When Relationships Change

Relationships ebb and flow. They are never static and, as such, need to be monitored and managed. The “highs” will inevitably give way to “lows”…and back to highs. Most of the swings are small and don’t necessarily mean that the relationship is changed forever. But even with the small shifts, opportunities present themselves to either mitigate the lows or exploit the highs. Frankly, I think that is what makes channel management fun. It is the opportunities to gain channel loyalty and strengthen relationships through the ebbs and flows that create the potential to grow the business.

Sometimes the shifts are more profound.

Remember last summer when Cisco was sued by Infra-Comm (a Silver designated Cisco VAR) for poaching a customer and giving the business to another reseller (AT&T Business). This was big shift…a fundamental change in the relationship between Cisco and Infra-Comm. Irreparable.

Then there are the waves of change that indicate a big relationship shift, but one in which the relationship can be salvaged with some savvy marketing and relationship management.

Over the past year, Red Hat has made investments in their channel. They have hired experienced channel leadership and started to roll out new channel programs that are creative and well conceived. Just today, they announced their Catalyst Program which is designed to provide the channel with an integrated open source solution. So instead of sourcing the individual piece parts of an open source solution, VARs can potentially use the Catalyst Program to provide a single, integrated solution to their customers. The program is designed to compete directly with Microsoft and Oracle. Cool.

The VAR Guy pointed out that right in the middle of the announcement today sit Tech Data and Synnex. Two Red Hat channel partners, both vying for a big chunk of the open source pie. Tech Data has partnered with HP, IBM, Fujitsu, Dell, and others to bring an open source ecosystem solution to the channel. Conspicuously absent from the discussion is Red Hat. Perhaps that is because Red Hat has partnered with Synnex to launch the Open Source Channel Alliance.

There is a lot of jockeying and it is certainly possible that a collaborative solution to the open source channel opportunity can be reached. It does, however, look like the relationship between Red Hat and Tech Data is in one of those relationship “lows”. The questions are, “Can the relationship survive?” “If not, what are the residual effects to the channel?” “What has happened to the balance of power in the Synnex/Red Hat relationship?”

This should be fun to watch…