In a policy switch that went into effect last week, Sun Microsystems Inc has forbidden its 500-odd US dealers and value-added resellers to sell any of the Sparc-based machines compatible with its own now on the market – except for the laptops – if they wish to continue doing business with Sun. The restriction even applies to Solbourne Computer Corp multiprocessors, a segment Sun’s current product line doesn’t service, in anticipation of its move up-market later this year. Sun’s tactical marketing director Curt Fisher said the move was made in deference to Sun’s direct sales force which threatened to refuse to support, turn over leads or bring resellers and dealers into accounts if they stood to lose sales to the cheaper rival machines.
Productivity
Fisher that said the company must back its 470-strong sales force, since it is determined to increase sales productivity and double or treble its revenues in the coming years without adding manpower. Sun is also anxious to avoid price wars, and at the same time it wants to proliferate Sparc machines in new channels, a job that it thinks the builders of compatible machines should be doing. In return for the exclusivity demand, Sun is promising to increase its support of resellers and dealers and intends doubling their training days, admitting them to Sun’s internal Sun University classes and doubling their support budget. Although the announcement sounds controversial, the channels seem to have taken the diktat well, and only a half dozen cases of Sun resellers selling compatible machines as well have come up, mostly on the West Coast, Fisher said. However, how long they will remain loyal to Sun is an open question, as is the possibility that they will try to sidestep the restriction by setting up separate subsidiaries to handle non-Sun Sparcsystems. Sun’s action is also meant to force the Sparcsystem builders to spend the time and the money needed to build indirect sales of their own, rather than simply cherry pick off the back of Sun’s investment. Since the bulk of the Sparc cloners are Far Eastern concerns with little apparent entry to the American dealer community, Sparc International, the outfit now responsible for recruiting software and marketing companies as well as cloners, has spent months trying to set up a channels development programme that will help them find resellers that can handle their workstations. It has put together a profile of that distributor or reseller: he is financially solvent and already familiar with Unix, has networking experience and probably already sells at the high-end of the personal computer market, has technical hardware and software people in place and already has a dedicated sales force. In combination with a consultant said to have a database of some 1,700 resellers, Sparc International will then try to do a little matchmaking, starting with a series of educational seminars for both the cloners and potential resellers, some time this summer.
