Dell EMC Channel Chief Byrne Tells Partners To Keep Pushing Services For More Incentives

Dell EMC has no intentions of cutting back its support for the channel, unlike some of its competitors.

That was a loud refrain from channel chief John Byrne, who Monday night addressed partners at The Channel Company's 2017 Best of Breed conference in Atlanta. Byrne and Dell EMC's SVP of North American Channel Sales, Gregg Ambulos, thanked partners for remaining vocal and continuing to make tremendous investments in Dell EMC's product and services portfolio.

At the same time, Byrne urged partners to "never be satisfied," saying Dell EMC is playing at $80 billion in a $3 trillion market. He added that his channel program would further incentivize services sales shortly.

[Related: Dell Technologies Cuts Services Revenue Requirements In Half As Partners Struggle To Hit Targets]

"We want you to sell services 100 percent. We want you to be selling our full portfolio of services … For those partners who are not attaching services where they need to be, we'll adapt," Byrne said.

CEO Michael Dell, who conducted a Q&A session with The Channel Company CEO Bob Faletra later Monday evening, showed up at the end of the session, and echoed the positive sentiments of Byrne and Ambulos.

"Thank you to all of our partners," Dell said. "Very excited by what I'm seeing from the channel. First half of the year, double-digit growth. We have 80 percent of our partners now selling both servers and storage. A lot of growth in servers – 22 percent in the first half, which is pretty amazing. We're also No. 1 in storage of all varieties. All-flash, software-defined, converged, hyper-converged.

Dell added that the company had enjoyed 97 percent growth for partners selling Dell Financial Services. Those partners are growing one-and-a-half-times faster than Dell EMC partners that don't offer DFS.

"A lot to be excited about," he said.

Byrne, citing the 22-percent first-half server growth, said he believes that market has become a "two-horse race" between Dell EMC and HP – a jab at Chinese vendor Lenovo.

Arvin Bhargava, CEO of Silicon Valley-based Asa Computers, said his company had received plenty of support from Dell EMC since it recently began reselling the vendor's "well-placed" products. Lenovo's channel sales strategy, he added, has not resonated with him.

"Three years ago, Lenovo was trying to [engage] us as a reseller. We didn't do that at the time," Bhargava told CRN. "I think they've become pretty busy. We do run into Lenovo in some clients. It’s not a pretty picture; I think they are just trying to get the market share. It doesn't matter if they make money or not."