Microsoft, HP Do Right by Partners - Inside the Microsoft-HP Initiative
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The many reports that peg the Microsoft-HP alliance as a cloud
computing initiative are imprecise. This deal is simply about the data
center and using the data center as a platform for private and hybrid
clouds – eventually. The concept is very much in line with the
Microsoft “software+services” framework, which states that businesses
will always have some level of on-premise infrastructure and
applications.
But this is more than just the creation of better data centers and
private clouds. It’s about attached sales. Under CEO Mark Hurd’s
leadership, HP has driven the notion of attached sales through its
channel – if a partner is going to sell a server, why not sell a
software, desktop or peripheral unit with it. Attached sales increases
revenue and profitability by increasing the sales yield from a fewer
number of sales engagements and customer touches. Microsoft
applications optimized and simplified to run on HP servers will
undoubtedly lead to a higher attached sales rate for both companies and
its partners.
Microsoft and HP were smart about this announcement, though, in that
they involved their partner community from the get-go. It’s not to say
that the roadmap is crystal clear. Just as with Cisco’s Project
California and UCS strategy, the Microsoft-HP announcement came with
plenty of vague notions and many promises of great things to come. But
unlike Cisco, Microsoft-HP provided their partners – 35,000 eligible
resellers through their mutual Frontline program – with marketing
materials, go-to-market templates and guidance on what’s available to
sell today.
What is available today? There is virtualization software for HP
servers, optimized implementations of SharePoint on HP hardware and
similar offerings in the existing Frontline program. As Microsoft’s
Brown explain, the initiative will create smart bundles – prebuilt and
packaged software and hardware offerings – that will make it easier for
partners to sell, deploy, manage and service customers’ needs. “The
approach is not a competitive one, but one with the customers view and
a partner view on how to solve customers’ needs,” Brown said.
Do Microsoft and HP have all the answers for how their massive
initiative will work or what it will produce for its partners? No. In
fact, many partners hadn’t heard of the alliance because Microsoft and
HP were extremely careful about not violating antitrust rules. But it
seems as though Microsoft and HP are—so far—doing well by their
partners in the initial stages of this alliance. While no product or
alliance launch is perfect or delivers absolute results, the approach
Microsoft and HP are taking is anything but “hurry up and wait.”
Lawrence M. Walsh is vice president and group publisher of Channel Insider. Click here to read his blog, Secure Channel, for the latest insights on security technology and policy trends affecting solution providers.
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