Greg Stroud Fills Empty Slot At Sun

Some background on Stroud: He's a 22-year company veteran who has served Sun in a variety of capacities since joining the firm as employee No. 45, including positions in manufacturing, operations, marketing and sales. While Grimes ran the Eastern sales region, for example, Stroud served as vice president of the Western U.S. sales operation. He also has held management positions overseas, serving as vice president of the United Kingdom and Ireland for Sun. In his role as vice president of iForce partner sales, Stroud will be responsible for strategic business relationships with Sun's global systems integrators, ISVs and members of the company's U.S. channel and distribution operation. He will also be responsible for developing and implementing Sun's partner architectures, programs and support. He'll report to Bill Cook, vice president of U.S. sales.

Stroud says he's going to focus on the three "Rs" of partnering: reach, relationships and revenue. In terms of reach, he plans on examining where Sun may have gaps in either its own delivery capabilities and/or those of its allies. With regard to relationships, he wants to further enhance those that Sun has with its allies in the field. He also wants to make sure that the experience partners have with the company is similar across the board, no matter their size or geography. Finally, he says his ultimate goal, and one his superiors will be watching, is whether to increase revenue flows through partners. At the end of the day, Stroud says he does not expect radical or wholesale changes to Sun's current go-to-market strategy.

Whether that sits well with Sun's committed but restless partner base remains to be seen. During Grimes' tenure at the company, sales sputtered as Sun's business struggled to rebound from the dual effects of the dot-com bust and the terrorist acts of Sept. 11, 2001. Since the dot-com market collapse, Sun's sales have slipped from a high of $18.3 billion in fiscal year 2001 to $11.2 billion last year. Despite its swoon, one could argue that Sun's channel programs moved forward like no other time in its recent history. Under Grimes' guidance, for example, Sun created new rebate and incentive programs that broke ground in terms of recognizing and rewarding partners. Among other things, Sun created uplifts for VARs based on their exclusivity and ability to sell advanced or specific products and penetrate new markets or targeted accounts. These innovations have since been adopted by a raft of other companies. Grimes has already consolidated under a single framework management all of Sun's channel partners, which include VARs, distributors and direct-marketing resellers. Stroud plans to bring them into the same fold as ISVs and global systems integrators.

Maybe that will get the entire Sun community working together for once.