I know that(about Total Solutions) a lot better than you. I recently sold my companies computer hardware services division. Our advantage over competitors was that we provided 2-hour response time for (Unix and NT servers) on-site with both hardware and Operating System. We now concentrate on (software) Unix, NT and Back Office sales and support. HWP, DEC, et. al. and Decision One do hardware support. Sometimes we necessarily become involved with HW support companies as well.
A very large proportion of VARs (for IBM, DEC, ....) do not do Hardware or OS support. But having HP, DEC, or IBM support to offer to the customer at the time of the sale makes a competitive difference. When we stopped building our own low end Wintel boxes, we found the service organizations of the larger computer suppliers were equal to or better than our own.
We would like to sell more bigger CPQ ProLiants (Enterprise Systems) into larger companies. Perhaps since DEC has such a great service reputation, we have to evaluate our postion.
So, "total solutions", a computer marketing buzz-phrase, is more critical when you are selling your own hardware with proprietary OS with your own sales force. DEC, TDM and (now) CPQ have all of the above plus. You still have an very large amount of sytems moving through the VAR channel. These VARS work in cooperation with the Hardware/OS purveyors to provide a "Total solution".
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