Thank you for the quick post reponding to my questions/comments on your last post.

Is there any an IT person can get a ProSupport contract/certification that will cover all existing hardware warranties, and future warranties?

Thank you.

Craig McCarty

I think this is a great move from Dell - and further solidifies why our company prefers Dell commercial/business support. I am already purchasing new systems with ProSupport for IT, and, as sick as it sounds looking forward to that first hardware support call to test it out. 

I have a question though that there seems to be not much info around for. We have many, many machines with the current "Gold" support, and I have been informed that those service contracts would be rolled into ProSupport eventually. 1 - Is there a time line for this, and 2 - will business Gold contracts get auto migrated into the ProSupport for IT entitlement then?

Craig and Chris:

Great questions.  Once you become Fast-Track Certified, you will be able to Fast-Track parts and/or labor for systems with active Silver, Gold, Platinum and Gold Technical Support contracts (and ProSupport for IT of course) at no additional cost. 

When I spoke to customers before the launch, most indicated they do not want us to ‘automatically' make any changes to their existing contracts for a variety of very good reasons.  To keep things simple, if you want to take advantage of Fast-Track Dispatch there is no need to re-entitle your legacy Silver, Gold, Platinum and GTS tags.  You only need complete the online training and certification and agree to the terms and conditions of the Fast-Track Dispatch service.  

Cary:

Can you provide a link that will point me to the required training?  I followed the link the is in the original post and looked around, but I didn't see the training links off hand.  I might have missed them, but figured that I would ask you rather than spending more time looking for the link(s).

Thanks.

@Craig -

I believe this is the link -

http://prosupport.dell.com/fasttrack/AMER/program/PSFTindex.asp

Looks like one must submit a simple application to enroll in the FTD program, then once approved, people can start the training. I filled mine out the other day, so I hope the turnaround time is speedy...

I have looked high and low for more information, and have even contacted my Premier Account rep.  It sounds like this is a renaming of the existing DCSE certification that Dell already has.  I would think the ProSupport would be a multi-tiered approach.  Your basic Net+ type certification all the way up to Advanced MCSE/A+ certified people.  And it looks like people will have to retake the exam every year.

Is that all correct?

-Craig

I will see what I can find out for you.

Joanne

Cary Gumbert
Dell ProSupport
Global Product Lead

I am a little confused.  My company is an MSP, as well as a Dell Premier Partner.  I know Dell has purchased Silverback, among other IT service companies.  I'm sure the goal is to have almost all Dell customers essentially become managed service customers in some form.

Is there a program that allows my company to capitalize on Dell's infrastructure?  For example, when we are ordering PC's, could we choose services such as Silverback, anit-spam, data backup.  Dell charges us a monthly fee for providing these services, and we can makr up the fee, or include as part of our overall package to the clients.  In this way, we can leverage the Dell infrastructure to provide a better service to our clients without the large investment, and it is always based on Dell hardware.

I would love to be able to use Silverback, MessageOne, backup, etc. monitoring and analysis, and also possibly use Dell as my first level IT support.  That would free my employees up for more proactive, valuable activities. 

Thank you.