IBM Server Partners Get Extra Incentives, IBM i Scores Another Supply Chain Win

March 4, 2013 Timothy Prickett Morgan

IBM hosted its PartnerWorld Leadership Conference in Las Vegas last week, and there was lots of talk about cloud, mobile, and big data, as is the case with everything Blue and Big these days. But IBM wanted to give a couple of shouts out to the partners in who peddle products that come out of its Systems and Technology Group, and outlined a number of actions it was taking specifically to help partners push more Power Systems and PureSystems iron.

Specifically, IBM told partners that it would:

Increase its dedicated channel sales and technical sales specialists by 50 percent in 2013 to assist business partners in closing more solution opportunities.
Invest $150 million in lead generation with a goal to increase four times the number of leads passed to business partners in 2013.
“Further strengthen” its business partner incentives within the Power Systems division with more predictable margins ranging from 20 to 40 percent (based on a number of factors that we have not been able as yet to get details on).
Launch PartnerWorld Specialty and Certification Programs within System x, PureFlex, and Flex Systems for qualified business partners to assist in developing special skills, technical strengths and enhanced capabilities through continued education and certification programs.
Create new or enhanced STG specialty areas for Power Systems, PureFlex, Storage Systems, System x and SmartCloud that will enable BP sellers to build skills in key growth initiatives and for integrated expert systems.

Having gotten new systems in the field last year and early this year, Big Blue seems bent on taking every opportunity to try to scare up some more systems business, particularly with Hewlett-Packard having issues in servers and Dell giving some customers pause as its founder, Michael Dell, tries to take the company private.

IBM was also crowing about how the Cheesecake Factory, which has 175 restaurants in the United States and three in the Middle East, has partnered with supply chain software supplier N2N Global to uses its software to source and deliver all of the fresh ingredients to its customers in those restaurants. Those restaurants served over 80 million customers last year, and guess what was behind it all, getting those ingredients where they needed to be despite the fact that they come from many different sources, and to ensure their quality and handle recalls if necessary?

A Power Systems 720 running IBM i 7.1.

And, this being a solutions announcement, you didn’t hear IBM’s solutions people even mention this. Which, as you might expect, I find kind of annoying.