Hewlett-Packard has moved to reassure resellers that an analysis of direct and indirect strategy taking place at the vendor’s UK operation will have little effect on its channel in Ireland.
Reports in UK trade paper CRN suggested HP was considering revising its direct model, possibly to include accounts where a reseller only had limited contact.
The vendor already has a programme, called Hard Deck, under which all accounts above $4 million and 1,500 seats can be taken direct.
Dave Poskett, director, solution partner organisation, at HP, told CRN it was “in the process of evolving a strategy we have been developing for some time. What we have spent time doing is getting a better understanding of our customer base. We will still maintain our Hard Deck approach, and this [analysis] is just a work in progress.”
But Martin Cullen, head of PSG and SPO at HP Ireland, stressed the review had no relevance to Ireland. “It’s business as usual in the Irish context,” he argued.
He claimed the nature of the Irish operation was very different because there were few businesses which had over 1,500 seats. Of the small number that did qualify, most were either competitors – such as Dell, IBM and EMC – or already being covered by channel partners.
“It’s a very, very short list. You can count it on two hands at best, so there’s no capacity to do anything substantial with that model,” Cullen argued.
The Irish operation was “lucky” because it did not have the areas of ambiguity that existed in other territories.
“What we’ve focused on in Ireland is driving our business and business value with our partners to make us better than the competition,” he added.
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