Inside IBM's PartnerJam Session

What's that, you ask? Essentially, PartnerJam is Atkins' vision for an electronic town hall meeting where partners can questions, voice concerns and make suggestions to both him and his team of IBM channel executives. The first of these events, held last month, drew 140 partners into dialogues with 95 different IBMers worldwide. This week, IBM shared some of the insights gleaned and once again opened the discussion up to partners during a postmortem Webcast.

The October PartnerJam participants ran the gamut from hardware and software resellers to ISVs and systems integrators, according to IBM. Three strategic goals took shape from the session, according to Atkins -- one, increase mutual growth, profitability and market share; two, improve ease of doing business with IBM; and three, enable business partners via the "total" IBM value proposition.

Partners had a cornucopia of ideas for achieving those marks. To increase mutual growth, profitability and market share, they suggested a product strategy from IBM that matches key competitors' pricing and ease of use, more financing options for small businesses, improved marketing and lead support, a better deal -registration system and a reduction in channel conflict with both IBM Global Services and IBM Software's sales reps.

To simplify doing business with the Big Blue behemoth, partners suggested overall improvements to the PartnerWorld Web site, including better lead-management tools and general site organization and search capabilities. They also pushed for a special bid process to reduce deal delays, create less repetitive forecasting and for the creation of business partner listings in a customizable portal.

To get the most out of all IBM has to offer, partners also cried out for better integration between products -- from servers to storage to middleware -- a much clearer articulation of the practical application of the on-demand concept, more brokering of cross-partner relationships, and reduced complexity in installing and configuring IBM products.

In addition, partners voiced a variety of ongoing concerns, typically based on their focus area. Hardware VARs said a lack of price protection has hurt their margins and that they would like to see IBM beef up its entry-level portfolio. Software partners praised IBM's midmarket Express offerings, but -- not unexpectedly -- would like to see IBM simplify its software installation process that today means countless CDs and time-consumption. Services partners would like to see more cross-partnering with IGS and other business partners, and better engagement by IBM with the smaller, boutique providers.

In a survey given to partners, IBM queried them on a number of perceptions, from what extent they believe partnering with IBM gives them a competitive advantage to whether the on-demand strategy helps partners generate more revenue. Nearly 75 percent of partners believe IBM boosts their own position in the marketplace. But the jury is clearly still out on the benefits of on-demand: Nearly half of respondents were "neutral" on whether on-demand generates revenue for them, while 24 percent said it did not and only 16 percent said it did.

For his part, Atkins says IBM is already addressing a number of these areas, including simplifying the PartnerWorld Web site and making it easier to conduct business with the company. IBM will continue to work on a number of other areas, he says, notably education and training, sales enablement, marketing and demand generation, and other incentives for partners.