All quiet on the Dell Australia front

When Dell US announced last year it was finally going to launch a channel partner program, it was understood that development would take time to filter through to Australia’s reseller community.

In April, Michael Dell spoke to Wall Street and said Dell’s regional and channel opportunities are presently about a US$260 billion opportunity and will be about US$300 billion in 2011, and that the company can grow both its direct and channel businesses simultaneously, although the channel business is expected to grow faster.

“We’re expanding in emerging countries, channel partners, retail partners, these are a big part of our growth. When you add infrastructure services to the global opportunity it grows to over US$1 trillion,” he said.

At the beginning of May, Dell Australia selected stationery and IT supplies firm, Officeworks, as its first local retail partner. The move into retail was always going to precede the launch of a local reseller program, so the reseller community was braced for such a move.

So as we move into June, I thought it was time CRN got in touch for the latest on Dell’s local reseller plans.

I made a friendly call to Dell’s external PR agency contact to arrange an interview with a suitable spokesperson. After years of being rejected by Dell as a channel journalist, I thought it could be the start of a beautiful vendor/journalist relationship.

I called the PR agency and explained my plans for a channel catch-up. I was greeted with a less than reassuring response. The pause. When you confidently ask a question and get a pause, what happens next is just a big a mystery to you.

“I’m not quite sure who the right person to talk to is,” said the baffled PR agency. “It might be Evan Williams, general manager of consumer sales, who commented on the Officeworks announcement. I’ll find out and get back to you.”

A pause and a “I’ll get back to you”! This conversation was quickly turning into a first and only date situation. “I’ve had a great time tonight, but have to work in the morning. I’ll call you”.

After getting off the phone I knew the chances of speaking to Dell about its local reseller plans were slim to none. A few days later, slim left town.

“Thanks for the call the other day,” the Dear John email rejection read. “I’ve asked Dell about this, and the word is that they have not made any announcements regarding a channel program in Australia. They are evaluating the market, and cannot commit to an interview/story about this at the moment. I’ll make sure we get in touch with you as soon as we have something newsworthy around this.”

So just to clarify the Dell Australia situation, it has no local channel chief in place and no intention of talking to a reseller magazine about future channel plans, possibly because it doesn’t have any. In the near future expect nothing more than further local retail announcements from Dell Australia, and when you think about it, how far removed is that from what they were doing before? Previously Dell was box-shifting straight from its warehouse to end-users. Now some of those boxes are going to Officeworks for them to do the same.

Where are the value-add opportunities for the service-led reseller community? Well, non-existent is the answer.

Can a leopard change its spots? I’ll get in touch as soon as I have a newsworthy answer to that.

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