Arlin_Sorensen HTG Peer Groups

“The council had nine initiatives from our Nov. [2012] meeting ­and we created a scorecard for them,” said Sorensen. “At this meeting we got reports from the assigned HP sponsor for each [initiative] and updated progress on the scorecard. That is the kind of joint work we are striving to do.”

At the HP conference last week,the council met in sub-teams with HP staff to tackle additional items on the agenda:

“They are not only listening ­ we are  jointly working together to drive real change in programs and engagement,” said Sorensen. “It is extremely positive. Mike Parrottino is committed to 100% SMB fulfillment through the channel and is working with the council to make the adjustments that will achieve that objective.”

Parrottino is VP and general manager of U.S. SMB Sales for HP’s Printing and Personal Systems (PPS).  At meetings and on stage last week, a range of HP executives thanked partners for their loyalty while HP worked through a range of product, business and management setbacks in 2011 and 2012. In many cases, those executives shared their personal email addresses on stage, assuring thousands of partners that the company is becoming more responsive to their feedback.

In response to a question from The VAR Guy, HP CEO Meg Whitman assured partners that she was committed to leading the company for the long haul. Plus, Whitman said the next HP CEO should come from within the company — a welcome statement after HP has scrambled multiple times with external CEO searches over the past decade.

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Of course, HP also took steps to evangelize its latest products and services. “The council is very broad in scope ­ but the hot items are the tablets and mobile devices, ultrabooks, and G8 servers,” said Sorensen.  “But cloud and services are a big focus as many [partners] are working to grow recurring revenue.”

Partners also discussed new ways to engage HP’s networking and storage businesses, and HP returned the favor by giving each council member an Elitebook  as a thank you for their time and investment in HP’s success — and the broader partner ecosystem’s success.

Sorensen typically doesn’t pull any punches when vendors lose their way. So when he suggests HP is getting is starting to show real progress with the SMB channel, it definitely caught The VAR Guy’s attention.