Dell's indirect business on track

When Michael Dell, CEO of the PC firm announced plans to formalise partnerships with local resellers and systems integrators last May he pointed out the channel accounted for $9bn (£4.59bn) of Dell's revenues each year.

Josh Claman, EMEA vice president of channel at Dell said it had volumes through its reseller base had soared on the back of the Partner Direct channel programme unveiled in February.

"Last year we had an informal channel, no programme or formal engagement model with 30,000 partner doing $9bn. That run rate is now on a path to hit $12bn globally," he told Microscope.

Around 15,000 partners bought Dell kit in EMEA during 2007 and 10,000 resellers have registered with Dell's channel scheme, 40 per cent of which are completely new to the company.

"4,000 of those are completely new to doing business with Dell which means there is something about our programme that actually attracted them to the Dell proposition," said Claman.