Bell Micro HP OEM

Telecomm Teams Come to Bell Micro and HP for NEBS Expertise and OEM Service

2010-06-10T10:00:00Z

The value of OEM service is apparent to many types of business, and none more than telecomm. The precise technology requirements and service expertise which is required by telecomm businesses raise the bar for OEM providers like Bell Micro. Bell Micro has capitalized on these requirements by carving out a successful niche within the OEM market in which Bell Micro could be said to be the undisputed leader.

To quote Wikipedia, NEBS is the most common set of safety, spatial and environmental design guidelines applied to telecommunications equipment in the United States. Developed originally by Bell Labs in the 1970s, this standard is still in place today as a common standard shared by the largest US Telecomm companies including AT&T, Verizon, BellSouth, and Qwest. These companies created the Telecommunications Carrier Group (TCG), a group formed to maintain the NEBS standards across the industry in the US.

To be usable in a telecommunications central office, equipment must be NEBS-certified. The process for becoming NEBS certified is time-consuming and expensive, requiring months of testing and rigorous review of system specs, all to prove that the NEBS standards have been met by the systems. HP offers a server platform which is NEBS certified. The HP ProLiant DL380 G6 is the most used when NEBS needs are required however HP also offers BladeSystem carrier-grade platforms as well.

The challenge for OEM businesses which serve the telecomm industry or whom are telecomm service providers, is the need to customize NEBS-certified platforms. These OEM teams may need to customize the platforms by adding third-party components, like new video cards, boards and other components.

Doing this enables better solutions delivery, differentiated service, and improved capabilities to meet specific customer requirements. But, making these changes nullifies the NEBS certification and requires that this expensive and time-consuming process be repeated. To overcome this challenge, Bell Micro's Build OEM Better programs facilitate bringing custom NEBS-certified solutions to market.

Bell Micro engineers have decades of experience serving telecomm business teams. These engineers know the NEBS certification standards, and understand how to piggy-back HP standard systems testing to facilitate custom changes with minimum re-test requirement. Bell Micro can lower the cost of developing a custom NEBS-certified system built on HP platforms by as much as 60%, according to their own internal records. Bell Micro engineers can also help to speed the process of bringing a custom solution to the telecomm market in dramatically less time.

Bell Micro engineers work in dedicated lab environments to spec, test, build and deliver custom telecomm systems for telecomm OEM organizations. Bell Micro teams are skilled in the selection and integration of third-party technology, and seamless assembly of the components to meet the specs.

These teams also stay ahead of HP end of life (EOL) cycles for any parts included in a solution, to ensure the long life of designed systems in the market. OEM businesses cannot afford to redesign and re-certify NEBS systems, making them particularly sensitive to EOL processes.

Bell Micro engineers describe staying current on monthly and even bi-weekly basis for some telecomm parts and systems, staying ahead of EOL announcements and ensuring that Bell Micro OEM customers are not surprised. It's common for Bell Micro to facilitate a last-time buy of components to enable an OEM business, to stock those components, and enable fulfillment of product delivery using the older component until the OEM team is ready to design and offer a next generation of their product.

In a recent discussion with the Bell Micro engineering team focused on telecomm business, the attitude was OEM customer focused. "We never want to force lines down," stated one engineer on the team. "Our goal is to always stay ahead of EOL and provide options to our customers. For example, we've got one OEM customer still shipping the same product after seven years. We facilitate this by helping find parts from the secondary market, rehabbing, testing, and then enabling delivery."

Bell Micro OEM business success is, at least in part, built on their knowledge, experience, and success in serving the unique business requirements of the telecomm market. Bell Micro engineers have an understanding of NEBS standards and how to work within the boundaries of the NEBS certification requirements that helps their OEM customers to bring innovative and better competing products to market more quickly, and at a lower cost.

"To Cloud" is Officially a Verb in Today's Data Center

2010-02-08T11:00:00Z

This is part 3 of a 3 part blog entry series exploring how VMware and server virtualization technologies are evolving data center infrastructure, operations, and future requirements. HP virtualization technologies combined with Bell Micro packaging and services enable OEM vendors to more rapidly respond to and prepare for these changing requirements.

Cloud is this year's virtualization, or ILM, or even ASP for those of us who go back a while. Cloud is the latest term of interest in the data management market, but one that is fraught with the same level of confusion and misunderstanding as those previous terms. However, cloud brings with it a certain level of interest and for good reason: virtualization technologies are one of the only methods available that offer to solve a problem plaguing IT budgets and environments.

The problem with computing today is that the majority of IT budget, time, and administrative effort is spent on status quo computing. The bigger problem is that the percentage spent on status quo computing gets larger every year.

What is status quo computing? It's the effort put in to maintain the capabilities and infrastructure already present in the environment. Status quo computing is merely keeping it all running, available, and in good enough shape to support business as usual.

Computing infrastructure takes too many resources and traps businesses in status quo operational methods. New initiatives have less resource to support them. New methods of doing business cannot be easily supported. Competitiveness drops.

Virtualization helps solve this problem of consuming IT budgets with status quo computing by dramatically streamlining, consolidating, and simplifying those environments. The combination of virtual server, virtual network, and virtual storage technologies enable dynamic resource provisioning at all levels of the infrastructure. This offers better flexibility for maintaining and upgrading these environments while keeping applications and data available for business use.

The coming cloud is a reality for which OEM vendors must prepare. Previously in this series, I discussed how VMware and virtual server technologies in general offer better flexibility for OEM vendors interested in packaging new application capabilities into Virtual Machines (VMs) which can be dynamically added to OEM appliances already deployed in end-user customer environments. However another reason to build appliances on a virtual server platform is because of the coming need to participate - and to take advantage - of data center clouds.

In the coming cloud environment, IT teams will expect appliance platforms to come with certain core capabilities built into the platform. Thought of as add-on capabilities today, these include systems monitoring and policy enforcement to avoid VM sprawl, security at the hypervisor level, assisted network and storage provisioning, and even built-in data protection like data backup and replication. All of these capabilities must be rebuilt and reinvented to fit better with virtual environments so they can take better advantage of the inherent capabilities of virtual environments.

The good news for OEM vendors working with technologies from HP and Bell Micro is that they can build their appliances knowing that their platforms technology includes the latest in virtualization capabilities. Technologies like VMware or Microsoft Hyper-V platforms act as the basis for the OEM appliance solution. Technologies like virtual networks and storage. Technologies that include software capabilities built into the platform. Working with HP and Bell Micro, OEM teams and their end-user customers have a path to the cloud environments of the future.

Part 1 in this 3-part series discuss how VMware is gaining ground as a better OEM platform and what benefits OEMs derive from HP and Bell Micro services and support.

Part 2 in this 3-part series explores the factors contributing to and inhibiting OEM success with server virtualization, HP's and Bell Micro's roles in that success and the future of where virtualization can take the OEM community.

HP, VMware, Intel and Bell Micro Team to Offer Extreme OEM Advantages for Virtual Solutions

2009-12-29T11:00:00Z

Server virtualization, for which VMware is the dominant vendor, has gained ground among OEM appliance manufacturers as a more flexible, higher-value delivery platform. This blog entry continues a series of three in which we explore the factors contributing to and inhibiting OEM success with server virtualization, HP and Bell Micro roles in that success, and the future of where virtualization can take the OEM community.

As most know, Intel has been in a race to offer better processing performance with the goal of enabling better server consolidation. Their XEON 5500 series offers "the best generation to generation performance gain ever seen" by Intel, according to Bryce Olson who works in Intel's data center product group. The server compression that results is 9 or 10 to 1, with the XEON 5600 promising 12:1 ratios. This type of compression along with the XEON's energy efficiency features enable cost recapture within 12 months, according to Olson.

"We've always been the leader in database and ERP processing," explains Olson. "Until now, floating point processing has not been our strength. That all changes with the XEON."

What's more, the XEON is specifically designed to enable some of VMware's latest capabilities in its vSphere release. When asked, Olson explains that Intel has partnered actively with VMware to enable so-called 2.0 benefits.

"VMware has to get beyond consolidation and cost savings benefits to be really meaningful to administration teams," states Olson. "The real promise of VMware's technology is that it can change how applications are managed in virtual environments. Intel XEON includes VT FlexMigration to enable applications to migrate across multiple generations of XEON processors without disrupting services."

Olson further describes direct-to-Virtual Machine connectivity that provides better processing flow and traffic management for VMware systems. I/O virtualization technology also improves latency and throughput for these systems.

Intel calls these features hardware-assist capabilities designed into its processors, chip sets, and network interface silicon. Intel claims that adding hardware-assist to any individual system component can optimize performance on that system better than optimizing the operating environment alone, and it only makes sense.

Intel seems to be aligning its processors to support the top priorities for organizations adopting VMware and virtual server technologies, such as high availability, disaster recovery, and real-time workload balancing.

HP has made it easy for its OEM customers to get access to these benefits by offering its next-generation ProLiant G6 servers with Intel's XEON 5500 processors. HP fully support a mix of ProLiant servers based on different generations of Intel XEON processors in virtual resource pools.

Intel VT FlexMigration and VMware Enhanced VMotion technologies enable applications to be moved in across systems in these pools, for better real-time workload balancing and migration options. HP completes the virtualization story with tools for storage management that include discovery of virtual servers and VMware hypervisors, topology mapping for server-to-storage connections, VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager (SRM) integration, and Virtual Connect Flex-10 technology which virtualizes server connections to both networks and storage.

This is all good news for OEMs working with Bell Micro. For these vendors, gaining access to better capabilities for virtualization should be a smooth transition of working with one generation of ProLiant servers to the next.

Since HP and Intel have included features that enable different generations to work together seamlessly, OEM vendors should be able to offer the best possible value from VMware "2.0" capabilities like Enhanced VMotion software. So, when a customer needs to move workloads between OEM appliances or recover at a disaster site, they can combine workloads across different generations of the OEM appliances. OEM vendors gain upsell and cross-sell opportunities with this type of platform flexibility.

To promote their combined capabilities, HP, VMware and Intel have teamed up to create unique solutions for OEMs. Together, they promise to help customers lower costs, increase utilization, and gain agility. Bell Micro can help OEMs harness the power of these solutions by designing them into their current product offerings and taking their scalability to a whole new level.

Part 1 in this 3-part series discuss how VMware is gaining ground as a better OEM platform and what benefits OEMs derive from HP and Bell Micro services and support.

