The more things in the PC marketplace change, the more Lenovo wants them to remain the same.That’s what Bill Owens, vice-president of service and support for Lenovo, said about the six-month transition from IBM’s PC Division to the new owner for its 650 channel partners in Canada and its other worldwide partners.
“We’re new, but we don’t want solution providers to worry about what-ifs. Is it a legacy IBM product or a new Lenovo one? We want it to be a seamless transition,” Owens said.
One new wrinkle will be in services. Long before the Lenovo acquisition, IBM promised channel partners that its Global Services arm would be opened up to VARs. The promise never really materialized to the channel’s liking.
Think Plus
That will not be the case for Lenovo services, which will be called Think Plus Services. Owens said he intends to open up the services arm more over time.
Currently, Lenovo’s services team handles large corporate enterprise accounts, but Owens said the company is seriously interested in going after the small to mid-size market through the channel.
“We have to push the channel to sell our products and services. We can’t reach the heart of the SMB market without them,” he said.
Owens said Lenovo would be ready with a dedicated service offering for the first quarter of 2006.
“We are working out all the details now, but we will be ready to go next year,” Owens said.
Heather Ross, president of Lenovo Canada, said Lenovo wants to increase the value proposition of its business partners and is also looking to expand service offerings with them.
“We are looking to new ways to expand that strategy,” she said.
Lenovo Canada’s sales ratio is 65-35 in favour of indirect, but Ross said she sees that number increasing significantly over the next years because of its focus on the SMB market.
Frank Abate, director for On The Go Technologies of Toronto, said Lenovo has to open up services to resellers, since IBM Global Services is geared mainly at the big ticket items.
“I never saw IBM Global Services be really friendly to the channel, and I know most resellers were in the same situation. (Lenovo) just feels they own the account regardless of the customers, but to some degree that is common with vendors anyway,” Abate said.
Owens did not want to release any specifics about the expanded services play, but did say it would revolve around warranty upgrades, installation services, data migration and help desks.
Owens also was unable to pinpoint services margins except to say that they would be “clearly” higher than on hardware.
“There has been a lot of consolidation in the reseller channel. Those who have survived really drive the value proposition off of services and not hardware,” Owens said.
Numerous people
Abate said that he can’t see how this won’t work for Lenovo.
“I’ve spoken to numerous people there . . . if they continue to engage with the channel with most of their projects and programs the channel will be more than happy to support them,” he added.
Owens said that there would be enough room in the Lenovo services offering for Tier 1 and 2 resellers. “We have to make sure we are aligned with Ingram Micro and Tech Data because IBM was more focused on the large enterprises and it made it difficult for SMB channel players,” Owens said.
Lenovo will be developing ongoing programs for SMB channel players, he said.
The company showcased several products recently including a VoIP PC, but Ross would only say that the Canadian subsidiary would look at all products including consumer electronics products and release the ones that are right for the Canadian market.
Currently, only the ThinkPad and ThinkVantage lines are available in Canada.
