It's hard for me to believe more than a year has passed since I first blogged that Michael Dell had talked to CRN where he made it clear we had plans to expand beyond the direct model. I remember writing that post, because it was clear sign that we were going into new territory overall.

That's part of the reason we're introducing Dell Channel today. It's a blog that's intended for our channel partners, VARs, MSPs and ISVs. I think that's a personal record for the most acronyms I've ever written in a single sentence. Behind those acronyms though, there are a lot of customer groups that we want to connect with.

The blog will be run by Dell's Channel Community Manager Amie Paxton, who recently made her introduction on Direct2Dell with this post where she mentioned that this blog was coming, and a few other things. Mike Bukowski will also be a regular contributor who will be prepared to address issues raised by the partner community. Besides Amie and Mike, you'll hear from key folks who are responsible for developing and supporting our broader channel strategy. We hope to feature guest posts from some of our channel partners as well, so that it offers more than just Dell perspective.

While we've made some progress since we've started focusing on developing this aspect of Dell's business, it's clear we have a lot of work to do and that there is much we can learn from all our partners. I agree with Colin's comment that compared to other vendor channel-related blogs, we're a bit of an anomaly because our channel focus is relatively new compared to some of our competition.

So, what will success look like? I think the VAR Guy recently provided us a pretty solid list of goals for us to shoot for. Bottom line, we all hope this becomes a place for lively discussions between Dell and our customers interested in this space. We won't pretend that we have all the answers at this point, and want to hear your questions, your perspective on what we're doing right, what we need to change, etc.

If you’re interested in guest blogging, have ideas for topics for discussion or need assistance, feel free to send Amie an e-mail at Amie_Paxton@Dell.com. You can also Twitter her @APaxtonatDell or ask your questions on our PartnerDirect forum.

You can access the Dell Channel Blog here: www.direct2dell.com/channel

And if you want to check out content via the RSS feed, go here: http://direct2dell.com/channel/rss.aspx