D&H's Windows 7 Offensive Is Paying Off In Big Sales To SMBs
D&H Co-President Dan Schwab said Windows 7 sales soared an astronomical 249 percent in the first 100 days since the launch of the operating system last October compared with the prior 100-day period associated with the Windows Vista upgrade cycle in January 2007.
What's more, Schwab said, the number of resellers completing Windows 7 deals compared with the previous Windows upgrade cycle is up 151 percent.
All in all, the Harrisburg, Pa. distributor has sold Windows 7 to 1,575 VARs accounting for 13,861 licenses. That's an average of 8.8 businesses that each VAR has moved to Windows 7, according to D&H.
The strong sales follow a no-holds barred D&H training and promotional blitz that included getting some 1,400 D&H VARs up to speed on Windows 7 with educational courses like "Making Money With Windows 7."
D&H has backed training up with a variety of sales promotions and spiffs, including a free copy of Windows 7 Ultimate Edition with select Intel Core Processors and compatible Intel motherboard purchases and instant Windows 7 rebates to drive high attach rates with other products, most notably wide-screen and dual-screen monitors, Network Attached Storage and Giga-bit networking.
"We're seeing Windows 7 gaining rapid adoption in SMB," said Schwab. "The Windows 7 upgrade wave is on and we're making sure that our resellers ride that wave!"
Sierra W/O Wires, a fast growing Pittsburgh, Pa. solution provider, has upgraded about 75 percent of its customers to Windows 7, said Sierra W/O Wires CFO Stacy Freshwater.
Freshwater said customers like the speed of Windows 7 compared with Vista. "Most of our customers are trying to save time," she said. "They are seeing a big time savings with Windows 7 even with booting up their systems."
The customers that are holding back have applications that have not been rewritten to run on Windows 7, said Freshwater.
D&H's software licensing desk has been critical in helping close Windows 7 deals, said Freshwater. She said that D&H turns around Windows 7 license price quotes much faster than any of the other distributors. "D&H gets back to us within two hours," she says. "The other distributors usually get back to us the next day."
D&H has won the Microsoft Licensing Operational Excellence Award six years running, and was recently named Microsoft's OEM Distributor of the Year.
Schwab said Windows 7 is being adopted much faster in SMBs than enterprises because of the trusted advisor role played by VARs educating users on the high return on investment (ROI) that comes with upgrading to Windows 7 solutions.