Gilroy: HP To Lean On Channel In SMB Push

Kevin Gilroy, HP’s senior vice president and general manager of small and medium business, also said the vendor would need to work with solution providers to scale out solutions and implementations from one vertical market to another.

“The primary thing we’ll be doing differently is building out the recipes and solutions of channel partners to develop micro and macro vertical solutions,” Gilroy said. He spoke in a news conference and in an interview with CRN at the opening of the TECHXNY conference in New York.

Gilroy acknowledged that large vendors in the past have focused on the small and midsize business segments, with little marked success.

“It didn’t happen in a very strong, consistent way,” Gilroy said. “It happened ad hoc.” The renewed focus on SMB has the direct backing of HP’s board and its CEO, Carly Fiorina, as the $80 billion computer giant seeks to find ways to grow its top and bottom lines.

Gilroy estimated that revenue from small and midsize businesses accounted for between $21 billion and $24 billion of HP’s annual revenue. Between 85 percent and 90 percent of that, worldwide, is delivered through solution providers.

Formerly HP’s top channel-facing executive until assuming his new post two months ago, Gilroy said the Palo Alto, Calif.-based computer and printer giant would seek to leverage its handheld-to-high-end product line as well as its channel to outflank rivals including IBM and Dell.

“Nobody has the breadth of product we do,” Gilroy said, in addition to 210,000 HP-authorized solution providers.

While some HP solution providers interviewed about the company’s new initiative reacted with skepticism, others were cautiously optimistic. The vendor presented a series of solution providers and customers that vouched for its strategy.

Nancy Pautsch, enterprise account executive at Inacom Information Systems, a Madison, Wis.-based solution provider that partners with both HP and IBM, noted that one client, Prairie Clinic, Prairie, Wis., wanted a wireless medical records management system and opted for HP after reviewing competitors.

“Prairie Clinic is partner-oriented,” Pautsch said. “They are in it for the long haul. HP met more of the requirements--among them, [providing] tablet PCs--than other vendors.”