VMware Gaining Ground as a Better OEM Platform; Benefits from HP and Bell Micro Services and Support

2009-12-01T11:00:00Z

Ever since VMware introduced its ESX 3i edition, ESX has been a good option for building OEM appliances. ESX 3i is reportedly the world's smallest hypervisor, at 32MB. It also is the version that eliminated the need for a Linux management console, providing a command-line interface. These changes were critical for OEM appliance building, and encouraged HP and others to embed ESX 3i into select servers.

Some vendors in the technology community responded to this introduction - including Riverbed, Teneros and StorServer to name a few - by building a new generation of appliances based on VMware that deliver exceptional value and flexibility. The added value and flexibility includes:

Delivering a solution that contributes towards consolidation, reduction in footprint, and reduction in power/cooling goals already widely popular in most customer environments
Enabling customers to add more workload to the appliance, such as by running Windows, VMDKs, and other supported OS environments alongside the purchased appliance solution
Providing a platform upon which the appliance vendor can deliver additional solution modules, without requiring the customer to change the hardware
Ensuring easier integration within the customer environment and management procedures, which most likely has VMware servers already deployed or planned for deployment

Not only do VMware appliances work better for customers, they also work better for organizations offering Software as a Service or cloud-based application hosting. This is true because VMware appliance platforms lower costs for hosting organizations, by lowering the burden of application management, maintenance, and technology upgrades. With lower costs and burdens, hosted services offer better profit margins to hosting providers - along with the ability to pass along cost-savings advantages to their customers.

VMware has also worked with a long list of vendors - some 700 according to its web site - to ensure support of a wide variety of technology components. VMware also maintains an open Certification Program, when new components must be added.

So why, then, has adoption of VMware platforms not been more universally embraced for OEM appliance building? Why hasn't literally every OEM team decided to build on VMware?

One reason may be that VMware itself has made their technology options and components harder to understand. With over 50 different components, add-ons, and editions offered at last count, wading through the various VMware options has become time-consuming and difficult. For example, the latest version of ESX is vSphere - which comes in 2 small business editions and 4 mid-size and enterprise editions. vSphere replaces ESX 3i. So, if you're planning to upgrade your appliance, you have to determine which edition is required. You also have to figure out how to deploy the vCenter Server component, now a requirement.

Notwithstanding VMware's excellent Purchase Advisor, determining exactly how to upgrade can be a daunting task. VMware also hasn't really done much to address the OEM vendor community, per se.

This is where HP and Bell Micro have a key role to play: OEM vendors, like Teneros, have selected to work with HP and Bell Micro in part because of the ease with which HP and Bell Micro can help them in selecting, maintaining, and upgrading their technology platform. This includes the VMware components. HP makes it easier by selecting and qualifying the versions of VMware technology which are most beneficial to offer to OEM. Bell Micro makes it easier to obtain, as well, by understanding and managing the manufacturing process for its OEMs. This intimate, custom approach makes it easy for OEMs to take advantage of all of the value and flexibility that VMware platforms can deliver for OEM business teams.

Introduction: Server virtualization, for which VMware is the dominant vendor, has gained ground among OEM appliance manufacturers as a more flexible, higher-value delivery platform. This blog entry begins a series of three in which we will explore the factors contributing to and inhibiting OEM success with server virtualization, HP and Bell Micro roles in that success, and the future of where virtualization can take the OEM community.

Recent HP ProLiant G6 Server Management Innovations Take Edge Off of Ongoing OPEX Costs

2009-11-02T11:00:00Z

The costs for IT departments of power and cooling as well as server management can no longer be overlooked, assumed static or just written off as a necessary evil of doing business. Recently published statistics reveal that the three (3) year operational expense (OPEX) for a single server in many cases now exceeds its acquisition costs . These growing OPEX expenditures are costs that everyone from the end-user through the distribution channel to manufacturers of the server hardware, like HP, are working to decrease.

IDC states in a recent press release that the total annual cost to "manage" the world's installed base of external storage is about 60% of all enterprise storage-related spending, including software, power, cooling, administration personnel, and services. IDC goes on to show in another presentation, The Impact of Power and Cooling on Data Center Infrastructure, that the ratio of new customer spending on server hardware versus their spending on power and cooling spending will almost draw even by 2010. This ratio was about 5:1 in 2000, 2:1 in 2005, and will approach or exceed10:7 by 2010.

To help organizations combat continuing increases in spending for administrative, cooling and power costs, HP this past spring introduced its new line of HP ProLiant G6 servers. These deliver exceptional performance and, more importantly, substantial gains in performance-per-watt compared to past generations and enable customers to get more value out of every dollar spent. In addition, HP's innovations in server management are helping to ensure that the current iteration of ProLiant servers is the most efficient in HP's history.

HP has always been a leader in various performance benchmarks but the ProLiant G6 is clearly focused on delivering the maximum performance per watt. Two of the more interesting 'power' features on the G6 that highlight HP's increased focus on delivering lower ongoing OPEX costs for end-users include:

The addition of the Sea of Sensors. Each ProLiant G6 has approximately 32 small sensors across the system that take real-time thermal measurements and pass that data back to intelligent embedded software which manages temperature across the server. This process enables it to accomplish tasks such as optimizing fan speeds, expansion slots and memory so they operate optimally without overheating the system. In other words, the components get just enough cooling to operate properly without costly and wasteful over-cooling.
The standardization of common power slots. Almost all ProLiant G6 servers can use the same type of power supply. Power supplies operate more efficiently the higher they are utilized. Therefore, the least wasteful system would use power supplies that provide just enough power to the internal components, enabling the supplies to meet or exceed 90% efficiency. By using common form factor power supplies, users can deploy systems with ones optimized for the servers being deployed. This enables OEMs to optimize the deployment of ProLiant G6 based upon this standardized power configuration while also lowering the costs of sparing parts and restocking fees for HP support.

These improvements in energy efficiency and server management should come as great news for OEMs as they can now send two new messages to their customers. First, the ProLiant G6 servers provide new levels of power control so OEMs can accommodate their customers that are tapped out on power and/or need to reduce their power consumption within their data centers. By capping server power consumption, solutions can confidently be deployed in environments with very limited power budgets available.

The other message OEMs can communicate is that the ProLiant G6 gives them new software tools to combat the high costs associated with server administration. The HP ProLiant Onboard Administrator provides customers with simplified server setup, power and thermal control, extended health monitoring, and integrated lights-out (iLO) remote administration.

ProLiant G6 customers and/or their service providers can then leverage this technology to more effectively remotely manage their servers over a LAN, from a separate network, via the Internet, or even using side band connections if network ports are at a premium. The goal is to allow server administration from anywhere regardless where the server is located, be it in the same building, across town, or halfway around the world. These features ultimately enable OEMs to provide better value and service to their customers.

If there is any down side to the release of HP ProLiant G6 server it would have to be that the popularity of these new innovations created a demand problem. As a result, it took time for some OEMs to acquire these systems in house and limited their ability to do their own internal testing and validation. While these supply problems are now largely resolved, the time it took to correct this situation may have resulted in a lack of understanding about the ProLiant G6's capabilities and delayed its release from OEMs.

This is when OEMs can be best served by a OEM distributor such as Bell Micro that has a tight relationship with HP and can help OEMs help their customers realize the benefits that next-gen server hardware like the ProLiant G6 provides. Offering a well developed OEM program and having worked with ProLiant technology for years, Bell Micro can help OEMs come up to speed and deploy these technologies into their customer environments more quickly than if an OEM just bought the technology and started playing with it themselves. Faster time to revenue is a key benefit of partnering with Bell Micro and HP.

Recent evidence suggests that the operational costs associated with server hardware are only going to go up unless organizations pro-actively educate themselves about these issues and head them off.

So whether it is explaining what new management features are available on the ProLiant G6 or assisting OEMs in leveraging the remote monitoring and administrative capabilities to extend an OEM's service capabilities that's needed, Bell Micro can help OEMs with these tasks. In so doing, Bell Micro can help ensure that the HP solutions offered by OEMs run optimally once deployed, keep the OEMs' and the OEMs customers' management costs down over time and then can even potentially help them pro-actively diagnose issues before the OEM's customers know they exist.

HP Reseller Option Kits (ROKs) Create New Flexibility for Bundled OEM Solutions

2009-10-07T10:00:00Z

OEMs face tough competition and slim margins so they are continually looking for ways to reduce costs while still providing exceptional products and service to their customers. One of the more favored tactics for OEMs to accomplish this is to get as many of the required components to build or support their solutions from a single source. This breadth of offering (Single-Source Acquisition) is just one approach mentioned in the "The Top 10 Hidden Costs Experienced by Most Embedded Systems (OEM) Businesses" white paper that helps OEMs realize the use of distributors such as Bell Micro's OEM division can simplify integration, provide for common support, and enable OEMs to provide better value at lower costs that can be directly passed down to their end customers.

Purchasing both server and OS together is one example of these bundled solutions that provide an inexpensive way to transfer licenses along with machines down to the end customer. Offered by a select handful of vendors (HP, Lenovo, and Dell) reseller kits can save OEMs a considerable amount of money as well as streamline support services. However those OEMs that want the convenience and flexibility associated with ordering and stocking, desire to maintain or improve customer satisfaction and still keep product acquisition, inventory, and support costs down, HP offers an HP-branded Microsoft Windows Server operating system as a Reseller Option Kit (ROK) for HP ProLiant servers.

While many others rely on the standard Microsoft kit, HP does stand out within this select group--owning their kits and offering considerable flexibility, value, and customization that others do not necessarily have and have not even bothered to offer.

For example, in response to high customer demand for earlier Windows Server versions, HP offers media inside their kits that supports and allows downgrade rights. No one else seems to be offering this. Rather competitors instead force customers to re-contact OEMs, incur additional charges, and wait for the media to be sent & received; ultimately prolonging the whole process. As you can imagine, obtaining this type of offering is anything but easy as Microsoft does not really want anyone to use prior versions of their OS.

The HP ROK removes much of the complexity from this process as it is part of the installation process of HP products. During installation the ROK simply checks the BIOS to verify the hardware is in fact an HP product which requires no licensing forms, no activation during installation, and no entering of product keys.

