IBM aims 1000 staff at SME push
Published: 01 Mar 2005 09:10 GMT
IBM will dedicate 1,000 salespeople to its partners in an effort to boost international sales to small and medium-sized businesses.
The company said the sales personnel will work directly with partners to generate leads and close deals through regional systems integrators and independent software vendors, which build applications targeted at small and midsize companies. IBM announced the staff changes at its PartnerWorld Conference in Las Vegas on Monday.
In the past two years, IBM has boosted its investments in partner-related programmes. In 2004, for example, it said it spent $1bn (£520m) on efforts to recruit and work with independent software vendors.
Revenue through partners increased about 10 percent in 2004, reaching $32bn out of IBM's total revenue of $89bn. More than half of IBM's hardware sales and about a quarter of its software revenue come through partners, Donn Atkins, general manager of IBM Global Business Partners, said on Monday.
This year, the company intends to have its IBM Global Services consulting arm work more closely with partners, Atkins said. Services represent nearly half of IBM's turnover.
In its efforts to sell to smaller organisations, IBM has developed a logo programme for application providers that write their programs using IBM's infrastructure software. IBM's Express brand of products -- which includes versions of its WebSphere Java server software, DB2 database and Lotus collaboration software -- are designed to be less expensive and simpler to maintain than the higher-end versions.
The Built On IBM Express Portfolio will be available to qualified business partners and will be linked to an updated suite of Express back-end software, Atkins said. Access to the programme entitles partners to marketing dollars with IBM.
Similarly, IBM said it will give some partners around the world access to IBM's advertising discounts for joint marketing initiatives.
On the hardware side, IBM introduced a programme called SystemSeller, which helps partners more quickly acquire "competitively priced" servers and storage in configurations that appeal to midmarket customers, Atkins said.
SystemSeller will be available this year for IBM's TotalStorage line and its xSeries, OpenPower, pSeries and BladeCentre systems. It intends to extend the programme to global financing, services and its Workplace client software later this year, Atkins said.
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