Dell: We Don't Need Major Changes To Attack HP

If Dell is going to win more channel market share from Hewlett-Packard and other competitors, it will do so with the channel programs in place and not through additional incentives to capture that share from HP VARs and customers, according to Greg Davis, Dell's vice president and general manager of global commercial channels.

"If you look at our initiatives in channel, we're already growing faster than the market. We're taking share through the channel. We've got the right programs, the right initiatives in place," Davis said at Dell World in Austin, Texas.

The question was posed to Davis if Dell might put added heat on HP in light of its recent CEO change and reports it might look to shed its Personal Systems Group. Davis said HP is on his mind, but not at the expense of radically changing programs that have built Dell's channel during the four years since Partner Direct was founded.

"Now that there are some questions out there about the competition, I don't fundamentally believe we need a brand new thing to win share other than exactly what we're doing with partners that are more invested in other relationships," he said.

Earlier at Dell World, CEO Michael Dell noted that the company will soon have 100,000 channel partners globally, including more than 5,000 certified partners. Davis couldn't say how may of those partners also sell HP, or how many HP partners were among the 70 or so VARs at Dell World, but he said several prospective VARs — and end users — have inquired about developing a better relationship with Dell in light of turmoil around HP.

"Our fundamental belief is that very few partners are 100 percent anybody. The vast majority have multiple products, multiple competitors to offer to customers," Davis said. "We're very much interested in all partners, in how we can do a better job with training support, helping you sell, helping you close and win business for Dell.

It's unclear how many — if any — partners will actually shift business to Dell away from HP, but Davis believes Dell already has the programs in place to convince anybody with an interest.

"There's clearly a set of partners out there that have resisted Dell. They may have done some business because we have a mutual customer but it's not a strategic relationship with us, but they are with HP and others," he said. "[HP's recent news] is a door opener. If you put a lot of your future in one vendor and that one vendor wavers on their strategy going forward, it makes you ask lot of questions about the future of your business. That opened a lot of doors."

NEXT: Dell Dives Deeper With Partners

Davis and Dell spent an increasing amount of resources building up their 5,000 certified partners. Their revenue growth rates with the company are well into double-digits, but Davis said Dell needs to get even deeper with those partners.

"The challenge is that we have great partner relationships and [a VAR] might have 20 sales reps and 20 technical reps," Davis said. "How many are trained on Dell? It might be two or four. It's enough to meet the certification criteria but not much more. This year we have a real focus on how come half your staff doesn't understand Dell storage? Look at the success you're having with Dell. Let's get the rest trained."

Asked to share what his number one message to partners at Dell World is, Davis reiterated a sentiment Michael Dell made earlier at the conference: that PCs are an important part of a complete solution (hinting that they're unlike a certain company that starts with an H and ends with a P).

"We care about end-to-end computing. We're not wavering on desktops, notebooks, servers, our storage portfolio. Our programs are stable and they're going to stay that way," he said. "This is the first Dell World we've done. As we were putting it together, we wanted partners to be a part of it. We didn't want Dell World to be a partner event, but we wanted partners to be part of Dell World."