Worth noting for OEMs, usage of the ROK is the only licensing option that they can use to transfer their solutions to their customer. In other words, if OEMs were to use a different license like an open license or a volume license, it is actually a violation and negates the ability to receive any support from Microsoft. So the ROK is the only way to transfer the OS with a solution that the OEM is putting together.

The HP ROK also provides a consolidated support program. OEMs that purchase the ROK are given 90 days of free software and hardware installation support. This eliminates the finger pointing that can occur if a customer calls Microsoft and Microsoft responding by saying that it is a hardware problem and you should call HP or calling HP and it potentially telling customers the same thing. Instead customers can call one number at HP which would provide them access to experts on HP hardware as well as expertise on Microsoft's OS as well.

For an OEM, HP ROKs are very compelling as they provide a lower cost alternative to purchasing hardware and software separately. HP ROKs are just another way OEMs can offer the exceptional benefits of a tested and certified Windows OS on a ProLiant server to help lower costs for their end customers as well as help lower the costs associated with product development.

But getting these kits into the hands of OEMs often takes the experience of a distributor that knows the ropes and has worked with HP in the past. OEMs can be better served by distributors such as Bell Micro who have key relationships with HP and can help these OEMs get to that next level quickly with any deployment issues. After all, Bell Micro has a well developed OEM program and has worked with ProLiant technology for years in either a distributor or reseller role. As such, Bell Micro is easily positioned to help OEMs purchase appropriate options and ensure speedy deployment of solutions.

Branded OEM Appliance Solutions Can Deliver both Lower Costs AND Increased Revenue

2009-07-24T10:00:00Z

Delivering software specific solutions in the form of appliances have turned niche software applications such as deduplication into some of today's hottest mainstream technologies. But independent software vendors (ISVs) can still be fearful that offering their software in the form of an appliance can rob from existing revenue streams and create new support costs. In this final segment of a 3-part series, independent consultant to Bell Micro, Tom Baylark, discusses how offering software on an appliance can broaden software's appeal without increasing and even possibly lower ISV costs.

DCIG: Is this a net new revenue stream for ISVs or does it steal from existing ones?

Tom: The answer is yes to both of these questions. There will be a set of customers who will choose to have an integrated appliance versus another standalone appliance that they have to manage. Right now the customer manages all of that complexity today.

But it opens up new revenue streams by exposing ISVs to a set of customers that they would normally not have access to. It is an incremental revenue stream so it will not replace a huge part of ISVs' business initially. It will start small and grow as people begin to adopt it.

Look at deduplication. That is one technology that is very hot. There have been data deduplication vendors for a quite a long time. Now people are looking to buy appliances that they can put on the network and just perform that function for them.

What we haven't talked about yet is what appliances save. If we ask ISVs today, "How much of their support calls end up being hardware related?", this is something that many of them can't put their finger on.

I was dealing with a financial services vendor last year who told me that 80+% of the time when it went to install its software, the configuration (software stack) put together by the customer according to the ISV's specifications was wrong. So the ISV had to do the install and configuration again and again before it was right.

How many times do ISVs get a call from the customer that their software isn't working right only to find out the server is broken? Wouldn't it be nice to call the appliance/server vendor and have them go out to do the diagnostics and field replacement of that appliance of this server, especially if it is installed some place like Singapore?

DCIG: When you say 80% of the problems are hardware related, are you referring to the OS stack on down?

Tom: It would be the OS stack on down but to the ISV that amounts to the hardware. Using an appliance opens up new markets and saves time, money, people - all costs that ISVs would like to shed.

DCIG: Some ISVs are sensitive to remaining hardware agnostic. How do they bring a standardized appliance into their portfolio to their customers?

Tom: You promote the functionality of the appliance and not what is inside. Going back to the example of the TiVo, you don't know what kind of hardware it is running on or what version of Linux is on it. Branding becomes essential to brand recognition. Depending on how ISVs implement this, hardware vendors will now let the ISV have their brand on the appliance.

This is now the ISV's data deduplication appliance and if a customer wants to buy data deduplication, then it is just another SKU that the channel sells the customer just like it always has been as it is just another hardware product. Then, by the way, if the customer still wants to buy the software to run on its agnostic server, fine.

This also opens up is out of band management as a revenue stream for the channel. The channel is not adding more stress to the customer's already stressed infrastructure by saying, "You, Mr. Customer, need to have my monitoring software running on your server."

The monitoring software is already baked into the appliance that the reseller is supplying so the customer does not have to add the reseller's remote monitoring software to its software stack. But because it is baked in, the reseller can now get into software as a service or functionality as a service since this appliance is running in the customer's environment.

Selling the appliance greatly increases an ISV's sales force by making its product channel friendly. There is nothing like having more people out there talking about your product on your behalf.

DCIG: Any final comments or thoughts that you would like to share?

Tom: Entering into this whole concept of delivering appliances to the market can be full of challenges and perceived costs. Like anything today, one way of mitigating cost and risk while reaping all of the rewards and returns is by effective partnering. Choosing the right partner is absolutely paramount to success in this space to help ISVs overcome the challenges and not experience the downsides of making mistakes in this space.

The Bell Micro "Build OEM Better" program leverages Bell's experience in delivering OEM solutions to the market. It leverages Bell's experience and infrastructure to allow ISVs to have a holistic offering and support the end-to-end needs that they had throughout the life cycle of bringing a solution to market. Helping to manage the engineering challenges, helping to handle the stocking of products in remote locations, handling the certification, handling the testing, and even handling the integration of the products if ISVs still want to ship software to Bell Micro and have Bell Micro do all of the integration and testing.

An ISV could well come into this space and say, "I am an ISV, I run on x86 hardware and I want to get into the appliance space." Here are my target customers and here is my solution. Bell Micro can take it from there and help them very quickly realize a solution that will meet their needs in this space. There is not a lot of that going on in the market from my perspective. I have not seen anyone else come out with this sort of program that touches people at every point of need throughout the life cycle of supporting the ongoing issues of ISV appliance solutions.

In part 1 of this 3-part series, DCIG met with Tom to discuss why ISVs should consider offering their software on an appliance and how appliances can improve their relationship with the channel.

In part 2 of this 3-part series, Tom discussed why some standardized hardware platforms are better solutions than a heterogeneous, white box solution and how branded solutions differ.

Branded Hardware Platforms are NOT Created Equal

2009-07-10T10:00:00Z

Resellers and their customers increasingly expect that the software they use for specific applications such as video surveillance and CAT Scans is delivered to them in the form of appliances for faster, turnkey deployments. But just because the software is bundled with hardware in the form of an appliance does not mean all solutions are the same, even those delivering branded appliance solutions. In this second of a 3-part series, independent consultant to Bell Micro, Tom Baylark, discusses why some standardized hardware platforms are better solutions than a heterogeneous, white box solution and how branded solutions differ.

DCIG: What benefits does a standardized hardware platform offer over a heterogeneous hardware platform for an independent software vendor (ISV)?

Tom: I have to put an asterisk by this statement because all branded hardware is not alike. One of the challenges that OEM manufacturers like Bell Micro have historically had with vendors who were very price competitive and price-focused and have had a price advantage, such as Dell, in the OEM space is that they may not maintain a consistent platform.

As an ISV you may tune your application to run on a specific piece of hardware with specific components. However, at a later date during a support call, your support staff may need to go inside of the server and change out the network card with a new network card. Performing that task may blow up the appliance because the application was tuned to run on that appliance with that older network adapter. The consistency in the ruggedness and the enterprise features, even in the branded environments, are not necessarily always there.

When it comes to selecting hardware vendors, I put them into two piles. There is the custom-build, white box type of environment. The ISV wants to do some really radical customization on the box. In these circumstances, the ISV doesn't want to allow any changes on the box and wants to see a roadmap for the next five years on this box.

From a customer and reseller perspective, they do not know what version of hardware is running on Linux is running their DVR nor do they care - they just want their DVR to work. From an ISV perspective, they want the underlying technology in the DVR below market price and I want the technology as soon as it comes out. The ISV will do their own support and engineering of this product.

Then there is the branded version. Using a branded version, ISVs can leverage the high-end engineering that will go into a brand-name server as well as the global services provision that the server provider can deliver on the ISV's behalf. Further, if an ISV is going to sell into a DOD or HIPAA environment where folks are shooting for compliance, they may be able to leverage the certification that global vendors like HP have already obtained as part of delivering their appliance-based solutions to the market. Putting the ISV's software on these servers automatically leverages that existing certification.

The reasons to use a branded solutions therefore are three-fold: (1) Acceptance into the data center; (2) The ability to leverage the brand with customers; and, (3) Faster time to market since the product is already developed so all the ISV needs to do is just put its software stack on it so resellers and customers can deploy it more simply.

But as I said earlier, ISVs who are looking at branded solutions need to be aware that within branded solutions there are differences between vendors and choosing the right partner or partners is essential to success.

DCIG: One of the things that Bell Micro talks about is its unique ability to take a branded piece of equipment like the HP ProLiant server and enable customization of that with third party components like video or sound cards or other components that are better suited for the OEM product. How is this helpful to ISVs?

Tom: Bell Micro talks about the value of the product but creating the product is the easy part of bringing the appliance to market. But those ISVs who have never brought an appliance to market before probably do not understand this and this is one of the big issues. ISVs are more accustomed to burning CDs and making labels as their approach to bringing their solution to market is to verify that the manual that accompanies the CD is correct.

Bell Micro takes them from that approach to actually managing the inventory and design to introducing new products and testing and certifying them. The ISV finds out that the solution is the easy part. According to research, the cost of doing this is a very small slice of the overall pie. Selecting a partner to help you through these things is essential. Bell Micro is steeped in experience that is difficult to buy but it helps the ISV through the entire life cycle of bringing their appliance-based solution to market.

DCIG: Do ISVs think this is too hard so they push back?

Tom: You do need to be honest and say here is the tough part about this. ISVs don't want to add this complexity. All ISVs need to add is someone who can assume the responsibility with maintaining the relationship with the right sort of partner. There are partners out there who can help ISVs with everything they need to do so they don't need to incur the costs of manpower, experience, infrastructure, and making mistakes since this is the first time they are doing it.

In part 1 of this 3-part series, DCIG met with Tom to discuss why ISVs should consider offering their software on an appliance and how appliances can improve their relationship with the channel.

