Dell Channel Blog : Products & Services

Channel Opportunity: Dell Vostro goes ultraportable

DELL-Jeff J — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 20:30:00 GMT

Dell just announced the latest edition to the Vostro lineup—the Vostro 1220 – and it might be the answer to small businesses that demand better, faster and sleeker solutions for mobile computing. Designed to be “ultraportable,” the 1220 is 12.1 inches, weighs a paltry 3.36 lbs. and runs for 9 hours in our lab tests. With the latest generation Intel processors, it also holds up to 8GB of memory with faster HDD options, enables faster connections with gigabit and Wi-Fi options and offers videoconferencing. It really packs big productivity in a small package.

Here is some information on it, as well as a video.

New solutions offer expanded opportunities for partners

DELL-Ryan S — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 14:00:00 GMT

Today, Dell announced the availability of new servers, storage and virtualization solutions for you to offer your customers.

Building on our Efficient Enterprise launch back on March 30th, Dell today announced the expansion from those first five server platforms and the PS6000 Series iSCSI storage array with three more server platforms and the introduction of our new PS4000 Series iSCSI storage array.

Our new Dell EqualLogic PS4000 Series arrays offers all the great features and capabilities of our EqualLogic PS6000 but scaled down so it's in the "sweet-spot" for your small, medium business customer needs or for larger customers looking to compliment their existing PS6000 deployment with a remote, branch office storage array solution.

Meanwhile, our 11^th Generation of PowerEdge servers are joined by the latest additions

T410 is designed for robust performance and flexibility for growing businesses and remote sites in a tower form factor.
T710 is designed for high performance and capacity for server consolidation and virtualization in a tower or 5U rack mountable form factor.
R410 is designed to be the most versatile rack server, with high performance and high value in a compact rack form factor for all business applications.

All three servers offer the industry’s only “instant-on” embedded systems management that simplifies deployment and management while being powered by the new Intel Xeon 5500 Series processors.

Finally, Dell announced a variety of virtualization oriented features, capabilities and enablement deliverables including engineering validated reference architectures. To learn more about these new virtualization, server and storage capabilities please register for either this Friday’s PS4000 Webinar or Monday’s Virtualization webinar called “Dell Virtualization: Simplifying the Path to Profit” for PartnerDirect registered and certified partners.

Update 6-24-08: In this short vlog Sean Phelan of Dell PartnerDirect talks with OuterNet President Dan McDougal about the latest 11G products and services.

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Dell PartnerDirect Offers ProManage Sales Agent Certification

DELL-Amie P — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 16:00:00 GMT

Today, Dell announced nationwide availability of its ProManage-Managed Services. This means our U.S.-based PartnerDirect members can now expand their services portfolio and create a whole new revenue stream. Our ultimate goal is to save time and money for customers, so they can focus on growing their own businesses — which is especially important in this constrained economy.

The Road to Managed Services

Dell PartnerDirect began its journey with managed services by offering pilot programs in Dallas and New York City. Through these pilot programs, we learned that:

Customers are interested in managed services and concerned about maximizing uptime.
Partners can play an important role in the MSP relationships, particularly when customers have a unique need for value-added services.
Some small and medium-sized businesses only feel comfortable in purchasing these services from their local channel partners.

To help protect customer relationships, we implemented Managed Services Deal Registration during the New York pilot program and now will be extending nationwide. This enables partners to submit new opportunities and receive 120 days of deal registration protection — the same as Certified Partners for hardware. Also, Dell will not sell into Dell Certified MSP contract accounts.

For over a year, Dell PartnerDirect has offered an MSP certification that allows partners to build their own MSP solutions using scalable technology from Dell. Starting today, U.S.-based PartnerDirect members have a second option — they can now offer ProManage-Managed Services by becoming an Authorized Sales Agent. The benefits of these options are explained below.

