Look out: The Far Eastern white-box boys are coming for EVERYONE Far Eastern whitebox builders - the ones that have been eating into the market share of the branded server vendors they both build for and compete against - are set to move into new tech and customer segments. The Original Design Manufacturers, the likes of Wistron and Compal Electronics, are delivering vast orders of custom …
The article makes it sound as if a strong "Channel" connection is a prerequisite for an ODM (or anyone) to sell into the enterprise space. While I am sure that is true in some cases, I would be careful about writing them off for the lack thereof.
My experience with "The Channel" has been overwhelmingly negative over the past 10 years or so, to the point where I try and avoid them at all costs. These days I either deal with purely mass volume box-shifters where they stack 'em high and sell 'em cheap, or -if the deal warrants it- with the manufacturer directly. I now tend to avoid equipment which can only be acquired by going through certain "traditional channel" players.
I simply can't believe I am the only one.
When it comes to knowledge and/or training concerns - If those concerns prove to be beyond either my or my teams abilities, then we will either find and hire an expert individual/team, or deal with the manufacturer direct.
Obviously large software deployments are a little different, but we aren't exactly talking about a new ERP system here.
All this to say, if I can get good-enough quality kit* at a reasonable price, you can bet that I am ordering one to play with.
Karl P
* I obviously don't mean garbage, I mean the thing is reliable, shows up when I need it, where I need it, and for how much I agreed to pay for it. Bonus points for simple to use call-center design and procedure which allows me to get, in less than 10 minutes from the time I dialed your number, a replacement for that memory stick which borked itself.
“Selling technology to enterprises is a face to face [process] by the vendor or channel partner and to do that you need local relationships,”
Not if I can help it. Like karlp, I to have found 'the channel' to be something to be avoided at all costs - I have yet to find anyone from there that is helpful or useful, they have something to sell and couldn't care less if it meets our requirements.
No surprise here. It really was only a matter of time.
You outsource your product and someone WILL copy it and put you out of business just on price alone.*
The chickens are finally coming home to roost.
(*a good example is designer knockoffs/counterfeits. World wide, it is bigger business than the drug trade)
We have to face up that ODMs make all the servers and storage boxes for Dell, HP,IBM, EMC and the rest. Next they'll take out the middlemen and sell direct to the Internet and distribution.
Just look at the laptop and the TV, Chinese ODMs have eaten up the US market at every level.
If the "majors" want to survive they'd best figure out what value they can bring to the table.
I am a channel seller/AE/whatever title you want to give me. I joined the channel from an OEM because it is full of weak, profit seeking jerks who provide little value. As one of my current clients put it "When it comes to VARs I could always find the AR... but rarely do I find the V."
I view my role as being a non-billable contractor - and if I provide value by working FOR my clients and actually solving problems and educating them, then they buy from me - and if I don't, they don't. Quoting and selling a box of parts is not my value, that's what the interweb is for. We VAR guys are a dime a dozen, so if no value - no sale. It's kinda like the freeium model...
Regarding the further commoditization - IBM's move out of the space looks wiser with each Reg article that comes out. I would argue storage operates a bit differently than servers... but the low end providers (Dell etc) and "cost first" buyers will shift and be impacted for sure.
>cheaper price point than normal branded server vendors can, by virtue of the lower cost resources
Someone will always be able to do it cheaper. The question is, can you add enough smarts that the extra margin is warranted? You have to keep innovating and innovation is expensive and disruptive for large companies. It gets in the way of a coherent message and extracting ROI for exsting products with sunk costs.
That leads to little tweaks to products: powershell, feature additions people don't really need, tick-box items, a new UI, but the kernel of the product stays the same - there is no drastic redevelopment or paradigm shift.
We, as in most of the readers of el'Reg, probably won't however PHBs have a nasty habit of believing them.
The "problem" with PHB's is this:
They are so full of bullshit, they have become desensitized to its smell; that they no longer recognize bullshit when they smell it.
You and I, still have our keen sense of smell, and know the smell of bullshit 'well'.
Some very odd comments above regarding solutions being wrongly specified. Specifying hardware is about as difficult as deciding what spec of car you should buy. Anyone that procures a system either directly from the channel or from the manufacturer direct and ends up with an underspecified system is usually the type of buyer that is trying to get the best possible price. If you press the supplier on price guess what - at least one supplier will underspecify your system to win the business. Not morally great behaviour - however buyers often create this problem for themselves. If you don't know how to specify a solution then you shouldn't be buying it.
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