Customers, Channel Now Rely on Appliances to Deliver Latest Software Functionality

2009-06-22T10:00:00Z

Independent software vendors (ISVs) that sell software based on x86 hardware platforms face a new type of challenge in today's economic environment. While their software can run on any vendor's hardware platform, the time it takes for them to install, configure and support their software on each platform gives resellers pause and is prompting resellers and customers alike to look for the ISV's software in the form of appliance-based solutions. In this first of a 3-part series, DCIG meets with Tom Baylark, an independent consultant to Bell Micro, to discuss why ISVs should consider offering their software on an appliance and how appliances can improve their relationship with the channel.

DCIG: Why should ISVs consider making their software part of an appliance? How will this help them in the channel?

Tom: If you take a look around, customers are starting to rely more on appliances in all aspects of life whether it is the MRI or CAT Scan machine at the hospital or the remote data terminals that are popping up in healthcare. These are all appliances meaning they are running a specific application on a specific piece of dedicated computer hardware.

People who have digital video recorders (DVRs) today in the form of TiVO or whatever brand they have built into their satellite literally have a little Linux server inside of their house with a specific type of application that is running on top of it. In the data center, customers have firewalls and networked attached storage which again are dedicated servers running a specific type of application.

Can you imagine having to purchase the operating system and the software functionality to implement a TiVO? Can you imagine having to purchase that stack to implement your network attached storage?

No, customers want it all-in-one; it's simpler. This is always a real plus that an ISV has when they can say, "Put this system or this solution to a specific problem in your environment, turn it on and in a very small period of time, it will rapidly configure, you can install it and you can see all of the benefits and none of the hassles of trying to make sure it integrates into your business."

In regards to the channel, the appliance fits well with the traditional channel because the channel likes to sell their experiences and promote their success in "fixing" entities. The channel likes to say, "I have a server", "I have a piece of storage", "I have a switch", "I have a NAS box", "I have this piece of functionality" that it can sell you and it doesn't have to be an expert on the software functionality.

The channel doesn't like selling Oracle databases because they have to be Oracle database savvy. Due to the amount of products that traditional channel partners are trying to contend with, having to develop expertise on any particular piece of software is not really practical plus then they have to supply support for it. They know they can't just sell software and run away as the customer will want to call them when it is not working and if they don't have the expertise to manage it, that doesn't look good in the eyes of the customers. The channel is very good at selling fixed entities such as appliances. It's here, it has a SKU and I can sell it. It is an easy sell.

DCIG: Software vendors, even those that work through the channel, don't always know that. What is your experience in this regards?

Tom: With very horizontal applications like backup and recovery, over time the reseller may embrace the idea of putting together a practice around being able to go and execute a holistic sales cycle around those types of solutions. But for the most part, if the customer wants a specific software solution, the reseller will get the box of software and leave it on the customer to manage the implementation and all of the life cycle of the software stack.

I don't see that changing any time soon. From a perception standpoint, software is many times seen by the channel as a real headache.

DCIG: So resellers see software as taking too long to sell?

Tom: Absolutely. The sales cycles goes through the roof because, from a customer perspective, hardware is pretty simply to buy as customers have been buying hardware for a long time. When it gets down to the software functionality, customers have to do significantly more expensive testing, the decision cycle takes longer to happen and, since software is more expensive, it has to go through more levels of review during the sales cycle. Resellers just do not want to deal with that.

Further, hardware does add some tangibility to what it is that the reseller is selling. The customer can see it, the brand name is sitting there and the blinking lights are happening on the reseller's behalf.

DCIG: When you are talking to ISVs about the Bell Micro OEM business, what is their reaction? Does it convince them or are they still skeptical?

Tom: ISVs are very interesting folks. The only value they see is in their piece of software. From the ISV perspective, isn't hardware just free? Heck, it is an X86, just plug it in and go. That's the model that has been successful for them.

But there are challenges that are going on today that are going to change how ISVs have to act in order to be successful and grow effectively. There are some companies that have been very happy with the status quo. Well, the status quo is going downhill if you have looked at your 401(k) lately.

There are resellers who are just marking time and trying to hang on as they have no growth strategy for 2009. The goal of two of the resellers I have talked to is to just be around in 2010. At the end of 2010, they just want to be here. They are marking time and saying they plan to keep on doing things just the way they have been doing them.

As you get into the public sector or larger enterprises, these sectors give to their technology providers a list of preferred vendors and anything they buy has to have a specific vendor's logo on it. It is pretty cool when you put together a solution and it is all HP running this vendor's software.

That is an immediate pull. If a reseller goes into a data center now and the reseller wants to implement an email recovery system, the data center may say, "Great!" But when the data center looks at the solution and sees a little white box, it may say, "No way! We are not putting a white box in because we only buy HP servers." In that situation, it behooves the ISV to align with a specific hardware vendor like HP and manufacture some sort of appliance.

In part 2 of this 3-part series, Tom discusses why some standardized hardware platforms are better solutions than a heterogeneous, white box solution and how branded solutions differ.

In part 3 of this 3-part series, Tom discusses how offering software on an appliance can broaden software's appeal without increasing and even possibly lowering ISV costs.

Branded Solutions or White Boxes for Geeks: Bell Micro Supplies and Supports Both

2009-06-11T10:00:00Z

Build your own (white box) or purchase an industry-branded solution for implementation of appliances - that is the question. Even today, this question continues to plague many customers as well as divide OEM businesses. Depending on the equipment (components or solutions) OEMs are quick to argue their case as to why white boxes are better than a branded solution or vice versa. However each solution has its place in the market. And, for the smart OEM, maybe the choice doesn't have to be one or the other.

White Box. Companies looking to build a solution that solves a problem in a very unique way - usually faster application performance - typically includes a specific hardware element in their solution. As a result, they are at the forefront of technology and innovation and require newer and faster components that deliver a superior, combined software and hardware solution.

Choosing an industry-standard solution is almost out of the question since they have designed their own computing or processing architecture while leveraging some kind of real-time operating system. Time is of the essence and building a very specific purpose-built piece of equipment, such as a specialized card that they put in a system to leverage some aspect of the x86 architecture, is the only way to speed their time to market.

Branded Solution. It's no secret that many software vendors are moving to a branded appliance platform as it can more easily solve a set of problems for those vendors that in the past have deployed solutions on a white box platform. Customers deploying branded equipment typically don't need the state of the art or bleeding edge technology to offer a great solution. All that they require is a solid technology with robust options that they can take advantage of.

Industry-branded solutions enable companies to quickly go to market on brand name hardware. The hardware provider includes its own engineering and global field support and has gone through a number of certification and qualification processes that meet the requirements of individual customers. But the downside that OEMs can face is if they for some reason need to tweak the standard configuration of the hardware vendor's branded solution, they can potentially break - and void - the hardware vendor's warranty or support contracts.

The challenge that some suppliers like Bell Micro face is how to compete against branded solutions when their legacy is delivering white box solutions. Though Bell Micro continues to have success with customers who use white box solutions, it finds that it is competing more frequently against players like Dell. As a result, only offering white boxes is a huge obstacle when a customer needs or wants an industry branded solution.

But the face of Bell Micro is changing. What DCIG sees Bell Micro doing is redefining itself through its OEM relationships with partners such as HP in a way that is truly unique in the market place. Bell Micro is expanding its set of solutions to include both white box and branded solutions so it can provide customers a real choice that makes sense for their particular solution while eliminating some of the downsides that using branded solutions typically present.

If a customer wants the benefits of a branded solution so they can take advantage of global service, standardization, and certification, Bell Micro can help provide an industry branded solution from HP without compromising on application requirements. What makes obtaining an HP-branded offering from Bell Micro unique is that OEMs can work with Bell Micro to develop the branded HP solution to meet their specific application requirement without voiding the standard HP warranty or support. Conversely, if the customer wants complete control over the configuration and a stable configuration with a really long life, Bell Micro can help get that customer into an appropriate white box solution.

The point is that Bell Micro supports both solutions in a unique way. Bell enables OEM customers to integrate third-party components into HP servers and still retain the warranties and support agreements. This now gives OEMs a single supplier to call whether they want to pursue the white box option where Bell Micro is the industry leader in these solutions or a branded solution that meets their specific needs without voiding the hardware warranty or both.

To educate OEMs about this new offering, Bell Micro's strategy is to talk to customers, let them know they now offer a complete range of solutions and then help them step through the business drivers that will help them make a decision between a white box or appliance solution.

Acting as a trusted advisor, Bell Micro understands that there are customers with different needs in different product lines. Now due to its new and enhanced relationship with HP, Bell Micro can help deliver solutions that meet either of their customers' needs. In this role, Bell Micro can leverage either approach to address their customers' needs if and when your needs change (such as when the next version of a product is released) so that they can still leverage Bell Micro without having to change their supply chain just because their choice of architecture changes.

HP-Bell Micro OEM Relationship Puts Focus on TCO

2009-05-29T12:20:00Z

This blog entry contains a series of questions DCIG posed to Jeff Otchis, OEM Program Manager at HP. Jeff's role consists of supporting and growing the ISS (Industry Standard Servers) OEM business through the Americas channel by working closely within HP and with channel partners to define business metrics and increase the revenue stream through OEM efforts. In this interview, Jeff gives us his insight and perspective on OEMs, how OEMs fit into HP's program, and how HP has been working with Bell Micro.

DCIG: Jeff, while you've been with HP for almost 10 years, you've been OEM Program Manager at HP for only 9 months, surely there has been a hurdle or two making the transition. What would you say your biggest challenge or learning curve has been?

Jeff: The biggest learning curve for me is remembering that this isn't a transactional purchase. There is a significant sales cycle here. HP has become accustomed to companies asking for 1,000 servers and walking out the door with them. The OEM solution is very different because, in part, there may be additional certification requirements or customization. Even if the solution calls for standard HP servers the OEM is likely to ask for additional engineering support to test and certify the specific configuration for legal and quality purposes. There is just a long selling, test and certification cycle before a single unit goes out the door.

DCIG: Just to level-set our readers, how does HP define OEM business in terms of solution and focus?

Jeff: Our definition of an OEM is a company out there who has a piece of technology that they want to partner with and put on someone else's platform to help get their overall solution out to customers. The technology is usually single focused but the HP portion of the technology should be less than 50% of the overall solution. Our goal is to take advantage of the size and scope of Bell Micro's sales force, their logistic capabilities, financing abilities, etc. and really meet the small and mid-market customers who historically have deployed white box or Dell solutions and get them on a HP solution.