By the end of this year, we’ll also offer a co-delivery solution, where Dell hosts the platform, trains the MSP, provides the NOC and reports service levels to the partner. The partner interacts with the customer, provides the Service Desk, brands the service, conducts onsite work and provides customer reports.

Dell’s Managed Services Offerings for Channel Partners

Beginning in April 2009, our U.S.-based PartnerDirect members have two options for offering Dell’s managed services: 1) by becoming Authorized Sales Agents for Dell ProManage-Managed Services, or 2) getting licensed as Dell MSP Certified Partners. Both options include:

Training and marketing materials
Managed Services Deal Registration
The benefit of scalable MSP technology from Dell

Why Become an Authorized Sales Agent for ProManage-Managed Services?

As Authorized Sales Agents for Dell’s ProManage-Managed Services, partners can:

• Free their technical resources from basic IT maintenance

• Build long-term annuity streams based on revenue share

• Reduce business risk — There are no partner delivery obligations or out-of-pocket costs; Dell provides 100% of the remote and on-site delivery, contracts and end-user billing.

• Expand their services portfolio with a great program to increase uptime for end users

• Ease their entry into MSP business, while transitioning to their own MSP solutions

Once partners have enrolled and completed training to become Authorized Sales Agents, they are in control of the customer sales process. This mirrors the Dell Direct offering in terms of contract options, pricing and service delivery. Dell will perform the initial technical assessment and provide a proposal based on the results. After the customer signs the agreement, partners will receive revenue share for the life of the contract.

The Authorized Sales Agent program is a win-win. The program is designed to align Dell and its partners in jointly serving accounts over an extended period. Dell delivers the comprehensive, proactive maintenance services for the customer’s IT environment, while partners maintain their roles as trusted advisors to the customer. In addition, partners can continue to provide their own high value-add services beyond maintenance.

Why Get Licensed as a Dell MSP Certified Partner?

By getting the training and technology licenses of Dell MSP Certification, partners can:

• Build their own MSP business based on Dell’s Managed Services technology platform

• Get the flexibility to design, market and price their own unique offerings

• Benefit from the scalability of Dell’s hosted remote monitoring and management platforms

• Learn how to accelerate their business through Dell coaching and business builder training

• Maintain full account control — with full responsibility for branding, contracts, billing and service delivery

What’s Next in MSP Offerings for Partners

As mentioned earlier, for partners who consider maintenance revenue as core to their business, Dell has plans to launch a co-delivery offering by the end of this year. Also, for partners who become Authorized Sales Agents, they will be allowed to transition their accounts to these new offering models, based on approvals from end users.

For More Information

For questions or comments about our managed services offerings, partners are encouraged to talk with Dell’s PartnerDirect Managed Services sales team. We welcome all feedback about the program, as we continually work to improve the partner experience. In addition, stay tuned for more blog posts around this ProManage-Managed Services launch.

The Upgrade Imperative

DELL-Ryan S — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 12:00:00 GMT

CRN, Intel and Dell have a very informative session planned for later this week (Thursday). We have the results of Dell and Intel internal IT case studies, industry trends and metrics that all highlight a golden opportunity. During these hard economic times we have potential solution for you to offer your customers that has a quick ROI and positions them to leap frog their competitors. Now is the time for your customer to refresh their data centers and server rooms, come learn why?

New Dell Precision Workstations Shatter Performance Metrics

DELL-Amie P — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 14:00:00 GMT

Anyone who uses high-end workstations knows Dell Precision, especially if you are in engineering, media, entertainment, biosciences, exploration, economic modeling and risk analysis. After all, Dell has been the world’s No. 1 workstation supplier for the last nine years. But as one of the first workstation lines to ship with Intel® Xeon® 5500 “Nehalem,” the Dell Precision T5500 and T7500 can deliver up to 90 percent better multi-threaded digital content creation application performance versus previous generation systems. Check out the information on the Dell Precision T7500, T5500 and T3500 tower workstations. And read the news here.

