HP assembles specialist storage sales squad

HP is setting up a channel-specific team to help resellers punt its storage on the back of triple-digit growth in 3PAR and rising demand.

The tech titan acquired 3PAR last September and reckons it now needs to muster the forces after 3PAR posted at least 100 per cent growth for the quarter ending on 31 July, taking turnover to a minimum of $92m.

Kevin Matthews, HP UK and Ireland channel manager for enterprise server, storage and networking, told The Reg the team will be operational from its fiscal New Year starting 1 November.

"We are creating a dedicated channel storage sales team. Why? For a couple of reasons. We've seen fantastic adoption of 3PAR tech among resellers and that has opened discussions with partners that we were previously locked out from," he said.

HP does not support resellers that have defected from rivals but Matthews said the expanded interest in 3PAR had resulted in "support expectations" that HP was not able to match in terms of manpower.

"The end user team will be storage sales specialists that partners can pull into a customer [scenario] to increase close rates."

HP has 20 storage sales specialist resellers that can register deals through Partners For Growth to get special bid pricing, higher rebates than is standard for Gold partners and more marketing funds. ®