DCIG: How are you coming along in meeting these objectives? Where have you seen the greatest progress or achievements during the last year?

Jeff: We have made a lot of great progress with Bell Micro. We've finished all of our field training, done a variety of webinars and calls with the field, put together some great collateral pieces, and updated websites. The field sales force has a solid foundation and is ready to go and talk about the HP ProLiant and BladeSystem value added capabilities. It's really hard to sell the value of HP if you don't understand what that value is and that's where we've really been focused--Getting everyone, both sales and technical people, on the Bell Micro team up to speed on what we feel our capabilities are.

DCIG: What would you say HP's value is?

Jeff: It's interesting as I've been working with industry standard computing for over 10 years now and HP has always managed to stay 1 or 2 steps ahead of the competition. We are able to take the same processor, memory, hard drive, and other technologies and focus on innovation. Remembering and getting that message across is not always easy. I can remember, earlier in my career, HP went through a stage where people got caught up in price comparisons.

Now we are going back to what we do best which is focusing on the overall solution and remembering that with HP the acquisition cost is less important than the total cost of ownership. So doing innovative things like common spares that can be used across the entire product portfolio to save both our OEM and Bell Micro money because they have to have fewer pieces of hardware in the service depot, continuity of look and feel across our entire product portfolio so you don't have to spend significant time coming up to speed on the next generation of technology are critical values.

DCIG: Understanding how the OEM program works and how it can also work as an advantage for an OEM customer to bring a solution back through Bell Micro's reseller community with their GoServices program, do you see that as being helpful and does HP value what Bell Micro is able to add to what you can offer to the market?

Jeff: Absolutely, it's really the total package of how all the parts work together seamlessly for an OEM and the support business for the complete life cycle. I think Bell is able to really come in and help when a company comes up with a solution but doesn't want to touch hardware, deal with shipping or logistics, or deal with server hardware failures. They probably are looking for a standard trusted brand in the industry that gives them immediate credibility out of the gate.

This is where the HP and Bell Micro partnership works perfectly because they work with Bell Micro to put their software on the HP ProLiant servers, deploy it, and then never have to touch anything. And because the solution has a history of reliability and technology they are less likely to deal with phone calls because of hardware failure or lack of continuity of the image build.

DCIG: With the economic conditions right now, is there anything you are doing financially to help OEMs get their products out in the market quicker?

Jeff: I would say that is were Bell Micro's capabilities come in. While HP does have a complete HP financial services organization that is able to come in and do that, HP is fully aware that one of Bell Micro's greatest value-adds is their financial flexibility and support. Finance is a key area where Bell Micro is able to help these smaller OEMs that may need a little assistance in that area. But, given the HP and Bell Micro relationship, if Bell Micro were to say they have this great opportunity and it requires pulling in HP financial services, we absolutely could do that.

DCIG Final Thoughts: OEMs are learning that partnerships are critical to quickly deploying solutions in the marketplace. Key relationships, such as HP and Bell Micro, take time to develop. The good news is that HP and Bell Micro seem to have figured out how they complement one another and HP's quality engineering coupled with Bell Micro services seem to be a match made for OEMs.

HP Versus Dell: It's Pay Me Now or Pay Me Later

2009-05-15T10:00:00Z

This blog entry contains a series of questions DCIG posed to Andy Johnson, OEM Product Manager at Bell Micro. Andy maintains a business development role for Bell Micro and has responsibility for Bell Micro's branded solutions with a strong focus on Bell Micro's HP relationship. In this interview, Andy gives us insight into how Bell Micro is working with HP to satisfy the OEM market and in particular how Bell Micro and HP provide solutions that differentiate it from the competition.

DCIG: Andy, firstly, why don't you tell us what your main role at Bell Micro is and what you plan on accomplishing?

Andy: My charter is to enable Bell Micro's field sales organization to successfully grow. I am a customer facing resource whose main goal is simply to figure out how to spend 70% of my time talking to customers about programs and supporting the sales team. Based upon that interaction, I determine what kinds of tools Bell Micro need to have in place and what kind of campaigns are needed to generate demand in our market to sell a boatload of HP product.

DCIG: When we look at the OEM business out there right now, it seems to be categorized or split between OEMs that require appliances and those that are looking to build their own. How do you see these two different categories of OEMs?

Andy: On the appliance side I think there are those out there who should, whether they know it or not, be looking at an appliance strategy. For instance, we have seen companies in the security market be very successful with appliance plays. They are really a software company at heart so when you take their software and load it up on an x86 platform, it becomes an appliance. Those who haven't made the move to an appliance platform should consider the move as it could solve many problems for them such as:

Simplify field support so they don't have to support their product on every platform out there - they just have to support their appliance
It has the benefit of driving top-line revenue for them.
There is benefit of selling something that isn't just a piece of software. It has substance to it so they can brand it, make it their own and people see it when they walk into a data center.
It differentiates them from the competition.

DCIG: What about those OEMs that are looking to build something?

Andy: This other segment of OEMs are those who are looking to build a solution that has a proprietary hardware element to it meaning that it isn't just a software solution. Maybe they have a card of their own that they want to drop in to leverage the x86 architecture as a way to speed their time to market.

The choices are different for these OEMs on the hardware side as these companies, or more precisely their engineering teams, have typically grown up designing their own computing or processing architecture and controlling it via a real-time operating system such as Wind River or something similar. This is fine except for the fact these companies have to find resources with a somewhat specialized skill set.

If, on the other hand, you look at the x86 architecture and now decide to use some version of Linux, the OEM can draw from a vast pool or resources in the labor pool who understand Linux kernel development or Linux application development. These individuals are relatively easy to find and will cost less money to develop and support the product.

DCIG: This whole idea of going into the appliances is a little new for the Bell Micro sales team and certainly is something Dell has been doing very successfully. What do you perceive as Bell Micro's biggest obstacles to being successful?

Andy:. Plain and simple, it's the ability to position HP well against Dell as Bell Micro's sales force just hasn't had a lot of practice positioning either a white box or an HP solution vs. Dell. The sales force is accustomed to taking our white box solution out against Dell and getting beat up and then not winning.

Customers have matured to where they see the advantage of an industry standard platform, and HP is far superior to Dell. We need to develop a set of target customers within different geographies and then go in and talk to those customers about HP and an appliance infrastructure built around HP. We have such a compelling story that it's all about getting in front of customers, hearing someone like me tell the story, getting a couple of wins, and then replicating what works within the sales team.

DCIG: So, when you get in front of customers, and let's say Dell comes up, what kind of message are you trying to convey?

Andy: So the dynamic that is at play, when you're talking to someone about HP and they are also considering Dell, many customers see HP and Dell as having, on the surface, a similar service offering. For instance, you can go to Dell or HP and get 24x7 onsite support. What I like to talk about is what the service strategy is for a company. HP's strategy is to invest in engineering and to design the most reliable platform possible with the goal of not having service events to reduce service costs.

At Dell, who is by the way really just an integrator and not really doing the engineering of solutions, they offer the same level of service and do a good job at showing up and meeting their SLAs but they're spending more on supporting the service call. So the real question we try and ask a customer is: "What do you really want and what is your cost of downtime?" If we can turn a customer's focus from inexpensive hardware to talking about the reliability of the platform and how you will need to exercise your service contract less, we can quickly prove the value of HP.

DCIG: Give us a few proof points.

Andy: First and foremost an OEM gets the acclaimed HP engineering with industry leading MTBF. This means you're going to have fewer failures and increased uptime. Also remember that just because someone shows up to fix a problem does not necessarily mean the problem is fixed.

For instance, if it's a part of the platform that Dell doesn't really own from a development perspective (by the way, this includes all of the hardware components) and they have to go through several other organizations in order to get help to fix the real issue, how does that really help the customer that has a critical piece of equipment sitting idle?

With HP, you are more likely to get a badged HP employee that shows up in the HP service plan and they have access to the HP engineering community that developed the product. With Dell they are contracting with somebody for the onsite support. What I want to communicate is that not all services are created equal. HP will make the investment in over engineering the product so you have fewer service events while Dell is going to spend money supporting the service event.

DCIG Final Thoughts: For OEMs, looking for a trusted and reliable partner can lead down two similar but completely different roads. The old saying "Pay me now or pay me later" clearly resonates with many organizations that find it difficult to justify costs today that may never need to be paid in the future. With budgets tightening, companies will need to weigh up-front costs against the potential of lost revenues to down systems or lost customers. Together, Bell Micro and HP are driving a stake in the ground and betting that OEMs will be looking for a superior engineered solution that is more reliable and highly available and can stand the test of time.

Driving Down Development Costs Calls for A New Model Based on End-to-End Linux Support

2009-05-08T10:00:00Z

Shrinking budgets, floundering development teams, limited resources, backlogged projects and lack of stakeholder engagement are common occurrences among development teams. Yet developers are continually asked by management to remain flexible in their product designs while increasing their productivity. Making matters worse, the size and quantity of development projects continue to increase so it becomes more difficult to obtain a clear sense of direction from management that forces development teams to become less flexible, not more. As a result, many business opportunities fade as it takes too long to build solutions that companies need to succeed.

To counter this, companies need to find ways to maintain flexibility, scalability, stability and portability in their development of solutions while shortening the development cycle and containing costs. The good news is that the risks associated with free operating systems such as Linux are now far behind us and many development teams are taking advantage of its cost effectiveness and modularity to remain flexible within the development cycle.

For instance, the underlying Linux device driver model allows independent hardware vendors to create source code that can easily integrate into the Linux kernel or even be accepted into the primary Linux kernel. This modularity in design and implementation makes it easy to add, modify or remove specific pieces of the kernel to create a solution that is tailored to a specific purpose--something undoable with proprietary and closed operating systems such as Windows that require development against a predefined application binary interface (ABI) and restricts driver integration.

Under closed situations, developers can only hope and wait for any key ABI call that may be required for future development. But the Linux modularity enables development team to create their own features or hooks into the kernal and actually expedite the development process.

One can hardly argue against the success of Linux. User and developer communities such as The Linux Foundation and The Linux Developer Network attest to the success and steadily increasing set of robust development tools and user communities. And while Linux is still free, many large distributors, companies such as Dell, IBM, HP, and Sun Microsystems, have latched onto its benefits by creating business models that support selling, supporting and contributing to the Linux free software and open source initiatives.

