We first reported on Symantec Endpoint Management Suite 1.0 last week, when I found that Symantec had prematurely posted product details on its website. But today marks the suite’s official launch, which means I can finally give even more details that Symantec provided last week in an embargoed interview.

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Well, credit Dell with putting on a  good show for solution providers with its most recent pledge to embrace the channel. Maybe the company will make good on its promises this time around but here are a few things to remember.

First, this whole Dell-vs.-the-channel thread isn’t as cut-and-dried as it seems. I’ve talked with several resellers over the years who preferred dealing with Dell than with the allegedly more channel-friendly HP or other hardware vendors.  Many said that hardware margins were so thin anyway, they usually skipped that part of the sale unless the customer insisted. And in those cases, Dell was as good a choice as any. At least until Dell service woes surfaced so publicly.

And, many solution providers who had healthy hardware businesses a decade ago are now software-and-services only. That tells you something about the nature of competing not only with Dell but with CDW and other low-cost suppliers.

Let us not forget that Dell built its fortune on being great on logistics. It never led the field in great, creative, fun machines. Nor on service.  (I’m sure Michael would beg to differ–what would you expect?) But there’s nothing wrong with using a supplier who can drop-ship you a server or a PC but fast.

And another thing: Dell has had many enablers in its partner-bashing past.  You know who they are.  Big names. Like Oracle and Microsoft. When it was top dog, Dell got T&Cs from all of these guys–Intel too, I’d wager–that no one else could hope for.

Dell’s sales force types are no angels. Witness the tales of VARs who say the a strategicically gifted flat-panel TV to a customer exec spelled the difference between them and Dell winning a given deal. But is that sales force any worse than Oracle’s  or IBM Global Services in the enterprise arena? All of these vendors–including Microsoft– want account control for themselves. No partner can ever forget that.

So, let’s wait and see what happens with Dell’s new programs. But how hard is it going to be for any VAR battered by Dell in the past to start registering leads with the vendor now?

Most solution providers will tell you they see lead registration as a vendor tool for collecting customer info it later uses for its own (often direct) benefit. And Dell certainly didn’t patent that idea.

Barbara Darrow, a Boston-area reporter, can be reached at badarrow@comcast.net.

Avnet Inc. today announced that it will acquire the IT solutions division of Acal plc., a strategic move that pushes Avnet’s distribution channels further into Europe and shores up its storage offerings to customers in the European Union. 

Acal IT Solutions is a leading value-added distributor for storage area networking (SAN), secure networking and electronic document management products and services. Acal IT Solutions has operations in the UK, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, France and Sweden, and the division will be integrated into Avnet Technology Solutions’ EMEA business, but not before the transaction is approval by Acal shareholders and EU merger control clearance.

“Avnet has outlined a strategy of growing our business by delivering complete solutions to our partners around the globe,” said Vincent Keenan, Avnet’s vice president and director, investor relations.  “The acquisition brings us new supplier relationships and ultimately more storage solutions for VARs in Europe by offering a broader line of products. For the U.S. there is no immediate impact,” Keenan added.

With the deal Avnet will assume an additional 2,000 Acal resellers and system integrators as well as 180 experienced personnel that design and install complex storage networking systems and document management requirements.

Acal IT Solutions markets a wide range of storage networking, networking and fibre channel products from several manufactures including Brocade, Cisco, Emulex, Juniper and Qlogic and document management products from Canon, Fujitsu and Kodak.

“The acquisition does not specifically impact the cost of storage products, but does give Avnet’s partners in
Europe the opportunity to offer a wider variety of complete storage solutions to their customers, potentially increasing their revenue and growth,” Keenan said.

Another benefit to Avnet will be Acal IT Solutions’ Headway Technology Group, which focuses on document management and storage with a portfolio of products including document capture software, scanners, optical, CD and DVD storage hardware and software and tape backup solutions.

Additionally, the acquisition will bring to Avnet a value-added services unit that provides network infrastructure planning,  implementation and training as well as technical support.

Acal IT Solutions’ revenue was approximately $200 million in the fiscal year ended March 31, 2007.

Hewlett-Packard Co. launched an assault on the mid-market yesterday, targeting what it calls the “global 500,000” – companies with between 100 and 999 employees.

Like similar marketing campaigns from Dell, IBM, Microsoft, Cisco, Oracle and SAP, among others, HP’s stated goal is to provide high-end functions in relatively affordable systems that are easy to install, customize and administer.

“HP actually does quite well in SMB and the mid-market, though no one with the possible exception of Microsoft is really happy with their position,” according to Jonathan Eunice, principal analyst for Illuminata, in Nashua, NH.

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Red Hat is offering new Linux virtualization training for its partners and customers.

