grown its NAS business thanks to its acquisition early this year of PolyServe, a maker of storage software for clustering NAS appliances and consolidating Windows and Linux servers and storage into scalable utilities, said Phil Blackley, sales manager of Enterprise Computing Solutions, a Mission Viejo, Calif.-based solution provider.

At the entry level, HP has been growing HP ProLiant Storage Server NAS sales with a NAS appliance combining its ProLiant server with Microsoft Windows Storage Server software, said Dhruv Gulati, executive vice president at Lilien Systems, a Larkspur, Calif.-based HP solution provider.

SMB is a huge and growing business for NAS appliances, Gulati said. "HP is a pretty easy sell for small business and small office users," he said.

Buffalo Tech's strength comes from its appeal to both small businesses and to departments within large corporations and government institutions, said Larry Grippo, vice president of sales at Corporate Computer Solutions, Harrison, N.Y.

While NetApp is one of the two vendors with EMC for NAS overall, it is only third in the CMP Channel Best Sellers category because the company still gets nearly half its sales from direct channels, and because it also has a large number of direct solution providers who do not purchase through distribution.

-- Joseph F. Kovar

Notebooks

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Mobile PCs are experiencing explosive growth and are set to surpass desktops in sales by as early as next year.

And as sales maintain their upward trajectory, the competition is getting fierce in this ultrahot category.

Case in point, Lenovo and Hewlett-Packard. While Lenovo has the greatest market share, at 28.5 percent, for the first half of 2007, it actually lost share to the tune of 8.1 percent from the first half of 2006.

At the same time, HP gained 4.6 percent, to reach 22.3 percent, according to the data collected by NPD Group/Distributor Track.

Lenovo's vaunted ThinkPad brand no longer seems enough to stave off the likes even of Panasonic, Sony, Apple—all of which also gained channel market share.

According to NPD, Lenovo lost a fair amount of year-on-year U.S. dollar volume share through distribution in the first half of 2006, too, going from 39 percent share of the market through distribution in 2005 to 36.6 percent in 2006.

Channel partners think they know the reason for Lenovo's declining numbers—the company has a frustrating tendency to pay lip service to the channel, while going for direct sales whenever possible.

"The problem is that they never addressed the issue of old legacy IBM guys who turned into Lenovo guys who have always been in tune to bring deals direct," said one large regional solution provider who asked not to be identified. "They never have had anybody at the top say, 'No, you are not bringing that deal direct; it's going through a channel partner who's already engaged in the account.'"

-- Damon Poeter