Tell me about how HP deal registrations work
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@Carnival-Boy said:
By the way, do I have to refer to "HPE" now - is that the acceptable company name, or is "HP" still ok?
Well, people get it but technically they are two different companies. HP is the desktop and printer company. HPE is the server and storage company.
When you say HP Server, we know what you mean. When you say HP VAR, we don't. So sometimes context clarifies, sometimes it doesn't since everyone needs to work with both.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
@scottalanmiller said:
That being said, a good VAR can help with things like "Should this be a DL380 G9p or G9e?"
"A good VAR". That's the key - finding a good VAR. My impression of VARs is that they work for HP, not for me. Their sole objective is to make money for HP, not to save money for me. So one of my main criteria for a "good VAR" is that when I order something, the right product turns up at my door at the right time. I don't have many expectations above that. Many of them can't even manage that task consistently.
Interesting, I never considered a VAR to care more about making money for the manufacturer, unless they only work with one manufacturer.
CDW for example isn't trying to make the most money for HPE, they are trying to make the most money for themselves.
It's true that in the server space, I rarely see a VAR who sells more than one tier 1 server platform, i.e. Does CDW sell both HPE and Dell servers? Though, now having written that, CDW did sell both HPE and IBM server - soooooo, I guess I'm wrong on that account. But that's still pretty uncommon - especially when it comes to Dell.
And now that IBM has given up on x64 servers (they are all Lenovo now - uh, no thanks) we are left with only two tier one providers, HPE and Dell.
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Tons of VARs sell lots of products and competing products. That's totally common.
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@scottalanmiller said:
Tons of VARs sell lots of products and competing products. That's totally common.
Absolutely - I just haven't seen many that do multiple Tier 1 servers. The other things are so common, how someone could think that the VAR is worried about the manufacturer making money seemed odd.
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From what I've seen, VARs make a lot of their profit from rebates from manufacturers based on how much product they shift. They're heavily incentivised to the extent that, yes, they worry about making HP happy more than they worry about making me happy. Volume matters and they have targets to hit. In a 3 way relationship between me, HP and the VAR, it's HP who wields the most power. The same applies to Dell, but I never buy Dell.
I dunno, maybe its not like that. I don't work for a VAR. I do work for a (non-IT) manufacturer and I'm sure its similar.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
From what I've seen, VARs make a lot of their profit from rebates from manufacturers based on how much product they shift.
This is very true. Volume is a huge factor.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
In a 3 way relationship between me, HP and the VAR, it's HP who wields the most power.
No, HP wields very little. You wield all the power, any power lost is voluntary. HP cannot just find another customer, they have others, but they need profits. The VAR has to make the sale. You can simply buy from another vendor, though. You are the only one with essentially nothing on the line to lose.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
From what I've seen, VARs make a lot of their profit from rebates from manufacturers based on how much product they shift. They're heavily incentivised to the extent that, yes, they worry about making HP happy more than they worry about making me happy. Volume matters and they have targets to hit. In a 3 way relationship between me, HP and the VAR, it's HP who wields the most power. The same applies to Dell, but I never buy Dell.
I dunno, maybe its not like that. I don't work for a VAR. I do work for a (non-IT) manufacturer and I'm sure its similar.
All of that is true, except maybe that HP wields the most power. But even so, as long as you are using your VAR correctly - aka you're going to them with your plan already in place, the minor things like what RAID card to buy or which bundle of the week to buy - then it shouldn't matter. Sure those bundles can be a huge difference to you cost wise, but most important, when you decide you need a DL380p, don't allow yourself to be talked into a DL380e or a DL360p, etc - that's where you're getting yourself into trouble.. and the main places where the VAR might be trying to make more money off you from those back end rebates, etc.
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@scottalanmiller said:
HP cannot just find another customer, they have others, but they need profits.
Would be nice if Dell, HP and the other vendors acted this way...They don't seem to want to take my money.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Carnival-Boy said:
In a 3 way relationship between me, HP and the VAR, it's HP who wields the most power.
No, HP wields very little. You wield all the power, any power lost is voluntary. HP cannot just find another customer, they have others, but they need profits. The VAR has to make the sale. You can simply buy from another vendor, though. You are the only one with essentially nothing on the line to lose.
