For a mostly direct company, Dell has bloody big channel revenues too - $9bn a year and rising. That's what High Panjandrum Michael Dell told the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo in Orlando, Florida this week.

As a matter of course, computer dealers don't like their PC suppliers to sell direct to the public. For starters,they can't compete on price. So why then is Dell able to flog so much kit through the channel?

We suspect customer demand and business through all-purpose computer services firms, which in effect act as agents more than resellers for hardware firms. They don't give a monkey's what they sell, so long as it works and delivers a profit margin.

But we think that residual resistance from computer dealers and PC retailers and opportunities-galore for Dell's sales johnnies to trample on resellers will ensure that Dell's channel business will fall far short of HP, say. ®