Qwest Moves To Sell Direct

In particular, partners are miffed that Qwest has formed a separate business unit and inked an alliance with Nortel to cross-sell hardware and services to enterprise accounts.

IP VPN, optical network, IP telephony and LAN solutions from the two companies will be sold primarily by internal Qwest and Nortel sales staff, said Stephen Ruby, vice president of alliance development at Qwest. A Nortel spokesman confirmed that salespeople from both companies will sell the solutions.

Both Ruby and the Nortel spokesman also said the solutions may be offered through the channel in the future. Still, Qwest partners are concerned.

"Selling solutions is what we do, and if Qwest is taking Nortel solutions and going after the enterprise, that competes against us," said a Qwest business partner executive who asked not to be named. "They said they want to be the carrier and leave solutions up to us, but this is not a foot forward in that direction."

Another partner executive who requested anonymity said he would rather see Qwest concentrate on solving its financial woes. "Qwest needs to focus on getting healthy and profitable again because right now, with their financial instability, I'm worried about my commissions," he said.

But Jim Sommer, president of Qwest partner Xitech, Pittsburgh, said Qwest's move to hold off on rolling out certain solutions to the channel immediately could be good for partners.

"It would be an injustice for anyone to approach customers with a technology sale, because it's all about solutions-selling now and solving a customer's business problem vs. throwing product at a business problem," Sommer said. "If [Qwest goes out there and gets it right and then brings it to partners, it will mean more."