HDS Offers Financing Through Partners

Hitachi Data Systems Credit, which has been offering financing to direct customers for about 12 years, now will make such offerings available through its solution providers, said Dan Diltz, president of HDSCC. "This gives [solution providers] the capability to offer financing in addition to the hardware and software," he said.

To get partners' attention, HDSCC will offer bonuses to solution providers in its TrueNorth Channel program for all leasing that goes through them until the end of the year, Diltz said. The promotion's final date is subject to change.

"This is a way to bring notice and hype around the program," Diltz said. "Nothing says it can't be extended. I don't think we have ever launched a program without an end date."

Partners offered mixed reaction to the program.

Joe Kadlec, vice president and senior partner at Consiliant Technologies, a platinum-level solution provider in Irvine, Calif., said his company is interested in such financing. "We're trying to work more with [HDS]," Kadlec said. "It's good news for us."

Such financing aid should give solution providers more flexibility in closing deals, Kadlec said. With that sort of aid, it should be easier to work with customers whose purchases call for shipments late one year and early the next, he said.

Pat Sherman, co-owner and vice president of sales at eServ, said the Rock Island, Ill.-based company already works with a number of third-party financing companies. Those existing relationships means he may not be quick to work with HDSCC "unless they offer terms above and beyond the third-party finance terms."

With sales cycles that typically take three to six months, bonuses based on sales financed through year-end will not be a big incentive, Sherman added.

"Nobody pulls the [buy] trigger that quickly," he said. "This is typical fourth-quarter fodder. They may be looking at things that are expected to close early in 2005 that can be pulled into the fourth quarter of this year."