I mean power over the VAR. If the VAR loses me if will make very little difference to them, if they lose HP they have had it. They know which side of their bread is buttered.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Carnival-Boy said:
In a 3 way relationship between me, HP and the VAR, it's HP who wields the most power.
No, HP wields very little. You wield all the power, any power lost is voluntary. HP cannot just find another customer, they have others, but they need profits. The VAR has to make the sale. You can simply buy from another vendor, though. You are the only one with essentially nothing on the line to lose.
I mean power over the VAR. If the VAR loses me if will make very little difference to them, if they lose HP they have had it. They know which side of their bread is buttered.
That's not necessarily true. VARs make their money on services to some degree. It's true that they need something to sell, but without customers they have nothing. Losing you is how they lose HP.
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And they still don't really lose HP, they mainly loose their incentive of cash back based on sales.
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Think of it like politicians. In a democracy, the voter is supposed to have all the power. A politician can't exist without votes. But in reality, he's controlled and motivated by whoever has the most money.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
Think of it like politicians. In a democracy, the voter is supposed to have all the power. A politician can't exist without votes. But in reality, he's controlled and motivated by whoever has the most money.
But the voter can still remove him. In a democracy it only fails because the voters don't care. In your company, you can choose to care.
Sure, you don't have an unlimited selection, but you do have HPE, Dell, Fujitsu, Oracle, IBM, Cisco, SuperMicro and that's before you get into small players and just for servers. That's at least six choices (IBM makes very difference stuff so I'm not cheating by including them in the number, a Power8 machine might not be an option for you) without looking to off the wall options like IBM or totally ethically challenged ones like Lenovo or small players or building your own. It's not a huge field, but it is a bit of choice and all of them will work.
I totally understand that HPE has offerings that no one else does exactly, but nothing that you can't tear yourself away from. And if you are buying Proliants, yes, they might be the best but the margin is small. If you are buying Integrity they are harder to rip and replace.
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I think that SuperMicro is the disruptor here because of the way that they work. You never deal with SM directly but with one of their larger partners. So even if you want SM but don't like how one partner is treating you, you have choices within the SM sphere.
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@scottalanmiller said:
But the voter can still remove him. In a democracy it only fails because the voters don't care.
No different to the SMB market. Most SMBs don't care. The fact that I do isn't enough to change the VAR, just like the fact that I care about politics isn't enough to change politicians. So, for example, HP can get away with creating an industry around shifting SANs to SMBs that don't need them. HP are not passive in this, they don't manfacture SANs and just sit back and hope that customers will buy them through VARs - they are telling VARs that they have to shift X this quarter or else.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
@scottalanmiller said:
But the voter can still remove him. In a democracy it only fails because the voters don't care.
No different to the SMB market. Most SMBs don't care. The fact that I do isn't enough to change the VAR, just like the fact that I care about politics isn't enough to change politicians. So, for example, HP can get away with creating an industry around shifting SANs to SMBs that don't need them. HP are not passive in this, they don't manfacture SANs and just sit back and hope that customers will buy them through VARs - they are telling VARs that they have to shift X this quarter or else.
That's totally true. But your goal isn't to change the vendor or the VAR, but to change things for you. You can choose a different VAR and vendor.
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I could, but I feel they're generally all the same, so it would be a waste of time. Better to accept that VARs don't add value, and just do my own research. The cost (in terms of my time) of finding a good VAR, or a good vendor, outweighs any benefits I'm likely to get.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
I could, but I feel they're generally all the same, so it would be a waste of time. Better to accept that VARs don't add value, and just do my own research. The cost (in terms of my time) of finding a good VAR, or a good vendor, outweighs any benefits I'm likely to get.
I would often agree with the second part but not the first. There are definitely good VARs that add value, xByte is a great example. They run their own research labs, they slash our costs, they get non-OEM drives tested and certified to drop costs even further, they do research on our behalf... but finding a good VAR like that can be difficult and you might burn a lot of time doing it.
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But SuperMicro, for example, does not require VAR relationships. So it seems like that might be a decent choice.
