Dell Channel Blog

You're Invited to Blog for Dell PartnerDirect

Amie Paxton, Channel Community Manager — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 14:50:00 GMT

Dear Dell Partner,

I'd like to invite you to take part in our Dell Channel Blog. The blog is designed to be an open forum for the greater PartnerDirect community. That's why at anytime, you're welcome to submit a guest post.

By creating a guest post on the Dell Channel blog, you can:

· Share your perspectives with other partners, vendors, Dell Channel team members, industry analysts and the public at large.

· Offer expert advice on Dell's latest products, technologies and services.

· Promote your case studies that might benefit the PartnerDirect community.

· Spark a discussion on almost any topic, from general best practices to specific trends.

· Help shape the future of the PartnerDirect program.

Posts should be approximately 150-250 words, and submitted to Amie_Paxton@Dell.com. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions about blogging.

Thank you in advance for your time and participation,

Amie Paxton

Dell Channel Community Manager

One by one, week by week... steady as she goes

Mike Bukowski, Channel Liaison — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 17:29:00 GMT

Approaching the near end of its infancy phase, how is the Dell Channel initiative doing? In the words of VP and General Manager of America’s Channel Group, Greg Davis, we’re growing with strong Momentum. Greg notes that on average Dell is seeing 250 to 300 new registered partners every week. This incredible growth currently puts Dell at a little over 11,500 registered North American channel partners to date. This includes both registered partners and certified partners in both the enterprise and MSP fields. For more details and numbers take a look at the CRN article posted by Craig Zarley.

With more and more channel partners joining the Dell ranks every week we’d also like to point back to some of the community tools that we’ve implemented to give every partner a voice and a chance to help mold Dell’s channel program with direct feedback to our channel team. Those tools include the Community Forum, (this very D2D blog you’re reading), and our latest addition to the ideastorm platform, PartnerStorm. Take some time to read, comment, suggest ideas, and participate as part of the channel community. Also note that we'll be adding some new tools and ideas (suggested by our partner community) later this year, as well as expanding the channel program to different regional segments, so stay tuned for more information around those upcoming initiatives.

What are the best channel opportunities for virtualization?

Jeff S. Johnson, Enterprise Strategist — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 15:21:00 GMT

I was working with our virtualization guru the other day and we were talking about the biggest opportunities for channel partners. Learning what the direct side of our business is doing allows me to share best practices to our channel partners. So where does the virtualization guru see channel opportunities? Here are the notes:

Cost management: The simplest idea is to use virtualization as a way to get more with what your customers already have – large or small. Virtualizing 20 servers to operate like 400 makes you a rock star with your customer. Virtualization-optimized servers, tested & validated configs, and a choice of hypervisors from Dell fits great with your deployment, management, and/or rehosting services. You can help your customers save real money.

Improving IT efficiency: Your customers with more complex IT environments might be looking for greater efficiency to accelerate deployment or provisioning, or simply to run things more effectively. Here you start with cost management components from Dell – virtualization-optimized servers, software suites (i.e. VI3 or XenServer Enterprise), and virtualized shared storage (SAN, iSCSI, DAS-enabled). (EqualLogic is a really strong play here.) Then you add your services, such as assessment, design, and deployment services for server or legacy re-hosting, virtual machine migration, and storage consolidation.

Protecting & automating the enterprise: More sophisticated customers want to increase the quality and reliability of their IT service: business continuance in event of disaster and reducing business risk. Here you’re talking about services and products for disaster recovery, high availability, planned downtime, data replication, and things like VMWare Site Recovery Manager. Your lifecycle management and disaster recovery services offer a great opportunity.

As always, I’m more interested in the experience of our channel partners, so if you have some virtualization stories or questions that you would like to share, I would be glad to hear and answer them. I’d like to know if I missed any opportunities you see for virtualization in either larger enterprises or smaller organizations.

Learn More About MIF or Apply Now

Amie Paxton, Channel Community Manager — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 14:00:00 GMT

Ed Moltzen, of CRN, facilitated our Channel conversation and gathered further insights into what Partners are looking for in Dell’s PartnerDirect program. While I tried to answer the various comments over on CRN, I thought this blog would provide additional value.

To further the conversation posted by Daniel over at CRN, I wanted to let our Partners know that Dell does offer Marketing Incentive Funds (MIF) that return dollars based on set quarterly business growth targets.

Two high level, program qualifications are:

Must be a U.S. Dell Registered Partner to participate
Total Solution Provider Direct (SPD) segment spend of $400K over the previous 4 Quarters or $100k in the immediately preceding Quarter

While it does require an application for submission, I’m being told that if a Partner has signed up already in the last year then they do NOT need to do it again!