As a market leader in offering Linux servers, HP has consistently been at the top of the hardware vendor list. In an IDC press release, Jie Wu, IDC's research manager for technical computing, finds that HP maintains a sizable share of the market for server revenue for the second quarter of 2008 (HP with 37%, IBM with 27%, and Dell with 16%). In terms of developing and deploying applications on Linux, HP has a commanding lead in both Linux revenue share and units and leads IBM by 16.5 percentage points and Dell by 21.7 percentage points. This commanding share of the Linux market is rooted in HP's clear and serious commitment to the growth, maturity, and success of open source technology as it employs more than 2,500 developers and 6,500 service professionals focused on Linux.

For a developer, gaining valuable insight into the best methodologies and features for complex development projects can be difficult, especially when a deep-dive into architecture is needed. It's at these times that developers can benefit from mature and well-developed vendor relationships. As a key distribution partner of HP solutions, Bell Micro has built a strong relationship with HP that enables Bell Micro to easily extend HP's expertise to developers who can then indirectly tap HP's strong background in Linux. By buying directly from Bell Micro, companies can take better advantage of the Bell Micro and HP relationship since their developers are better positioned to access expert support during the design, development and service and support of their products and solutions that this relationship delivers.

OEMs have discovered that working with HP and Bell Micro is head and shoulders above the rest

2008-12-04T11:00:00Z

There is no compromise for telecommunication service providers (TSPs) when it comes time to provide products and services for their thousands of customers. They must act quickly and continually to supply comprehensive, reliable, and quality products for their solutions--painstakingly taking into consideration distribution channels for certified products, timely delivery, and operational savings to boost profits.

Time is money and businesses today must go to market quickly, react sooner then the competition, and respond to customer demand in a timely fashion. After talking to one TSP, we found out that working with Dell often meant spending a lot of time going to different locations as Dell was spread across more than one supplier. Critical time was spent looking at products and design parameters. Additional time was required for Dell to build a prototype 'white box' solution just to see if it would work. Comparing this with HP, this TSP was instead able to go directly to the server family group, pull up the specifications, and select the parts, service, support, and add-ons quickly--easily saving 30-50% during the design of a valid configuration. A simple run through of HP's configuration tool was all that was required to certify the solution. Interesting to note, Dell absolutely will not integrate with third-party equipment--putting a third-party video or audio card in there would invalidate the product warranty.

When push comes to shove there is nothing worse than having a customer in need. For many companies, being first to market and getting product to customers faster translates into more available revenue. And if a customer were to switch to a competitor, losses could add up into the millions. Having two competitors lined up, this TSP wisely chooses the HP and Bell Micro combination. HP was selected for their global support, product capability, efficient footprint, product quality, and product availability. And for all the right distribution reasons, Bell Micro was selected. Case in point as this TSP had a customer in dire need of 2 configured servers for a demo. With the added configuration requirement of "how fast can you get this to us", Bell Micro was able to deliver the servers within 5 business days. A task not easily accomplished in the real-world.

Sometimes you have to spend money to make money. But at least in the case of doing business with an OEM-Ready distributor you save by leveraging external resources. Bell Micro is able to do the legwork for a conservative overhead cost. Bell Micro's willingness to devote and dedicate time within the design and review process, and be available to talk through configuration options, has saved TSPs time and resources that can be directed elsewhere--saving as much as four days in the design phase alone. Breaking down additional services, this TSP has conservatively quantified a 2-3% in logistics and inventory overhead savings as well as saving 5-6% in integration of services for global availability.

Talk can be cheap. But in the case of this TSP utilizing HP and Bell Micro: iron sharpens iron. This case of a TSP OEM taking advantage of the power of an OEM-Ready distributor (Bell Micro) that has built a strong relationship with a brand name vendor (HP) is not uncommon. Many OEMs are quickly finding out that having a distributor, who has already built the infrastructure and relationship with brand name vendors, enables them to take advantage superior support and services not easily obtained by the OEM alone.

Giving VARs & OEMs some get-up and go; GoServices™ from Bell Micro help launch new recurring service offerings

2008-11-10T11:00:00Z

Providing value-add in any market can become increasingly difficult as the competition continues to mimic your every move and steal you thunder. But keeping pace with Bell Micro, and their ever expanding programs, might leave some of the competition a bit dizzy and scrambling for a response. The latest expansion in business was the introduction of HP equipment by Bell Micro to their large OEM customer base. This effectively transformed how Bell Micro, through their OEM-Ready program, is able to provide OEMs access to branded equipment along with Bell Micro resources, supply chains, product lifecycles, priority, and services available nowhere else..

In the past Bell Micro has used their expertise in the storage industry to not only sell storage but also provide a skill-set and value-add services to help OEMs build their business throughout a product's lifecycle. Recently, this analyst has come across information that Bell Micro stirring up the pot again. Just so happens, Bell Micro is rounding up vendor service offerings in the market. Then, working with a select group of vendors and VARs, Bell Micro is getting ready to introduce a new set of value-add services. With this new service offering, vendors are responsible for delivering the services in their area of expertise--allowing VARs to concentrate on selling, gain flexible financing support from Bell Micro for leased-model services, and stabilize their businesses with recurring revenue streams.

Under a new program called GoServices™, Bell Micro will be launching these services that extend beyond typical managed services to include services for assessment analysis, data management, remote management, and asset management. To make this work, Bell Micro will be drawing on their experience in relationship management between vendor and VAR while standing behind every service offering. This is not new to Bell Micro, is part of their mission, and they have proven execution in the industry, especially within their new OEM-Ready program. It is my understanding that Bell Micro has coined these areas The Four Pillars of GoServices, focusing on:

Assessment Pillar--help new customers through a needs analysis to determine the validity of innovative technologies such as consolidation, virtualization, recovery archive and backup, compliance, etc. to help lead to follow-on services and product sales
Data Pillar--supply hosted services by using proven data management technologies to build secure, efficient, scalable, and reliable systems that address the increasing demand for storage related to data growth and regulatory requirements.
Managed Pillar--provide the remote management skills and services to manage any device or technology being sold to customers.
Lifecycle Pillar--offer the services necessary to manage IT assets of a company from procurement to retirement to help lower both OEMs cost as well as those of the customer.

Proof things are working, albeit behind the scenes, I've heard that Teneros, a provider of application continuity appliances for Microsoft Exchange 2003 and 2007, just happens to be one of the vendors. For Teneros, it would make complete sense to turn around and offer their Software as a Service (SaaS) offering through the GoServices program--making Teneros both an OEM customer of Micro Bell, and a vendor in the GoServices program. Something I would assume other VARs/OEMs will soon express a desire to take part in. For the same reasons VARs and OEMs work with Bell Micro, jumping on the bandwagon to provide services back through Bell Micro as GoServices vendors makes more than good business. GoServices have the potential to go far beyond the strong manufacturer relationships already built by Bell Micro. With the proper tools, support, and services Bell Micro stands alone in offering VARs a method to transform traditional transaction-based reseller businesses into a broad set of service offerings.

Helping OEMs Build a Greener Solution

2008-10-03T10:00:00Z

Turn off the light! How many times have we heard that when we were a child? We should have seen the writing on the wall. Today, we are not taking a single switch or piece of equipment for granted. Even the smallest standby power, vampire power, or phantom loads are being measured. In our homes alone, 10% or our typical energy consumption comes from items turned off and not even being used. Imagine what corporate environments are like around the globe. For instance, in a recent IDC study (The Real Costs to Power and Cool All the World's External Storage), the number of spinning disks increases every year, at about 50% across an organization, in the next five years the storage industry will ship eight times above what has been shipped in the last eleven years, and 2007 alone we will spend over $1 billion for powering and cooling these disks.

The large costs associated with simply powering and cooling our datacenters is getting drawing large concern from corporations. In fact, many organizations are seeking out IT suppliers that offer energy-efficient equipment. It is interesting to not that in a recent IDC Survey on Green IT:

Over 50% take into consideration the greenness of their supplier
About 80% of executives consider it increasingly important for suppliers offer green equipment
The most important business driver, for the adoption of green IT, is to reduce operational costs

With the strong desire to reduce operating expenses and the push for a greener IT environment, it is becoming more and more understandable why green IT equipment is becoming the standard and encouraged. Take a look at U.S. federal agencies that purchase over $68 billion in IT equipment annually and are being encouraged, through the Federal Electronics Challenge (FEC), to:

Purchase greener electronic products
Reduce impacts of electronic products during use
Manage obsolete electronics in an environmentally safe way

In order to meet FEC obligations, federal agencies are using the Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT) as the standard and rating system to make purchasing IT equipment that meet or exceed environmental criteria. In fact, there was an Executive Order that mandates the use of EPEAT (Section 2(h). Many organizations are following suit and will only consider equipment that provides some energy efficiencies. OEMs that are unable to meet this growing demand for green IT products and services will quickly find their solution is limited and will not be considered.

The embedded systems organizations that serve OEMs, are quickly stepping up to the plate to provide and meet energy efficiencies needs. Bell Micro, for instance, is one such distributor that is working with market leading HP equipment to supply OEMs brand-value, quality, and energy efficiencies to provide advanced competitive solutions. With proven EPEAT Gold and Energy Star efficiency ratings, as can be identified by searching green technologies at softchoice.com, HP consistently builds energy-efficient and innovative technology -- enabling Bell Micro to help OEMs build a solution that differentiates, promotes efficiencies, and adds credibility.

A Better Distribution Channel for OEMs

2008-09-18T18:00:00Z

Interoperability and compatibility are two important factors when determining the viability of a stable long term platform. It makes no sense to deploy a solution that works today, have a hardware failure tomorrow, and be unable to recover. For instance, you would never want to purchase a SAN from a storage provider that is supplied by only one HBA vendor; unless of course you are willing to stockpile HBAs for the expected life of your SAN.

Many OEMs have undoubtedly encountered this same problem through their distributor channels. I personally am not encouraged when I view various distributor websites and encounter statements like: We try to inventory, find, or build replacement components to protect against product failure and EOL. No warm and fuzzy here and I'm always cautious when I read statements like "We try".

