Zardon

As part of a strategy to drive more solution selling in the channel, Sun Microsystems plans to reduce the certification requirements for SPARC Solaris-based workstations and shift more resources into its Sun ONE software effort.

Sun is now deciding how much it will reduce the SPARC Solaris certification requirements for partners, Gary Grimes, the company's vice president of partner management and sales, said in an interview here at CMP Media's Solution Provider Xchange conference.

"We are going to cut back on the expenditures required for Sun SPARC Solaris-certified body counts, and we are going to look more to software stacks and expertise," said Grimes. Sun also is even mulling whether it should accept some industrywide Microsoft certifications as "baseline certifications for authorization," he added.

Sun's iForce partners currently must have two certified SPARC Solaris system engineers and two certified SPARC Solaris sales reps to be Sun-certified. For Sun's 50 top-tier strategic partners, the requirements are much steeper: They must have 10 SPARC Solaris system engineers and 10 SPARC Solaris sales reps.

"That is a pretty significant investment," said Grimes. "Only the largest partners can afford to do something like that. So if we cut that back to two and two, they save a lot of dough that they don't have to spend on training."

As part of the transition, Sun plans to assemble more software solution suites for hardware partners, including areas such as application servers, portal servers and directories. Sun recently grouped its Sun ONE software partners and iForce hardware partners under a single channel organization.

"We've been saying for years that partners have to get into the services business," said Grimes. "You are not going to be able to make the kind of margins you want to make on hardware. So we are urging them to broaden their reach and get qualified in a vertical or a horizontal. Get their services capabilities up."

For its top partners, Sun also plans to add dedicated headquarters channel management coverage beginning July 1. Though some vendors are cutting back on channel field rep support and management, Sun is adding to its channel head count, Grimes said, adding that his organization has 175 employees focused on the channel.

Steve Israel, executive vice president of New York-based solution provider AMC, criticized Sun rival IBM for cutting back on channel field support. At the same time, Israel praised the field support provided by vendors such as Sun and EMC.

Sun is moving aggressively on the sales and services fronts to embrace partners, according to Grimes. Over the next year in the U.S. market, the goal is to move from about 45 percent of sales through the channel to about 66 percent of sales through the channel.

In addition, Sun aims to provide a set of services with methodology from its professional services organization exclusively through solution providers. About one-third of Sun's professional services business is through partners.

And in the fourth quarter, Sun plans to add an incentive program that pays partners higher margins for replacing IBM and Hewlett-Packard systems in customer engagements, said Grimes.

"Our face is changing relative to partners," Grimes said. "Our partner direction is there. It is all-partner-inclusive. We are trying to include the entire community in that effort. We believe we cannot grow at the rate we want to grow without a vibrant channel." Steven Burke, CRN