If you achieved the goals noted above in the Solution Provider Channel Segment you are automatically enrolled in the program.

If you’re interested in MIF program details or want to work to get to the right level for inclusion, you can contact your Sales Rep directly for more information.

Dell’s M Series Blade Servers – An Unbiased Review

Amie Paxton, Channel Community Manager — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 14:00:00 GMT

There’s a ton of talk these days about Green IT and products that support this initiative. When Dell markets its M Series Server as using 19% less energy than its predecessor, I fully expect an industry challenge.

Check out the results presented by InfoWorld regarding their lab tests and how the M series favored. They concluded that, “the Dell M-Series blade server should be able to save you bucks on your energy bill. It will also save your hearing since with all those remote control features, you'll make fewer trips into the server room.”

For a community focused on blades, check out the TechCenter wiki.

EMEA PartnerDirect Update and Conversation with Josh Claman

Angela Panuccio, Senior Communications Consultant — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 12:28:00 GMT

A few weeks ago I attended a briefing between Josh Claman, Vice President and General Manager, Dell Channels, EMEA and Sara Yirrell, editor of CRN magazine in London. Josh spoke to Sara about Dell's decision to enter the channel, the recent Certification announcement in Europe and future plans and focus for the PartnerDirect programme. In this exclusive interview, Josh discusses partner feedback, recruitment, the PC market and how vendors and partners can work together to maximize opportunities in the current economic climate.

To view the interview, go to: http://www.channelweb.co.uk/crn/video/2220778/studio

PartnerDirect – Are We Making Strides Yet?

Amie Paxton, Channel Community Manager — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 22:17:00 GMT

In a recent article on SearchITChannel.com, Colin Steele questioned the progress of our PartnerDirect program. I really like Colin and respect his fair coverage of Dell’s channel strategy -- in particular, he's reinforced the value of our social media initiatives and how we're giving Partners a voice in all of our decisions. However, this article also emphasized the need for improvement in our partner training programs, along with other "complaints" popping up in our partner communities. These definitely need to be addressed and we’re doing exactly that.

First off, a Dell Partner noted that our online training and testing was "laborious." This is the second time I’ve read a comment like this, so I’m curious: What would the ideal training program look like? We are always looking for Partner perspectives on how to make our training a better experience. If you have any thoughts on this, please comment here!

In addition to training programs, Colin mentioned the problems being discussed across our online communities (our PartnerDirect forum, Channel blog and PartnerStorm). But this is the risk we take in seeking partner feedback in a public forum. It's inevitable that issues are going to come up -- no one is perfect. Through interactive exchanges with our partners, Dell is able to find out exactly what we need to do to improve our program.

Basically, the Dell channel program is a work in progress, and we're excited to see all the talk about it within our own forums and across the IT marketplace. We've learned a lot in seven months, and look forward to seeing what the future brings.

Tag Transfer Process Under Review, Your Feedback is Needed

Anita Shaw, Channel Project Manager - PartnerDirec — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 14:00:00 GMT

Dell is always striving to improve our processes to benefit our Registered and Certified Partners. As a result of this effort, we are reviewing the current Transfer of Product Ownership (Service Tag Transfer) process. We are gathering customer experiences and suggestions in hopes of improving the Service Tag Transfer process. Your feedback is critical to our success, and we ask that you please take a few moments to respond to our survey. If you have any more feedback about this process and would like to elaborate more, please comment here or on the PartnerDirect forum. We are extremely excited to partner on this adventure with each of you.

From Zero to SAN in Six Minutes (or less)

Amie Paxton, Channel Community Manager — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 20:00:00 GMT

Our Inside IT Group Blog featured an interesting video on EqualLogic a few weeks ago that I find both valuable and educational. Watch the video by clicking here.

For a more inclusive, non-Dell perspective, check out eWeek’s article posted back in February regarding Dell’s first product launch after the acquisition of EqualLogic. Let us know what you think of the video and feel free to post comments below for the EqualLogic team.

Where'd your data go?

Mike Bukowski, Channel Liaison — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 14:00:00 GMT

Close your eyes and picture this (actually keep them open so you can read, just use your imagination.) You’ve got a business meeting in San Diego, then one in Albany. After New York it’s off to Phoenix, then Miami, Denver, Austin, Chicago, etc, etc, etc… Jet lagged, exhausted, tired of hotels and ready to get home, you finally arrive at your very last meeting only to look down in horror and ask yourself, “where’s my notebook?” All of your customer information, billing records, contacts, E-mail!!! GONE. In the past this would be detrimental to some, especially those who don’t back up their data. These days- not such a big deal, and here’s why. Our new service has a lot of other offerings, but I can be a forgetful person so the recovery one is a biggie for me. If you have any experience with this service or want to share feedback we'd love to hear it.