Surprising Security Shortcomings After nearly a decade of threat warnings, evolving threats and billions of dollars in technology investments, you’d think that businesses have at least a baseline of IT security protections. Recent reports reveal some surprising security shortcomings in the business community.
IBM channel partners have a long history of conflict with IGS, while HP’s efforts to drum up services business hasn't been much of an issue for partners. All that could change.
The proposed merger between Hewlett-Packard and EDS is going to give just about every Hewlett-Packard channel partner in the world cause for pause.
HP has been trying to build up its IT services business for the past few years. But in terms of its total size, HP’s efforts to drum up services business wasn’t much of an issue for channel partners. In contrast, IBM channel partners have a long history of conflict with IBM’s multi-billion global service business.
IBM likes to argue that IGS gives a lot more than it takes in the form of creating a massive amount of sub-contracting work for IBM’s channel partners. But IGS also aggressively competes for business sometimes at the overall expense of price. HP has already developed a reputation for low-balling prices when it comes to IT services in order to get the business because it has negligible market share compared to other IT services companies.
Resource Library:
The bottom line is that the HP channel community will probably split when it comes to seeing this deal for EDS as a good thing or a bad thing. Those partners that are primarily hardware focused will see the deal as a good thing because downstream from HP they may see more business flowing through EDS.
But a lot of other partners choose to push HP hardware because when it came to offering services that compete with the services of channel companies HP was relatively neutral. A lot of those partners, especially the ones focused on the higher end of the market where EDS competes for services revenue, are now going to be thinking twice about partnering with HP. As a result, a lot of those types of partners might be more inclined to think about doing business with Dell or Sun now.
Given the product margin pressure on the product side, HP probably has little choice in terms of expanding its portfolio of IT services. It’s no secret that IBM uses IGS to pull a lot of IBM hardware and software sales. HP has historically relied on third-party IT services partners to counter the effect of IGS in the market. But being dependent on the kindness of third-party companies to push your products probably isn’t enough to guarantee expanding market share so on paper the EDS is probably a net positive for HP.
But within the channel HP hasn’t been all that stellar about creating channel program around its existing IT services. Adding a company such as EDS that has little to no experience working with the channel isn’t going to help matters in the short term.
HP will need to think a lot of these issues through quickly but unfortunately the company does not have a reputation for speed when it comes to these types of deals. For example, HP is still trying to figure out how to build an effective channel strategy around a raft of software acquisitions that is has made in the last two years.
All most HP channel partners can do at this point is watch, wait and hope that this time somebody makes putting a channel strategy together around EDS services a high priority.
Michael Vizard is editorial director of Ziff Davis Enterprise. He can be reached at michael.vizard@ziffdavisenterprise.com.
Xeon Assessment Tool
When comparing 4-year old server technology to servers based on the Intel Xeon 5500 series, you can experience a ROI in under 12 months. Intel offers an easy to use tool to determine how replacing older server technology can provide a positive return on your technology investment. Learn More
Top 10 Most Profitable Vendor Certifications
Solution providers that invest in vendor technical certifications are more profitable, sell more complex systems and have better relationships with their customers, according to the new Channel Insider/Amazon Consulting certification study. But not all vendor certifications have the same ROI. The following vendors have the best certifications for return on their partners’ investment. View Slideshow
The IT industry is in the midst of a mass metamorphosis. Lines are blurring between networking technologies, storage, servers, software and telephony. Vendors that represent the tried and true establishment in one discipline are now making hard-right turns into new, largely unfamiliar and often competitive markets. Read on to see just a few of the major convergence plays of the last year. View Slideshow
(Sponsor)
(Sponsor)
(Sponsor)
Hewlett-Packard 
