Defending Dell’s MSP Moves

The VAR Guy has a confession. He owns a few shares of Dell stock. Total value: less than $3,500. So maybe he’s biased. Maybe he’s rooting for a turnaround at Dell. With those facts now known, here’s another key disclosure from The VAR Guy: He’s tired of reading the FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt) other channel publications are spreading about Dell.

Yes, there will be some pain involved with Dell’s acquisitions of Silverback Technologies and now ASAP Software. But look at the situation: Michael Dell spent the first half of 2007 trying to restore (or initiate) relations with VARs. Dell’s stock has gradually recovered this year because investors believe in Dell’s hybrid direct/indirect strategy (coupled with cost cuts, of course).

Is Michael going to throw all that work away by using managed services software to lock VARs out of the SMB market? That’s a laughable concept.

Now, the problem: Positioning Dell as a big, bad, anti-channel company is a pretty easy story to recycle — over and over again. But the paper is starting to look pretty thin.

Dell will certainly make its share of mistakes as it digests Silverback and ASAP. But The VAR Guy is betting Dell will get the hybrid sales model right–leaving thousands of VARs to build MSP practices on their own as well.