Mad Mike Magee’s Musings

WE REPORTED in mid-March that Dell was attempting to emulate HP’s success in implementing a channel strategy in India.

Now it has rolled out those plans, according to DQ Channels, an Indian web site. Dell’s cunning plan is called Partner Direct and will aim to recruit resellers to sell its products in what it quaintly describes as tier one and tier two cities in the sub-continent.

There’s more, here. ♦

WHEN I WAS in India earlier this month, I wrote a story on this boggette about Dell attempting to use a distribution model to shift its goods in the sub-continent.

Now DQ Channels reports that Dell will adopt the “stock and sale model” - but as we pointed out at the time, it will have an uphill struggle.

The wire notes that the Indian channel is abuzz with speculation that it’s signing up local partners. Earlier this week, other news sources said that Dell would continue with its direct model in India.

However, realistically, it has to adopt a proper channel strategy in India where Internet penetration is still low and where salaries are restricted to a few. ♣

INDUSTRY BODY SPEC said that it is in the course of preparing an industry standard benchmark for power and performance related to professional workstations.

The body said that the SPEC/GWPG benchmark will be available this summer, and will use workloads from the SPECviewperf benchmark for 3D graphics, as well as CPU workloads for a number of applications including financial modelling, scientific computing,  and open source.

Participants in the push to the benchmark include AMD, Dell, Fujitsu Siemens, HP, Nvidia, Sun and Intel.

PATENTS breached by Microsoft are worth a cool $2 billion in damages, a witness claimed yesterday in fresh Alcatel-Lucent litigation.

According to Bloomberg, the Vole needs to divvy up $1.99 billion for breaching patents used by the Windows Media Player, Vista and the Xbox 360.

Dell, meanwhile, should reach into its purse and pay Alcatel-Lucent a mere $465.6 million.
An expert witness reckoned that the amounts are justified because the patents allegedly breached are based on millions of systems shipped.

The case continueth. ♣

MIGHTY HARDWARE firm Dell has opened its factory in Chennai and is trying to emulate HP’s success in India by selling kit through distribution here.

That’s a mighty tough nut to crack. According to distributors and computer resellers, HP’s distribution network is near unassailable, and while there’s room for other players Dell stands little chance of wooing the Indian channel.

However, where Dell faces a Sisyphean task in the sub-continent, plucky little player Acer is doing pretty well. Lenovo, on the other hand, seems to have lost the plot.

The problem for Dell is that the channel isn’t prepared to be that sympathetic, after having to compete with a direct supplier for many years.  HP, on the other hand, faced a battle with Samsung over two years ago, and consolidated its victory in India. ♣

CHIP FIRM AMD said it has hired the VP of IT away from Dell to act as its chief information officer.

Ahmed Mahmoud had soldiered in the information pit at Dell for 13 no doubt long years.

The Dark Mayor, AMD’s president and COO, said they needed a man of Mahmoud’s experience to scale their infrastructure. AMD uses its own technology to run its IT infrastructure, he said.

That wasn’t always the case. When Dresden first opened there were Intel and Sun machines everywhere. Wonder if the lads are still on allocation for their Barcelonas? ♣