But let's face it, this can be a very risky business for OEMs. After all, what happens if an OEM commits to a distributor for components, tests and certifies the solution, and then the distributor is unable to deliver? This can have serious, if not fatal, ramifications. Complete development, testing, and certification efforts might have been wasted, product development might have to start from scratch, and a whole new technology base might need to be selected. As you can see, OEMs are effectively electing to roll the dice with a narrow technology set (possibly because of cost) ultimately hit the proverbial brick wall and face increasing costs to do business if they can't locate suitable replacement parts.

OEMs also need to consider how their technology fits into the enterprise currently and in the future. Selecting the wrong hardware platform that doesn't integrate well with other enterprise systems could negate any chance of purchase and deployment. Likewise, selecting the wrong hardware today could easily prove to be an integration disaster in the future. A very simple example is to base your system on a 32-bit architecture when everyone, or at least your target market, is moving to 64-bit. Interoperability, connectivity, and standardization can often be difficult technologies to conquer. Sometimes the only way to build a truly cohesive infrastructure is to deploy brand name equipment that has been tested and proven to work together.

To better serve OEMs, embedded systems organizations are in the process of transforming segments of their operations to build and deliver solutions on brand name equipment. Bell Micro is one such distributor that is working with market leading HP equipment to supply OEM-Ready systems and components. Simplifying on a single vendor, through the proper distributor, provides an OEM the following benefits:

As embedded systems organizations build a close relationship with brand name vendors they are able to gain visibility into product lifecycles, obtain supply priority, and have access to superior support and issue resolution
As embedded systems organizations move larger amounts of inventory they are able to command a level of attention from manufacturers others simply don't get
Gain economies of scale and lower costs by standardization by riding the coat-tails a distributors buying power
Companies can focus on the core business, not infrastructure
Working with a vendor-based system architecture, an OEM is able to standardize on hardware offerings that promote successful integrations and successful projects
The long-term partnership and commitment between an embedded system organization and a brand name vendor means an OEMs can more readily and easily take advantage of technology innovation

For OEMs, taking advantage of the relationships an embedded systems organization has built is critical to their success. Searching for replacement parts and system components and worrying about interoperability should be a thing of the past. Bell Micro has built the infrastructure and relationships with vendors such as HP to pass on pricing, support, and service benefits to OEMs--helping OEMs produce solutions that can stand the test of time.

Infrastructure Management is all in a Day's Work for Bell Micro's OEM Team

2008-09-04T10:00:00Z

Infrastructure management remains one of the nagging, unresolved issues of the information age. Companies bring more computer equipment in every size, shape and form into their data centers and offices. Getting this equipment installed and configured is rarely a problem. But tracking what pieces of equipment are under warranty, and when those warranties expire and keeping that information easily accessible when it is needed, is a rarity. Add the software maintenance contracts for each OS and application, each of which has its own expiration date, and the burden on already stressed IT teams is enormous.

The role of a Value Added Reseller (VAR) or embedded systems/OEM customer makes this type of warranty and service contract tracking even more important and difficult to accomplish. A typical VAR or OEM provides computing systems to tens or even hundreds of end-user organizations. Tracking equipment and warranty contracts across all of these customer environments is virtually impossible using traditional methods like spreadsheets. Because of this VARs and OEMs often don't know until one of their customers calls with a problem that a warranty or service contract has expired. Then, before the problem can be fixed, the warranty must be extended or the service contract must be renewed. This delays the break/fix process and lowers customer satisfaction.

More importantly to most VARs or OEMs, however, this type of gap between current equipment and systems and the contracts in place to support and service them represents significant lost revenue opportunity. Just by closing this gap - and increasing the percentage of contracts which are renewed rather than allowed to expire - VARs adn OEMs can expect to see a 15% increase in the available revenue from their installed customer base. This revenue has another advantage to these partners: it's recurring. This means it is more predictable and easier to collect than revenue from the sale of equipment or software.

Bell Micro offers a service as part of its contract with VARs and OEMs that solves the problem of infrastructure management for its partners and their end-users that offers revenue advantages. The service is called Bell Micro Asset Management. Powered by a piece of software from a company called ServTrax, the Asset Management service provides a web browser interface into a backend piece of software with a database designed to track, report and proactively alert on customer warranties and service contracts. With this service, VARs and OEMs can:

Quickly and easily generate customer proposals working with equipment and software obtained from Bell Micro
Generate reports on each of their customers as to what equipment is coming off warranty and when
More easily justify the purchase of new equipment and contract extensions
Grant their end-users access to the website for their own reporting and planning
Track trouble tickets for problems associated with equipment in the database

It is this last benefit that provides one of the more compelling reasons to use the service. If there is some sort of equipment failure or malfunction, the first piece of information that organizations typically need about how to best respond to the problem is the equipment's warranty information. By giving companies ready access to the warranty information over the web, it gives them a central point to quickly find the information they need, make an informed decision about to respond to the problem and then immediately open a trouble ticket associated with that piece of equipment if they determine that is the correct course of action. The servicing company can also then use this portal as a means to track trouble tickets and respond to problem calls from the client.

The benefits to end-users go beyond ticket tracking. Tracking warranties and service contracts enables companies to:

Predict and plan for warranty extensions and service contract renewals
Lower or eliminate repair bills by servicing faulty equipment under existing warranties
Make informed decisions about whether to maintain old equipment or buy new
Minimize data center footprints with higher capacity storage systems
Replace inefficient computer systems with newer, more energy efficient versions
Track what equipment and software they own and where it is located
Track which equipment and software requires the least and most amount of maintenance

Managing computer equipment and the warranties associated with them is one of those tasks that responsible companies know they should do but which is typically too time-consuming to successfully execute upon. By working with Bell Micro, the benefits that VARs and OEMs can receive and then offer to their own customers alleviates this problem. Bell Micro takes care of the busy work of filling out the upfront paperwork plus it makes the information securely available to business partners over the web. In so doing, companies now have the information they need at their fingertips to better manage the equipment they already own as well as justify why it is time to replace it.

A Cure to the 4-Hour Break/Fix Problem

2008-08-12T10:00:00Z

Bell Micro and HP Unveil an Authorized Support Partner (ASP) Program Designed for OEM

The last thing anyone usually thinks about is the details of the service contract when they purchase a new product. Companies at a high level may know they are signing up for next day or 4 hour break/fix support. But, in practice, there is no guarantee in the contract in terms of when they will actually get their product repaired and their application back online. All that the 4-hour service level guarantees is that a qualified technician will be on-site within 4 hours.

Support contracts for pre-assembled systems like a medical MRI device or a server embedded in a satellite television unit only further confuse the issue of who to call and what to expect. In these situations, it may not even be clear who to call for support since the company first needs to figure out which component within the unit is malfunctioning, who manufactured it and if that is the manufacturer they need to call for support.

It is this last example that is particularly problematic. The qualified technician who shows up on-site may need some help to find the computer system, which may be a server blade only after the faceplate of the MRI is unscrewed and the device opened up. This gets beyond the comfort level of most technicians as they are rightly concerned with invalidating the warranties and service contracts of a myriad of other components also embedded into the device.

In the meantime the manufacturer of the MRI is usually in the impotent position of refereeing between the uncomfortable technician and the unhappy customer. In point of fact, the warranty and service level contracts belong to the end-user - which means that the manufacturer is not even authorized under the terms of those contracts to place phone calls on their behalf. Whether the custom system is an MRI or a television satellite device or something in between, the OEM or custom systems manufacturer is likely to get caught in the middle when a break/fix problem arises.

That was until now. Bell Micro and its strategic partner, HP, recognize that pretending that this issue does not exist is not really an option and have come up with a way to solve this dilemma. Bell Micro is uniquely positioned in the value chain to solve this problem: not only does Bell receive equipment and sell it to OEMs or embedded systems manufacturers, it can also manufacture custom solutions and drop-ship them to end-user customers.

What occurred to the business leaders at Bell Micro was that they could supply a replacement for the MRI or satellite television device from inventory - and immediately fix the problem for the end-user customer. With this approach, the troublesome device can be taken off-site from the customer. Troubleshooting to diagnose and fix the problem can be done in the background, without delaying the customer. Then, the fixed device can be cycled back into inventory with no problems nor losses.

Sounds good, but as it turns out there is a fair bit of complexity to managing all of the warranties and service contracts involved in this approach. To make this work Bell Micro teamed with HP to make it possible for their OEM and embedded systems partners to perform break/fix on behalf of their end-user customers. HP made this possible by redesigning their Authorized Support Partner program for OEMs.

So what Bell Micro and HP are doing to resolve this support issue is two-fold.

First, HP now authorizes Bell Micro as an ASP on behalf of any OEM/embedded systems manufacturer working with Bell Micro. When a break/fix problem occurs, Bell is authorized to immediately replace the system from their inventory and then work with HP on behalf of the customer to diagnose and correct the problem. Warranties and service contracts are reassigned along with the new equipment.
Second, HP also now offers ASP authorization to OEM/embedded systems manufacturers who may be interested in obtaining that status. In this case, the OEM team can immediately replace the system at their customer's location and then work with HP on the correction. Again, warranties and service contracts are all reassigned transparently to the end-user customer.

The end-user problem is actually fixed within the 4-hour service level agreement window, and the end-user makes a single phone call. All of the complexity of working through the break/fix process has been removed from the shoulders of the end-user IT team.

Most companies don't really take the time to think about the details of service contracts and most just assume that when they need support that these situations will just take care of themselves. The fact of the matter is that making such assumptions about support, especially when purchasing support for pre-assembled systems, can lead to unexpectedly long service times and lengthy outages later on. It is only through recent initiatives from distributors like Bell Micro and its partner HP that both embedded system manufacturers and their customers are starting to see some resolution to this issue.

Do Four Hour Break/Fix Service Contracts Really Guarantee Anything?

2008-08-06T10:00:00Z

Most companies presume that when they purchase service contracts that guarantee four hour break/fix response times for their computer hardware, they are purchasing the appropriate level of support to ensure they can recover their new equipment should it fail for some reason. This level of confidence is especially critical in circumstances where companies deploy new hardware in conjunction with mission-critical applications - or when that equipment is embedded as part of a custom system, such as a medical device like an MRI. With these applications, any downtime is unacceptable. So companies want and need the assurance that their hardware will be back up and running and, while a four hour recovery window for these applications is still not ideal, it is better than having no time frame for a recovery at all.

Yet what many companies fail to recognize is that these service contracts guaranteeing 4 hour break/fix response times only promise one thing: a vendor response, not a hardware fix nor application availability. So if the technician shows up at the company site - or at the hospital - within 4 hours of the call being placed, the vendor has satisfied the terms of the service contract even though the problem may be no closer to being fixed than when your company originally reported the problem.

