Channel Strategies for the CIOThere was a lot of confusion among VARs in December surrounding the VCE coalition (er, VCE company) and who was taking their sales direct and stealing deals from them. VARs aren't sure who's to blame among VCE, EMC or Cisco, but it's clear there's channel conflict with VCE. Other hot topics included what companies need to keep an eye on to ensure their expansion in 2011 and the Dell-Compellent and Logicalis-NIC deals.
These are the top 5 Channel Marker blogs from December 2010:
1: Channel issues block Vblock sales
VAR customers have shown great interest in Vblocks, the preconfigured sets of EMC storage, Cisco servers and VMware virtualization tailored for data center use, but there are worries about channel conflict between VARs and the VCE coalition. Many VARs aren't happy that their deals are getting pilfered by sales reps. It was unclear whether reps from EMC, Cisco or VCE itself were to blame, but VARs worry that the channel contention may continue.
2: Introducing The VCE Company
The newly-minted VCE Company (formerly the VCE coalition) debuted -- albeit quietly – in December. VCE changing names wasn't ground-breaking news, but partners hope that VCE channel man Pete Koliopoulos's "services are
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for partners" mantra will ring true.
3: Survey: Expansion plans could be thwarted by talent, IT gaps
Accenture's recent high-tech survey showed that while companies will attempt to expand globally in 2011, there are a few potential in-house issues that VARs need to know about. Channel Marker blogger Heather Clancy writes that VARs should worry about whether they have the right internal IT and human resources and protecting their top human talent from big vendors as well.
4: Dell, Compellent talk deal
Experts (somewhat) jokingly waited for HP to swoop in at the last minute and steal Compellent from Dell. But there was no heist (a la 3Par) this time, as Dell's deal to buy Compellent ended up going through at about $960 million (or $27.75 per share).
5: Logicalis expands K-12 education, Southwest presence
Logicalis bought Network Infrastructure Corp. (NIC), a Cisco Gold partner and a Phoenix-based networking integrator that focuses on unified communications, but what does this news mean for partners? The companies say the pairing will boost Logicalis' networking and services offerings in the Southwest and NIC will reap the advantages of Logicalis's cloud capabilities, according to Heather Clancy.
Check out the Top Channel Marker blogs for November 2010.