Dell distie drive aims to spur server sales

Dell Technologies has decided the time is right to have its disties broaden its server customer base.

The hardware colossus last week launched a new “Dedicated Distribution Campaign to Drive Server Refresh Opportunities”. CRN has confirmed the campaign operates in Australia and local distributors Ingram, Tech Data and Dicker Data.

There’s nothing startlingly different about the campaign, which features the usual mix of a playbook, insert-your-logo-here marketing materials and incentives.

But Dell Australia senior director and general manager for ANZ channel sales Shant Soghomonian told CRN the campaign is more significant than usual in-market activity.

Soghomonian said this campaign matters because Dell, like most vendors, sees distributors as giving it more reach, and Dell sees considerable growth opportunities in the server market and is intent on expanding its server market share.

He feels that demand for servers can best be met by disties stimulating demand from the channel. And recruiting new partners.

“We’re after partners that focus on data centre and have skills and strength around compute and storage,” Soghomonian told CRN.

He added his belief that server sales give partners their moment to shine as end-customers consider how best to balance cloud, on-prem and hybrid computing.

Soghomonian is also hopeful this program exposes Dell’s recently-announced consumption-based purchasing options. Soghomonian said he’s seen forecasts that between 15 and 20 percent of buyers want this kind of option, making it a significant slice of the market.