Has HP Betrayed Small Business VARs?

Some VARs remain worried about Dell’s channel strategy. They keep asking if they can trust Dell. But perhaps those solutions providers should worry more about a potential betrayal by Hewlett-Packard. Here’s why.

Dell has been working overtime in recent months to assure partners that the company is sincerely committed to the IT channel. Meanwhile, HP has quietly entered a partnership with CDW to aggressively target small businesses with 500 or fewer employees.

Ouch. This isn’t going to be a fun weekend for HP, as partners will surely flood the company with complaints and concerns over the CDW relationship.

The folks over at Everything Channel broke the story. Now, a few Dell insiders are more than happy to make sure the world knows HP is sleeping with CDW in small business.

HP-CDW sure looks like a killer relationship — but will it kill HP’s relationships with VARs?