HP Plots Smartphone Channel Power Play

Hewlett-Packard is building a new channel program that will bring its recently acquired Palm smartphone and smart device portfolio to market via solution providers, CRN has learned.

Stephen DiFranco, vice president and general manager, Solution Partners Organization (SPO), Americas, for HP, said in an interview with CRN Wednesday that he has asked Tom LaRocca, HP vice president, marketing and strategy, SPO, to build the new program in support of the computer giant's $1.2 billion acquisition of Palm, which was finalized this month. LaRocca oversees HP's PartnerOne channel program.

"Our intention is to bring a fully serviceable set of services to the consumer and commercial markets based on the Palm OS," DiFranco said. "Which apps are chosen and eventually deployed are the result of negotiations and conversations with the Palm team. I’m sure we will have consumer and commercial applications and to work with plug-ins. Palm, even before we acquired them, had a plug-in with Salesforce.com. We will continue down that road."

DiFranco said the Palm deal gives "resellers the opportunity to offer a franchise that includes mobile devices that are secure on the network." That's a powerful sales proposition for solution providers who are anxious to play in the smartphone market.

"To a reseller doing data center, I can have a practice with Palm devices from HP because that device can be managed and secured through the data center," said DiFranco. "One of our competitors in the phone business does a good job selling devices in corporate environments. But they’re not coming from a channel world. Now you have a company from the channel to have a device that has a smart enough OS to shut down if the device is lost or stolen. Now you can start to go out to customers with that."

Next: HP's Enterprise Group Aims To Play Big Role In Smart Device Market

HP's Enterprise Group also appears to be planning on playing a bigger role in the smartphone and smart device market with its appointment Wednesday of Mark Angelino, a former high-level Sprint and Salesforce.com executive, as senior vice president of global distribution. In the newly created position, he will oversee the computer giant's channel relationships in HP's $54 billion Enterprise Business.

Angelino, a seven year Sprint veteran, was vice president of Sprint's sales and distribution until he was pushed out in a management shakeup in January 2008.

Most recently, Angelino was executive vice president of Customer Success at cloud computing kingpin Salesforce.com. In that position, which he held for 14 months, he was responsible for the support team that handled what Salesforce.com called "after-sale customer success."

HP said in a statement that Angelino will be responsible for managing HP’s relationships with enterprise channel partners including network service providers, independent software vendors (ISVs), system integrators, managed services providers, and business advisory firms.

Angelino will report to Thomas Hogan, executive vice president of sales, marketing and strategy for HP Enterprise Business.

HP said Angelino is a 30-year veteran of the IT industry who has held several senior positions at Sprint Nextel, including president of Sales and Distribution as well as president of Sprint Business Solutions.

The Palm unit is a part of HP's Personal Systems Group. But HP is expected to make its Palm technology widely available across its product portfolio. Furthermore, HP has vowed to make its Palm products available to its full partner network.

Angelino was unavailable to discuss his new position, and HP declined to comment.

Rick Chernick, the CEO of Camera Corner Connecting Point, a Green Bay, Wis., said that the executive addition is another sign that HP is willing to add to its management team to break into emerging markets like smartphone.

"The better the people the better the company," said Chernick. "You have to change and be willing to bring in good strong people to continue to grow. We do it on a small scale and HP does it on a big scale. HP is making the company stronger. I admire what (HP CEO) Mr. Hurd and his team of executives are doing."