Indeed, changes are sorely needed. Among the biggest conflicts HP partners have with the vendor is a lack of boundaries between its direct field sales organization and its channel partners. For example, with deal registration, it's not unusual for HP's direct sales force to snatch a lead that a partner has registered through the company's deal-registration program.
"These are things that IBM handles better," says Mike Cox, CEO of Logicalis, a Bloomfield, Mich.-based partner of HP, IBM and Sun, among others. Cox was not at the storage conference in Houston.
HP officials say they hear loud and clear what its partners want. "If you look at what our channel partners want from us, they want predictability, they want the right products at the right prices with the right compensation," says Mark Gonzalez, HP's Americas vice president for enterprise storage and server sales. "It isn't rocket science."
Novia pointed out that HP has already brought back technical field sales personnel -- a sore point with partners when the company cut back last year.
Meanwhile, HP is hoping its StorageWorks Grid roadmap will also re-energize partners. The roadmap calls for allowing organizations to build dynamic information services by storing them in what HP calls "smart cells," which form a standard infrastructure that is modular, intelligent and searchable and accessible in real time. Over the next year, HP will extend the StorageWorks Grid with the release of solutions that simplify file sharing, archiving and management. Down the road, HP will offer solutions that support the co-existence of management systems with block-serving smart cells, and integrated heterogeneous array controllers and grid-based management. By 2008, HP will offer a completely unified StorageWorks Grid with what it calls seamless repository virtualization.
Discover the benefits of scalable backbone and network services for application and cloud providers.
Network automation is gaining momentum. Here's how you can drive this powerful technology to its full potential.
Subsea cable alternatives can provide a level of comfort for those concerned about disruptions. Realistically, they will continue to play a small, but critical role in the short term.
