Intel Counting On partners To Open Door To SMBs

<img data-cke-saved-src="http;//sections/graphics/986/986n_smbopp.gif" src="http;//sections/graphics/986/986n_smbopp.gif" border="0" width="108' HEIGHT=" 42"="" align="LEFT" hspace="3" vspace="2">Intel executives said the chip maker is readying an initiative for the SMB space, hoping to spark double-digit sales growth in its North America solution provider channel for that market.

Intel will launch the program next month, targeting most of the 30,000 resellers and solution providers that sell to SMBs, said Steve Dallman, general manager of North America channel sales at Intel.

"We've never before tailored a message for small and midsize businesses that can be delivered by the reseller," Dallman said. The vendor has been preparing for the rollout by surveying partners, marshaling customer lists and creating a channel-focused SMB marketing campaign, he added.

The thrust of Intel's new program is to help the vendor's solution providers increase sales in the SMB space, but the details of the initiative will be a work in progress until the announcement of the launch, Dallman said.

"If you look today [at the SMB marketplace, the statistics show there are 1.7 million small businesses in North America," Dallman said. "There are 2 million decision-makers needed to win that business."

Up to 40 percent of small businesses "relocate, expand, go out of business or [re-create themselves," Dallman said. White-box builders and other solution providers are constantly having to "reconfigure the strip-mall buildings where these guys are," he said.

Warren Finkel, president of RLM Group, an Intel distributor and white-box builder based in East Brunswick, N.J., said his company, as well as many of his VAR and systems integrator customers, are well-positioned for an Intel initiative in the SMB space.

"A lot of [larger companies are not focused on SMBs," Finkel said. "They can't handle the small-margin business. But we can handle it because our overhead isn't 12 percent, so there's still a lot of potential out there for guys like us to develop new business."

And according to sources at Intel, much of that business could be in higher-margin server sales if recent trends hold. "More than 80 percent of the server growth we're seeing [in North America channel sales is in the SMB market," Dallman said. "Our strategy in the SMB business is that the resellers are our sales force,no ifs, ands or buts."