Introducing Dells’ Most Intelligent Servers Ever

DELL-Ryan S — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 19:20:00 GMT

As discussed last Wednesday, Dell’s next-generation of PowerEdge servers are grounded in the Simplify IT principles. In that blog posting, we included a video that talked about the new embedded systems management capabilities. We also mentioned how Dell, inspired by our users, re-designed the hardware itself to reduce deployment and administration time. Both these areas of features and capabilities will offer tremendous benefits to you. Offering simplified technology to you customers’ can save you time, make you more efficient and help increase your customers’ satisfaction.

Today, in conjunction with Intel announcing their new “Nehalem” processors (now known as the Xeon 5500 series), we unveiled details behind the five new Dell PowerEdge servers. In addition to the embedded systems management and enhanced hardware ergonomics, these servers reset the Dell PowerEdge Virtualization performance and Power/Thermal efficiency bar.

The new Intel Xeon 5500 series processors, embedded hypervisors, up to 125% increased memory footprint and more integration I/O enable these new servers to offer better overall systems performance and virtual machine per server capacity compared to previous generations.

For more details on the five new servers, including co-brand ready sales and marketing materials and sales/technical education materials, registered and certified partners should check out the PartnerDirect Solution Center.

Thanks

Ryan Shopp

Global Channel Marketing – Server/Storage/Software

Dell Unveils Efficient Enterprise Computing Portfolio

DELL-Ryan S — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 16:45:00 GMT

Today, Dell announced some exciting additions to our portfolio of servers and storage platforms. Complimenting this, Dell also unveiled our new enterprise systems management software, Dell Management Console.

These additions are grounded in our commitment to offering our partners products and solutions that are simplified. Simplified technology saves you time, saves your customers (and you) money and helps you be more effective in keeping your customer satisfied.

As part of our server platforms, Dell is introducing a variety of user-inspired hardware ergonomic enhancements and new embedded systems management capabilities that will help you more efficiently deploy and administer servers for your customers. The below video highlights these exciting new capabilities through an interview led by Sean Phelan, the Director of the Advanced Solutions Group for our American Channel Partners. The video also talks about the unique approach Dell has taken with our new Dell Management Console.

The Dell Management Console is an exciting new addition to our portfolio that supports Dell and non-Dell hardware including servers, storage, client, printers and networking products while offering a modular architecture so you can use the base capabilities (software included with your Dell servers) or add-on, advanced functionality based on your customers needs. A new whitepaper is now available on PartnerDirect that highlights how a comparable solution from one of our competitors requires nine consoles versus Dell Management Console’s one (again, simplified technology to help you be more effective). This solution was co-developed with our strategic partner Symantec on Altiris’ Enterprise Management Solution which you may already be experienced with. In association with this newest member to our Dell OpenManage portfolio, a new PartnerDirect ISV partner program is now available to Independent Software Vendors (ISV) or channel partners who develop software products/solutions for managing and monitoring IT infrastructure.

Dell also continues to extend and enhance its iSCSI storage portfolio with the introduction of the EqualLogic PS6000 series. The new PS6000 series offers significant performance improvements and a variety of software enhancements for Microsoft Hyper-V and VMware’s vStorage initiative to complement existing integrations with Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft SQL, VMware and Citrix XenCenter.

For more details on each offering, including co-brand ready sales and marketing materials and sales/technical education materials, registered and certified partners should check out the PartnerDirect Solution Center. Also, stay tuned, more details will be coming specific to the new PowerEdge servers next week.

Thanks

Ryan Shopp

Global Channel Marketing – Server/Storage/Software

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Dell Implements Partner Feedback and Accelerates Product Delivery for the Channel

DELL-Amie P — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 16:00:00 GMT

On March 24, Dell will sell select small business products through two major distributors—Ingram Micro and Tech Data Corporation. In response to Partner feedback, Dell is enhancing its PartnerDirect program and expanding Partner choice by offering select Dell products exclusively to the Channel in the U.S. through distribution. These products will be available via the same distributors in Canada later this spring.

