Advanced Desktops and Workstations: IBM
“We are excited about the progress toward completion of the Lenovo acquisition,” said Jeff Hansen, senior vice president of merchandising for Zones, a solution provider in Auburn, Wash. “We are excited about the synergies between the two existing product portfolios, and of course we have high regard and trust for the senior management moving over to Lenovo, from [Lenovo CEO] Steve Ward on down.”
In advanced desktops and workstations, IBM shut out the competition to win every area on its way to becoming Channel Champion.
IBM’s overall rating of 79.7 gave the vendor a significant 4.8-point margin of victory over runner-up Hewlett-Packard at 74.9. Sun Microsystems (74.6), Dell (72.2) and Gateway (66.5) rounded out the competition.
So complete was IBM’s advanced desktop and workstation victory that its only real challenge came in the areas of channel-conflict management and sales margins. While IBM won the reducing/eliminating channel-conflict criterion, it just edged out Sun by half a point. In sales margins, IBM edged out Sun by 1.5 points.
IBM’s strongest showing in the survey, meanwhile, came in the area of keeping solution providers informed of changes, where it was a solid 5.8 points ahead of Sun, the runner-up in channel-program satisfaction.
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“It’s clear that they listen to the reseller customers and put products and programs in place to meet those requirements,” said Laurie Benson, CEO of Inacom Information Systems, a Madison, Wis.-based IBM Business Partner. “All of their programs were designed with input from Business Partners.”
While IBM’s win on channel-program satisfaction was impressive, its biggest margin of victory came in technical criteria. Here HP was the runner-up, trailing IBM by 3.5 points. IBM was particularly strong in the areas of platform longevity and fault-tolerance, where it was 5.4 points and 4.9 points ahead of HP respectively.
Despite its victory, IBM will have to work hard to assure solution providers that it can maintain both technical and channel momentum following the sale of its ThinkCentre desktop line to Lenovo. But solution providers say they have faith that IBM can maintain its leadership.
