The expanded partnership includes both the U.S. and Canada, and opens up a relationship which previously had been limited to some Dell brands that came through acquisition and the federal government business.
Jim DeFoe, Vice President, North America Global Commercial Channels at Dell
Dell and CDW have significantly expanded CDW’s relationship with Dell to make Dell’s entire product and solution set available to the large DMR. Previously, only a limited range of Dell products, mainly on the software side, had been resold by CDW.
“We see this as a great opportunity to strengthen an existing relationship with a partner with whom we have enjoyed a growing relationship, said Jim DeFoe, Vice President, North America Global Commercial Channels at Dell.
Given Dell’s long history in the PC and server markets before its more recent development of a full-rounded solution set, and the former Computer Discount Warehouse’s focus on those same things before its more recent building out of a fuller solution provider practice, one might that that Dell and CDW would have had a long history together. That’s not the case, however.
Dell’s relationship with CDW began only after the development of its software strategy, which was initially generated through acquisition. Three of the companies Dell acquired – Quest, SonicWALL and Wyse – had reseller relationships with CDW before they were acquired, and those relationships continued after acquisition. They did not, however, lead to a relatively quick broad Dell-CDW partnering, which Dell had previously indicated was CDW’s choice, likely because of CDW’s strong relationship with HP.
“We did add a nice federal business with CDW a couple of years ago as well, but this is the first partnering which makes all our end-to-end solutions available to CDW,” DeFoe said.
Ironically, a key factor behind the expanded relationship in both Canada and the U.S. was CDW’s acquisition in August 2015 of British solution provider Kelway, which also has a strong international presence. This followed up CDW originally acquiring a 35 per cent stake in Kelway in November 2014.
“Their acquisition of Kelway made the timing right to extend our relationship,” DeFoe said. “They were also getting requests from many of their other customers to carry more Dell product as well.”
The deal will see CDW offer all Dell products and solutions in the United States and Canada, as well as through its Kelway organization in the U.K., South Africa, the United Arab Emirates, Singapore, Hong Kong and Australia.
DeFoe also confirmed that CDW will have access to everything that Dell sells that is available to the channel.
“They have access to our complete suite of products, and we just started the process of training their teams on the Dell solution sets,” he stated.
