Sun Integrates Channels, Takes Tighter Control

by Timothy Prickett Morgan

If you are one of Sun Microsystems' iForce hardware, software, or services partners, there's some good news and some potentially bad news if you have been playing fast and loose with the partnering rules. Sun announced, at its iForce Partner Summit in San Diego this week, that, as part of its solutions-led sales approach, it would integrate its channel in the United States and simplify the way both partners and customers get wares from Sun.

This integrated channel approach will allow any partner that qualifies, by Sun's standards, to sell any or all of Sun's products through a single contract and a single contact point with Sun. Up until now, Sun partners had to ink contracts with different server, software, and services units of Sun, and they had to go to various Sun insiders to put together a solution for their customers.

As part of the channel reorganization, which is being handled by Gary Grimes, vice president of the U.S. partner management and sales unit at Sun, the company is creating three different partner tiers that span all of its product areas. The foundation tier is for smaller partners or newer partners who chase deals in the midrange market. The premier partner level separates out the larger partners and the ones who have made a significant investment in training their personnel on Sun products and who sell across Sun's entire product line. Sun will be requiring that foundation and premier partners be certified before they start selling Sun solutions. The certifications for foundation and premier iForce partners are given via the Web and are free; they will be given on a quarterly basis, reflecting Sun's product announcement schedule, rather than on an annual basis, like prior iForce certifications. With this reorganization, foundation and premier partners will be able to refer and resell all offerings from Sun Services as well as every single Sun software product.

The elite partner tier, which Sun has established, is for the partners that make "extraordinary investments" in knowing about and pushing Sun hardware, software, and services across all customer types and in all markets. The elite partners have to be tested by Sun, too, and have to meet unspecified revenue targets.

The certification mirrors moves that IBM made a number of years ago as it sought to reduce the number of partners in its channel and to get the remaining partners after a shakeout to emphasize and push IBM's solution stack, from the hardware up to the operating system to the middleware layer. Like Sun, IBM is not really an application provider, and relies on partners to add this part of an IT solution. And, like IBM, you can bet that Sun will reward those partners that push the most of the Sun hardware, software, and services stack.

Sun also announced this week that it has created an iForce compliance office in the United States, which will enforce iForce partner contracts and monitor partner investments in Sun training and technology. Sun also has brought various partner advisory committees based on product lines, which interface between Sun's top brass in those lines and the channel, into a single national advisory committee.

If history is any guide, there will be as many smiles as grimaces about these channel changes. Some partners are going to make more money because of these changes and some partners are going to make less. But if Sun does this right, and partners are properly motivated and compensated for pushing all Sun products, Sun's sales should stabilize, if not improve.