“Our goal is to have a broad range of Dell products widely available, so partners can most effectively meet the needs of their customers, deliver value and grow their businesses,” said Greg Davis, vice president and general manager, Dell’s Global Commercial Channel group. “Our partners value our custom configuration capabilities, but there are times when customers need products on very short notice. This agreement demonstrates our commitment to the channel as we evolve our program based on partner feedback.”

What does this mean for Partners?

This distributor relationship helps you provide accelerated product delivery to customers with pressing technology needs. We’re essentially increasing customer choice by offering Dell products through multiple routes-to-market: direct, PartnerDirect and distribution. At launch, Vostro systems are the initial products available through the distribution agreement. In the near future, we will be offering a greater choice in products from different product lines.

As we’re increasing our flexibility to offer products on demand, you will still have access to Dell’s full, build-to-order product line that serves more than 35,000 Registered Partners worldwide via PartnerDirect.

What Can I Expect Moving Forward?

Products that Partners decide to purchase via distribution will be competitively priced with similar products available direct from Dell. As Partners, you do have options in the way your purchase Dell systems and distribution can help you receive your systems more rapidly.

Partner Resources

How do I assign warranty to the end-customer on systems purchased through a distributor?

The same process used today will remain in effect. It is up to the reseller and/or the end-customer to re-assign the service tag to the end-customer in order to receive service and support. The reseller or end-customer can do this by:

1) Going online at www.dell.com/support and click on Warranty Information, followed by Ownership Transfer. Fill out the form and Dell will be able to update its records so that the end-customer can call in for support.

2) Calling Dell’s Customer Service team at 1-800-624-9897 and informing them you would like to transfer the Service Tag of a recently purchased system over the phone.

More Questions? We Can Help You.

Please visit www.dell.com/partner/distribution to read more about this program. When you are ready to purchase these specific products, you can contact TechData or Ingram Micro directly.

As Dell is moves to multiple routes-to-market (direct, PartnerDirect, distribution), this distributor relationship helps Dell to expand customer choice, provide flexibility, and offer accelerated product delivery to most Partners and their small-business customers who have immediate technology needs. We’re here to help with any additional questions or comments that you may have regarding this distribution announcement.

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Dell’s Peter Klanian - Live on MSPMentor Tomorrow

DELL-Amie P — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 13:00:00 GMT

Just a reminder that Dell’s Peter Klanian, Senior Manager Channel Sales, will be joining MSPMentor tomorrow for a webinar called, “Dell Managed Services: Answering Your Top 30 Questions in 60 Minutes”.

You can find further details and register on MSP Mentor, but according to the invite, Peter will answer questions on:

- The Dell Managed Service Strategy
- Partner Profitability
- MSP training and certification
- Starter steps
- Deal registration
- Customer Education
- And much, more

Dell Wins at CRN’s Channel Champion Awards

DELL-Amie P — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 18:00:00 GMT

Dell won a CRN Channel Champion award for Financial Performance in the Midrange Server (Dell PowerEdge M series) category. Our own, Bob Skelley, Director of Enterprise Architecture, was at the XChange conference in New Orleans last week to accept the award on Dell’s behalf.

Some of you might be curious on how CRN measures results and award winners? Well, here’s the low-down on the Channel Champion results and it’s important to note that CRN readers do make up the core of the survey, with approximately 2,000 solution providers participating in the tally.

Solution providers are asked to rate their satisfaction with particular vendors in more than two dozen product categories, considering close to 20 weighted measures. While some measures transcend all categories, such as product quality and reliability or technical education resources, others are specific to the product set being considered, such as ease of configuration or compatibility.

Let us know if you have additional questions around the Channel Champion awards or let us know how we can better serve you in our PartnerDirect program.