This train of thought on the part of companies represents a serious disconnect between what is promised in the service contract and what companies may think they are receiving when they purchase it. Right or wrong, the corporate expectation is typically that the vendor will have someone onsite within four hours, the equipment fixed or replaced, and the application brought back online. In the world of real life, however, companies find out only after an incident occurs that it may be hours, or even days, before the application comes back online. This disconnect helps neither the vendor, since a perception is created that the vendor failed to deliver on an in-force service contract, nor its client, since the application is out of commission until the hardware is repaired.

What good is a four-hour break/fix SLA when your MRI is out of commission for a week waiting for a repair to the embedded server? In real life, the technician that arrives on-site at the hospital may take that long just to figure out how to open up the MRI device and find the server. This situation is no less dire when the server is embedded for satellite television service, or used for more straight-forward uses - like running an Exchange or Oracle database.

Companies that purchase pre-assembled systems from embedded systems manufacturers face additional challenges. Embedded systems manufacturers procure servers and storage from distributers and then offer these pre-assembled systems with these storage and servers as one unit. The embedded systems manufacturer finds themselves as much at the mercy of the systems manufacturer as their end-user customer - and they learn the actual value of four-hour break/fix SLA's in much the same way.

Companies that purchase these pre-assembled systems with four hour break/fix service contracts may find themselves somewhat in a quandary as to who to call for support when hardware fails. Does the company call the embedded system manufacturer that understands the criticality of the application and how it operates but can not actually fix the hardware? Or, does the company call the vendor that services the server and/or storage but whose technician may not understand the hardware's role in the pre-assembled system's configuration? In this case, fixing the hardware without an understanding of how the company utilizes the pre-assembled system could ultimately break or interrupt corporate processes.

Making this situation even more complicated is that companies may actually end up with two service contracts - one for the pre-assembled system that they bought from the embedded system manufacturer and another for the hardware within the pre-assembled system. So if and when a hardware problem does occur, the company may first need to make a determination which component broke and then call the responsible vendor as opposed to just contacting the company from which they bought the system. If it is not clear where the problem lies, a company may need to call both vendors and let them sort out the problem.

Bottom line, companies that purchase these service contracts care primarily about one thing - fixing the hardware problem and bringing the application back online. This gap in understanding about what service contracts actually deliver, the problematic nature of resolving hardware issues within pre-assembled systems and the need to call multiple vendors to resolve the hardware issue only serve to frustrate companies and introduce questions about the support arm of embedded systems manufacturers.

The good news is that at least one distributor, Bell Micro, has enough experience in working with OEM customers to have identified this as an across the board issue. Bell Micro offers more immediate remedies than waiting for equipment fix, and has internally put pressure on suppliers like HP in order to bring some real resolution to this problem with better OEM-ready programs.

Bell Micro and its strategic partner HP now recognize that a customer does not want to "own" support but really wants the OEM that sold them the equipment to "own" support for it. Bell Micro also realizes that for OEMs to deliver on this customer expectation that they need an easier, more practical way to provide a one-stop shop for equipment support. In a forthcoming blog entry, I'll examine in closer detail the steps Bell Micro is taking to address this perennial challenge and what this means for companies in terms of receiving the four hour application fix that they expect when they purchase a service contract.

HP and Teneros Relationship Exemplifies Value Proposition of Bell Micro's New Distributor Model

2008-07-21T10:00:00Z

The announcement in early July that Teneros, a provider of application continuity appliances for Microsoft Exchange 2003 and 2007, selected Hewlett-Packard's (NYSE: HPQ) ProLiant DL380 G5 servers as the hardware on which to base their appliance platform is pretty straightforward on the surface. Microsoft Exchange is one of the most, if not the most, mission critical applications in many companies so it only makes sense for Teneros to use servers from HP in conjunction with their email continuity appliance to support Exchange. In these environments, Teneros wants the highest level of assurance that the hardware and software are compatible with one another and will not experience any unexpected interoperability hiccups after its email continuity appliance is deployed in the field.

Unmentioned in the announcement, however, is that Teneros elected to buy the hardware from Bell Micro, a distributor of HP products, rather than go directly to HP because of the new value proposition that Bell Micro now offers as a distributor. As referenced in an earlier blog entry, Bell Micro recently expanded its OEM-Ready programs and product offerings working with HP as a means of transforming itself to adapt to what is occurring in the embedded system manufacturer world. Specifically, embedded systems manufacturers such as Teneros are switching from designing and manufacturing their own custom motherboards and instead relying upon "white box", off-the-shelf components and/or branded equipment in the construction and distribution of their appliances.

This was part of the motivation for Teneros selecting HP over generic white box providers. The components (CPU, memory, storage, motherboard) in an HP ProLiant may look the same on the surface as a system from another manufacturer. The issue becomes how well do these different components work together once assembled within the server and then interact with one another short and long term. When buying white boxes from other "nameless" manufacturers, one doesn't always know what level of interoperability testing occurs before the system is shipped and if all of the components will interoperate flawlessly with one another. These assurances of availability and interoperability are absolutely critical when deploying Microsoft Exchange.

Equally important, once the Teneros email continuity appliance is out in the field, who will support it? It is unlikely that white box manufacturers can since they are focused on manufacturing, not support. In contrast, HP has the end-to-end value chain that Teneros needs to support its platform out in the field.

So if HP offers the product and service value required by Teneros, then what does Bell Micro offer? Part of what Bell Micro provides to OEM partners like Teneros is further enhancement of HP service offerings, such as enabling Teneros to participate in HP's Authorized Support Partner (ASP) program. This program authorizes Teneros to provide break/fix service on parts deployed to their customers, so that their customer's don't have to make calls and do the legwork. Bell Micro can even step in and provide additional help if and when Teneros needs it. In short, Bell Micro has helped HP and Teneros think through the unique service requirements that OEM businesses require - and then Bell Micro has worked with HP to make sure that those services are in place and available to their OEM partners.

In the case of Teneros, however, there is another unique value that Bell Micro adds in response to unique OEM requirements: Bell Micro has agreed to assist Teneros in bringing their appliance solution to market by offering it to other HP VARs.

Bell Micro is better positioned to help Teneros in its selection and acquisition of the HP equipment than even HP is since it understands Teneros' internal processes and what its specific hardware requirements are for the appliances it is constructing. Understanding how Teneros' appliances are constructed comes into play since Bell Micro has agreed to distribute Teneros appliances to the VARs that buy from Bell Micro. When VARs inquire about the Teneros email continuity appliance, Bell Micro is uniquely positioned to explain what the Teneros appliance does and how it is constructed to help VARs, and ultimately their customers, understand the value proposition that Teneros and HP jointly offer.

The partnership between HP and Teneros grabbed the headlines but the relationship in the background between Bell Micro, HP and Teneros is what made the headline possible. By leveraging Bell Micro's unique insight and access into embedded system manufacturers coupled with its HP partnership, Teneros was able to build a more robust appliance and then use Bell Micro to promote and re-distribute its appliance to VARs and ultimately to end-users. By facilitating these end-to-end relationships and providing everyone deeper insight into the processes, Bell Micro stands poised to create an entirely new value proposition that uniquely positions Bell Micro to answer, and provide, the right combination of products and information that is needed in today's competitive environment.

The New Benchmark by Which Distributors Are Measured

2008-07-03T10:00:00Z

The yardstick for measuring the effectiveness of technology distributors has become exceedingly narrow. Most would agree that distribution competitiveness is currently measured as a function of component price and time-to-delivery for their reseller partners. Competing for new and expanded business opportunity using these criteria is tough, because of the maturity of distribution models and distributor practices which look largely the same from one to the next.

At Bell Micro, leadership appears to be changing the rules of how distributors are measured by gearing up to meet the unique requirements of specialized categories of partners. One such segment of partners is the group called embedded systems manufacturers, also known as Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) partners. This group designs and offers their own solutions built on embedded technologies, and this group has specialized requirements for how they do business. Bell Micro has been in the business of meeting unique program requirements for OEM partners since the late 90's.

In June 2008, Bell Micro expanded their OEM-Ready programs and product offering working with HP. This is a significant change in the market, providing OEM teams with ready access to market-leading ProLiant server systems along with other HP branded technology systems. These technologies are supported by Bell Micro's proven OEM-Ready programs, which are designed to meet the unique requirements of how OEM organizations do business.

At the same time that Bell Micro has geared up to support OEM businesses, a transformation has been taking place in the OEM world as embedded systems manufacturers switch from designing and manufacturing their own custom motherboards to relying upon "white box" off-the-shelf components and branded equipment in the construction of their systems. What may not be intuitive as this transformation occurs are the hidden costs and risks associated with going from components that one has designed and built from the ground up to using components that show up on your dock in a shrink-wrapped box. It turns out that which equipment you build on - and who you pick to get it from - can make or break you OEM business.

Just some examples of new costs and concerns that should be considered by OEM teams include:

Availability of replacement parts should one fail
Component quality and manufacturing consistency
The design and engineering that went into the manufacture of the component
How well the different components within the white box interoperate
Service and support for these components by the white box manufacturer while in the field

While there are obviously more concerns than this, it brings to the forefront that new forces are now in play. After all, if you are to use generic "white boxes" in the construction of the systems that you put your name on and send out into the field, right now you are the one taking all of the risk. So if an internal component fails, or some components don't work together as designed, who is your customer going to call? Anyone who thinks that your customer is going to hold anyone accountable other than you, the OEM, is kidding themselves.

These are the exact concerns that Bell Micro identified among its clients and that it is looking to address through its new distributor relationship with HP. By partnering with and distributing HP's line of products, Bell Micro brings a "brand" new value proposition that embedded systems manufacturers, and even their customers, need to consider that go well beyond the traditional price and delivery benchmarks by which distributors are so often evaluated.

Watch this space as we explore the many ways in which Bell Micro OEM-Ready programs combined with HP product technologies offer unique ROI advantages to OEM business teams. We will also highlight Bell Micro executive leadership responsible for transforming distributor business practices and you can also visit Bell Micro's home page at http://www.bellmicro.com to see how it is transforming itself in today's competitive envirionment. We invite your active feedback and participation: let us know the questions you would like us to ask and answer as we cover this exciting market segment.