The modular expansion capability will likely please channel partners unhappy at how long it took to get product in their hands in the past, as this will make it much easier to customize the laptops in the field.
HP also is announcing the new HP VR Backpack, a new version of their wearable PC.
While the preview of Lenovo’s foldable PC was the big ‘wow’ factor at the Lenovo Accelerate event, the launch of the new ThinkBooks is really the big news for partners this year.
Other products also announced as part of an Intelligent Transformation there were the new SMB-focused ThinkBook sub-brand and the new ThinkPad X1 Extreme Generation 2.
After most of the first day announcements focused on things which spanned multiple elements of the Dell Technologies portfolio, and beyond, the second day focused on core product enhancements. Here are some of them.
Katigbak, who had been acting as Connolly’s interim replacement since Connolly’s promotion in January, has now received his official promotion as well.
Lenovo traditionally makes channel-focused product announcements at CES as well as consumer product, and this year they announced significant refreshes of their flagship commercial devices.
Dell has multiple announcements coming at next week’s CES show, but they decided to drop this one early. The new Latitude 7400 2-in-1 is not as sexy as some of the announcements coming next week, but for Dell’s commercial market partners and customers, it will be the most important.
Rugged laptops are a tiny part of Dell’s portfolio. They are looking to expand that, bringing more functionality from their other PC lines into their ruggeds to give them more feature differentiation in the rugged space.
Dell also rebrands the PC-as-a-Service offering they introduced last year as PC-as-a-Service for Enterprise, and also announces a new Dell Provisioning for VMware Workspace ONE service that is also available through both the SMB and Enterprise PCaaS.
Growth in the consumer market is a critical part of the Lenovo strategy Zielinski laid out, but channel reinvigoration, particularly in the SMB space, is also vital.
How immersive computing and 3D printing made a footwear insole vendor an HP reseller as its Sprout technology gets down to work.
HP isn’t just driving more business through the channel, but is also making changes in how it interacts with it, something which it is better able to do as a more focused company.
HP made its first announcement of a consumer product family at a channel event, as it expects the channel will sell almost all of these new rigs, and while much of it will go through etailers and retailers, there is a VAR channel play here as well.
HP celebrated a very strong year with their top partners at the company’s Executive Forum, outlining the direction of their strategy, and the role of the channel in it.
HP Canada president Mary Ann Yule on the opportunity HP sees in the Canadian education market, and how solution providers can profit on it.
In addition to the Chromebook 11 C732, Acer also announced a new ChromeBox offering, as well as a retail-focused convertible Chromebook.
HP’s PC chief tells Varnex attendees the vendor will build its device-as-a-service business through the channel, outlines momentum for the model.
In addition to providing increased benefits for those partners who elect to sell only Panasonic rugged notebooks, Panasonic has also increased its investment in a channel account team to provide more reps to work with partners.
While Canadian customers have a generally accurate reputation for being late technology adopters, Dell EMC execs at last week’s Toronto forum said that they are seeing movement towards newer Dell Technologies offerings.
