Lenovo hunts HP, Acer resellers

Lenovo is seeking to attract up to 5,000 resellers world-wide and is not afraid to poach HP and Acer’s channel partners.

Mark Enzweiler, Lenovo’s vice president for worldwide business partner sales US, said the company had put the word out to its distributors to call on them to help the recruitment drive.

"We’d like to recruit Acer resellers; we’d like to recruit Hewlett-Packard resellers," he said. "We want guys who are focused in the small business space.”

Rupina Menzagopian, channel manager, Lenovo Australia & NZ, said in Australia, Lenovo are actively engaged in an aggressive recruitment drive that is consistent with the global strategy.

"Heading into 2006, our goal is to have 1000 resellers by the end of this year," she said

Acer's Australian marketing director Raymond Vardanega said Acer was focused on executing its business through the channel.

“We don’t want to dwell on what Lenovo has to say except that we have a channel and business focus that we feel is the best for our partners," he said. "Acer is focused on doing what it needs to be done for our channel partners and what Lenovo wants to doesn’t phase us.”

Lenovo will pursue inactive Lenovo resellers using the new, low-priced 3000 line to bring them back into the fold. It will also look at web resellers and is targeting large systems integrators.

HP could not be reached for comment on Lenovo’s global channel strategy.