Dell is lowering its deal registration threshold for reseller channel partners in North America selling into small business and midsize business from $50,000 to just $15,000.

Dell executives say the change is designed to allow more partners to benefit from special pricing, consultations with the Dell sales team and other resources available through the Dell PartnerDirect channel program.

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The lowered deal registration threshold applies to SMB accounts of between one and 499 seats, says Dell’s Paul Shaffer, director of U.S. marketing and operations for Dell’s Global Commercial Channels. The threshold will apply to “all products, software and services within all our lines of business.”

Shaffer says that the change has been in the works for the last nine months after the deal registration threshold in Europe was successfully lowered from $50,000 to $25,000. Shaffer says the change comes in response to channel partner feedback and has nothing to do with the current recession.

Dell has increased its staffing by an unspecified number in order to accommodate the expected increased deals registered.

Since Dell began the pilot of the program a few weeks ago, about 25 percent of deal registrations for SMBs have fallen into the $15,000 to $50,000 range.

For 2009 so far Dell has approved 4,200 deal registrations, with a little over half of those being from the SMB segment. Dell estimates that once this new deal registration threshold goes live, 75 percent of SMB deal registrations will fall into the $15,000 to $50,000 range.

“Deal registration assures that the channel partner has the deal and gets the best pricing,” Shaffer tells Channel Insider.