Gateway Launches Assault With New Servers And Revamped Channel Program
Gateway Monday launched a new line of servers and a revamped channel program in a move to further grow its indirect sales efforts. With the new products and program, Gateway is clearly trying to offer an alternative to channel partners over Dell and HP, and to a lesser extent, IBM.
Improvements to Gateway's ProNet partner program include a defined rules of engagement intended at eliminating channel conflict, a new set of discounts and MDF programs, and the flexibility for partners to sell either as a reseller, an agent or through referrals.
"Generally speaking, the common buzz in the channel is that people are looking for an alternative," said Tiffani Bova, Gateway's senior director of indirect sales. "They are looking for someone who is going to be fair with them on pricing, not compete with them from a direct perspective, and an easy program that has clear ways that they can understand to make money."
Bova said Gateway has signed up some 1,400 partners over the past 16 months, and is looking to add 200 more through the end of next year, though adding only ones that consider the company as strategic. "We are looking for quality, not quantity," she said. "It needs to be mutual." Bova said she is beginning a month-long road trip this week to meet with 40 such partners.
Depending on how partners decide to price the servers, they can potentially make 14 to 16 points in margin and remain competitive, Bova said. Partners that sell between $1 million and $2 million worth of Gateway products will be eligible for an additional 2 percent in MDF, or what Gateway calls "marketing alignment funds," and those that sell more per year will be eligible for 4 percent.
Besides a channel-friendly program, Gateway is betting that its three new servers will appeal to customers over offerings from HP and Dell. The first is the 9315 Series, a dual-processor Intel Xeon 64-bit, rack-mount 1U server intended for data-intensive computing. It supports up to 12 GB of DDR EEC memory, offers dual Gb Ethernet interfaces, as well as support for PCI Express. The system, which replaces the 955 Series, supports RAID 5 storage with three swappable Serial ATA drives. Pricing starts at $999, and the systems are intended to take on HP's DL140 server and Dell's 1425SC.
Gateway is also rolling out a new server for application hosting, file and print services, and e-mail. The 9515 Series is a 2U workgroup system with support for dual Xeon processors, six PCI slots and redundant storage. The system, which replaces the company's 975 Series, is priced at $1,499 and is targeted against HP's DL380 line.
The third server is a workgroup tower-based server. Also based on the Xeon processor, the 9510 replaces the 960X and 980 Series servers, supports either six SATA drives or 10 SCSI drives, or up to 2.4 TB of storage. The 9510s also support PCI Express and dual Gb Ethernet interfaces. Targeted to compete against HP's ML350 and ML370 servers, pricing starts at $1,199.
![Close](/styles/icons/close-ribbon.png)