Technology Giants HP, IBM Retool Channel Programs in Midmarket Push
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As if HP doesn't have enough on its plate with its escalating war with Cisco (data center), and the multi-billion-dollar 3Com (networking) and Palm (mobility) acquisitions, the company has decided to tackle the $7.5 billion midsize enterprise market . The world's largest IT vendor is announcing the HP ten.to.one (10,000-1,000 employees) initiative that includes new software, an enhanced partner program and a primary research survey as well as a new organization called HP Commercial Solutions within the HP Software and Solutions business unit. Not to be outdone, the world's second-largest IT vendor, IBM, is also making a number of channel announcements, also targeted to win the business of mid-sized companies.
HP's Paul Muller, vice president, Strategic Marketing, Software Products, Software and Solutions, tells Channel Insider the research showed that the mid-sized enterprise market is underserved, with a lot of no-name vendors offering a variety of point solutions. The company has 40,000 mid-sized enterprise customers globally, but that's only a small faction of the total market. He says up to 50 percent of the $7.5 billion market is in the Americas, representing a “tremendous opportunity” for new and existing software partners.
“They're really looking for an industry leader to come in change the way they buy and consume management software,” Muller says.
According to the new HP-sponsored research from Forrester Consulting, half of mid-sized enterprises plan to implement cloud computing, as opposed to 29 percent of large enterprise respondents. To tap into this market HP is offering a free beta of its new on-demand HP LoadRunner in the Cloud software, which is available via Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2). It gives clients a flexible 'pay as you go' approach for performance testing of applications and websites.
Security and risk management is the top priority for midsize businesses, with data protection and backup identified as the technologies most needed to address risk management. So the company has enhanced HP Data Protector to give customers eight methods of protection when running environments using Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2. It claims to offer the most complete backup integration for virtualization at the most affordable cost, up to 70 percent less than alternatives.
Midsized enterprises are also dissatisfied with a reactive IT environment and want to be able to better monitor their systems, predict issues and control the quality of service to business requirements. With the new HP SiteScope Operations Manager, they can improve business service availability and performance through faster monitoring of IT infrastructures and applications.
Mid-sized enterprises are looking simplified procurement deployment, management and protection, says Muller, and that's what HP is bringing to the table. And partners are key to that because they're the mid-sized enterprises' preferred channel, he adds. They have a relatively small number of IT staff and “tend to rely very heavily upon their partners.”
For the channel, the HP ten.to.one initiative features persona-based training, partner certifications, boot camps and a social media community. It also offers a campaign syndication service to build, customize and monitor campaigns and lead generation. The company provides a portfolio of services targeted at midsize enterprises, including HP Professional Services, HP Software Education training and HP Software as a Service (SaaS) offerings.
Muller says a separate channel focus is required to address this opportunity, with three things built into the program: dramatically simplified tools to help speed the sales process; automated marketing and demand generation; and “super important”, a collaborative community so partners can stay on top of the rapidly changing technologies and markets.
Hewlett-Packard 