The Red Hat Enterprise Linux Virtualization course is aimed at getting value-added resellers (VARs), systems integrators (SIs) and customers familiar with virtualization and teaching them how it can make them money, spokesman Peter Hnath said. Red Hat has included XenSource virtualization technology in the latest version of its operating system, Enterprise Linux 5.

“Xen is a substantial body of new technology,” Hnath said.

The offering marks a departure for Red Hat, whose past non-certification-based courses have been on “very high-level” topics, Hnath said. Red Hat made the Enterprise Linux Virtualization course at a more intermediate level so it would be more accessible to partners and customers, he added. The intended audience for the course is “Red Hat certified professionals” and “experienced Linux system administrators,” according to a press release.

Red Hat has so far scheduled the two-day, $1,500 course in 13 U.S. locations and plans to announce more within the next two weeks. Attendees must have a Red Hat Certified Technician certification or the equivalent knowledge and skills to participate in the course.

If you work with Red Hat, check out the desktop Linux and Linux server resources at SearchSystemsChannel.com. You can also learn more about desktop virtualization and server virtualization while you’re there.

Oracle unveiled the latest version of its enterprise-edition database yesterday, but the product isn’t likely to be huge news for most resellers and system integrators, according to the company’s president.

At a press conference following the Oracle Database 11g release in New York yesterday, Oracle’s president Charles Phillips fielded a question about channel partners’ roles in selling the Oracle enterprise database.

“The way it works is today the channel, at least for the [high-volume] distributors, [is] mainly focused on SE1 [Standard Edition One] and SE. Because of the packaging and the pricing for that market, that’s appropriate,” Phillips said. “There’s nothing prohibiting them from selling the high-end product, it’s just not their natural space.”

Phillips added that about 90% of sales for the Standard Edition and Standard Edition One product lines go through the channel. Those lines of software are prepackaged and stripped-down versions of Oracle’s customers geared for the lower end of the SMB market. Oracle launched a new partner program for those SMB products last month which allows resellers to sell them without formally enrolling in the company’s partner program.

Software vendor CA announced Monday the latest update to its ERwin Data Modeler, which includes integration with Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Team Edition for Database Professionals.

ERwin DM r7.2 also includes better native support for Microsoft SQL Server 2005. That combination could help VARs cross-sell between ERwin and Visual Studio, according to Danny Sandwell, CA’s product manager for the ERwin Modeling Suite. The company is moving to have all of the product’s sales in North America go through resellers by April, he said.

“We’re looking for [resellers] who understand the space, who understand the nuances” of data modeling, Sandwell said. Most of that channel is straight reselling, at least for now, he said.

The need for more sophisticated data modeling is driven largely by increased storage requirements many companies face, said Simon Nynens, CEO of Wayside Technology Group, Inc., one of ERwin’s top resellers. Regulations such as Sarbanes-Oxley require companies to store more data, and technologies like virtualization are making it easier for companies to store it — meaning they need better ways to develop data models, Nynens said.

Almost half of companies that have not yet started implementing service oriented architecture (SOA) plan to within three years, according to a survey by TechTarget sister site SearchOracle.com.

SAP’s NetWeaver shows customers the benefits of SOA better than Oracle’s Fusion project, according to experts quoted in the article, but IBM surpasses both. Of companies that responded to the survey, 84% haven’t started implementing SOA at all.

Companies should understand their businesses needs before they pick SOA products to address them, experts said, and they should consider that SOA isn’t about specific products — it’s about the approach for getting those products to work together.

SAN DIEGO — Day two of the CompTIA Managed Services Summit, which yesterday focused on research and trends for managed service providers, centered mostly around round-table discussions and Q&A sessions among MSPs — or those trying to break into the market.

At the top of priority list for nascent MSPs were questions about pricing and how to market managed services — either to existing clients who might be persuaded to upgrade from product purchases to service contracts, or to new customers altogether. Others asked for advice in effecting internal changes as they move from a more traditional reselling model to managed services.

How do you price a managed service?

There are three main approaches for pricing managed services:  a completely à la carte model in which the customer pays different prices for different levels of service; an all-inclusive, flat-price model; or a hybrid that lets customers pick among predefined levels of service.

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Letter to the editor, SearchITChannel.com

As a principal partner of a Sun Microsystems reseller, my sales people are asking what our response should be to the large number of our customers that have been contacted directly by Sun inside sales people regarding the huge discount they can get on Sun servers, storage, and other products at Sun Store [Massive Savings; Two Weeks Only].

These discounts are not available to Sun resellers like ourselves, and I would like someone to ask them what their thoughts are regarding the impact on their partner resellers.

I have been a Sun reseller for a long time, and they have always been channel friendly in the past.  It’s disheartening to see their lack of consideration for those businesses that have stuck by them through their financial troubles.

Regards,

Mike Willard
Principal Partner
Soccour Solutions