Channel Beat: HP Details Partner Programs After Split

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Seventy percent of HP’s revenue currently goes through the channel, CEO Meg Whitman told the audience at the HP Global Partner Conference this week. Whitman took the stage to talk specifics regarding the company’s Nov. 1 split.

HP’s partner program will also split by that date in 2015, with the enterprise partner program to be known as PartnerReady. HP Inc.’s program will be called PartnerFirst. The benefits of the two programs will remain the same, and partners will be able to sell products and services from both companies under one program called the Partner One Alliance.

Dell’s Enterprise Group has poached former Cisco exec Paul Perez, the company said this week.

Perez, who is credited with building Cisco’s UCS server platform, will serve as CTO of the Dell Enterprise group. Rumor has it that Dell has been courting Perez for quite some time, and partners are happy with the hire, touting Perez’s enterprise and channel experience at Cisco.

And finally BlackBerry has partnered with Samsung and IBM to create SecuTablet, an ultra-secure version of the Galaxy Tab S 10.5.

SecuTablet targets public-sector users handling sensitive data, which will be safeguarded by IBM’s bundling software and a micro-SD security card from BlackBerry. BlackBerry partners hope the new release will attract enterprise users in the struggling tablet market.

However, partners suffered some sticker shock over the tablet’s price, which will sell for about $2,380.

And don’t forget, Channel Madness brackets are now live on CRN.com, so cast your votes and fill out a bracket for the top channel chief this March.

PUBLISHED MARCH 20, 2015