Novell has made a significant investment in channel development for its Linux products in Ireland with the appointment of a partner sales manager charged with recruiting more partners.
John Bainbridge, Novell director of partner sales for the UK, Ireland, Middle East and Africa, claimed Novell was “actively and positively recruiting partners” for its channel.
The partner sales manager would help develop business for its existing partners but “primarily he will be recruiting new partners”. Until now, Novell has run its Irish channel from the UK.
Although it has a “large European facility” in Ireland with pre-sales and direct sales staff, there has been “nobody to manage partners in Ireland,” Bainbridge admitted. “That has been done remotely from the UK.”
Novell claimed last year’s decision to improve interoperability between Windows and Linux would lead some Microsoft partners to look at the open source platform. The deal was viewed as showing Microsoft’s acceptance of Linux after several years of outright hostility.
Some Microsoft partners selling into mixed environments would be interested in looking at the opportunity presented by positioning themselves as able to support Windows and Linux. “The market is full of mixed environments,” Bainbridge observed. He argued that Linux enjoyed higher margins and allowed partners to differentiate themselves from rivals purely focused on Windows. The announcements with Microsoft had made the business proposition for Linux stronger, Bainbridge added.
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