HP Americas Partner Conference: 6 Questions Worth Asking

As Cisco Systems Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Co. kick off their partner conferences in San Francisco and Las Vegas, respectively, The VAR Guy plans to poke around and ask plenty of questions at both events. Our resident blogger’s week starts at the HP Americas Partner Conference. Pardon the mixed metaphor, but here’s a look at the anticipated chatter.

1. Small and Midsize Business Meets Managed Services?: The VAR Guy plans to ask Meaghan Kelly, VP of SMB Channel Sales and Strategy, whether HP is planning an aggressive move to engage and train managed services providers. Surely, a good portion of HP’s channel partners would like to benefit from more recurring revenue opportunities.

2. Taking On Cisco Systems: Frank Rauch, VP of enterprise servers, storage networking channel sales, is one of the key strategists helping HP to tackle Cisco’s rival unified computing system (UCS) strategy. Sometime this morning, The VAR Guy plans to ask Rauch how the battle is shaping up. Stay tuned for answers.

3. Managed PCs?: Forgive The VAR Guy for banging the managed services drum. But HP is on the road with Level Platforms educating MSPs about vPro PCs and notebooks. Does HP see more recurring revenue opportunities emerging for PC resellers? Mike Parrottino, VP of Personal Systems Group Sales, Solution Partners Organization, Americas, should be able to offer up some answers today.

4. Chasing Government Dollars: How can solutions providers more effectively target the government sector? Mike Humke, VP of public sector for HP’s Solution Partners Organization (SPO), might be able to share some details with The VAR Guy by mid-day today.

5. Always At Your Service?: Where exactly is HP heading next with services, and what are the implications for partners? Joe Bottazzi, VP and general manager for HP Services’ Americas Technology Services, should offer up some answers late today.

6. Man on a Mission?: The VAR Guy keeps saying that new HP Channel Chief Stephen DiFranco is likely developing a managed services strategy. Why’s that? During his previous career stop at Lenovo, DiFranco was the point person driving many of Lenovo’s MSP-centric efforts. The VAR Guy expects some managed services clues during DiFranco’s keynote late today.

Of course, the HP Americas Partner Conference  (in Las Vegas) is only one-half of this week’s channel battle. The Cisco Partner Summit kicks off this week in San Francisco. The VAR Guy plans to be in both places to give readers both sides of the story. Can our resident blogger pull off those commitments?

The answers — along with thoughts from HP’s channel team — will begin to surface today.

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