Canon Sits Down with Imaging Solutions Reseller: Scott Cullen Queries Canon’s senior director, Dennis Amorosano

The complete interview is here.

Scott brushes up on the HP question and Canon answers more directly then HP regarding the HP channel and access to Canon product.

The following is an excerpt of the complete interview.

Will HP have access to these products?

Amorosano: HP will have access to both imageRUNNER ADVANCE and legacy imageRUNNER products. For HP, these offerings will nicely fill a gap in their existing Managed Print Services product portfolio.

For Canon, adding HP’s Managed Print Services organization and EDS as a channel provides us an avenue to reach the largest global enterprises. Although Canon does have its own National Account organization, the base of customers we can reach through this new relationship is much broader and should represent a nice addition to Canon’s channel operations.

Do you see this expanded HP relationship having any affect on your dealer channel?

Amorosano: Not to a great extent.

Many of the accounts that HP through their MPS group is targeting are true global enterprise accounts who want a global relationship from HP. Generally speaking, our dealers are not in a position to do those types of things for a customer and in some cases we’ve been challenged in that area as well. Will there be some conflict?

It’s possible, but by and large the dealer will more likely gain from this relationship by being used as the primary service delivery vehicle for the placements of devices by HP. So, in or view the upside for the dealer channel is bigger than any potential conflict.

You’ve probably spoke with a lot of people the past couple of days about the HP partnership. Are there certain misconceptions that continue to come up that you need to dispel?

Amorosano: There may be some misunderstanding in regards to the scope of the relationship with HP.

In a sense we’ve tried to be very clear that it provides HP with an ability to source Canon product and resell that technology directly to the end customer.

"We do not provide the ability for HP to sell through their reseller channel, which we think is a very important distinction for our channel partners. If HP were able to do that quite frankly we’d have a lot of conflict in the marketplace. That certainly is worth clarifying."

There’s also some confusion in regards to the technology aspects of the relationship. Canon Inc. made an announcement that mentioned some collaboration from a technology perspective. Much of that at this point is focused on the network management of the devices—both the Canon devices within HP’s tools and the HP devices within Canon’s tools.

There have been some questions as to whether HP’s Open Extensibility Platform (OXP) will run on Canon imageRUNNER devices and we haven’t had any conversations to that effect or made any public statements about anything beyond what was in the Canon Inc. press release. Same holds true for branding.

I think there’s some misconceptions that the nature of the relationship is such that we would deliver product to HP under an OEM basis where they would put their HP brand on it, but that’s not the case. All the technology that HP will source under this relationship will be sold under the Canon brand.

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Based on these answers, it sounds like Canon got the best of this deal.

By the way, go check out Imaging Solutions Reseller. It's a new online magazine about our industry - not bad.

Your Managed Print Services Association and the European MPS Conference

Your Managed Print Services Association and the MPS conference in Amsterdam - the coming out party; the Vanguard. Think of it as a precursor to the North American conference in May.

Not only will your MPSA be attending the MPS Conference in Amsterdam, Jim Fitzpatrick the President of your MPSA will lead a presentation on the "State of Standards".

Since the election of your MPSA Team, much has been accomplished in preparation for the European MPS Conference. Indeed, in less than six months, the MPSA has built an infrastructure, website(parts under construction), and put together membership offerings.

Oh but wait, there is so much more.

A three month membership is free to those who sign up now for a limited time

Check it out here.

So, you might say,

"Greg, why in the world would I ever want to be part of the MPSA? I sell copiers, toner, printers, service, servers, telephony, storage, EDM, etc."

Good question.

Here's my answer: you will be part of something that will add value to your client relationships.

This is an organization of like minded people, at the very beginning of organizing. We are sharing insight on a non-competitive basis, elevating the discourse and breaking free form the shackles of the past...

...yeah, that was dramatic.

We are not a bunch of statisticians collecting data points from across the output device spectrum(not that there's anything wrong with that).

And we're not a group of beard scratching consultants who have been in the industry for the last 105 years espousing re-hashed copier sales training(not that there's anything wrong with that).

From my experience with just the executive members, the board members, and even our detractors, this is a good thing.

For instance, your elected officials are of such a diverse background and employed in completely different sectors - yet we all get along and we are all looking to improve MPS awareness. To use a word I have come to despise- Synergy.

We hope to establish some basic standards ultimately sharing tools that will help you transform the transactional into relational. Adding depth to your selling engagements.

But we shouldn't do it alone - we need you.

My "special" mission is to keep the direct avenue's of input open to the "trenches" - the people on the street, in the mix, winning and losing deals everyday, owners, managers, executives, clients and selling professionals.

No frackin Ivory Towers here, no elitism, no snobbish intelligentsia- this is a goal.

And it is just that, a goal. I know the solitary fighting man is a tragic story; it never ends well for the "Leonidas" of the day or a young Anakin and remember what happened to John the Baptist.

But it's fun.

- Yikes.

LOL!

Insider Trading Hits IBM - Moffat Charged

This is big.

Of course, everyone is innocent until...but the FBI don't fool around.

Especially when wire taps are involved.

"Bob Moffat is a good guy, and IBM is pretty strict about things like this," said Pete Elliot, director of marketing at Key Information Systems, a Woodland Hills, Calif.-based solution provider and IBM partner. "I'd be surprised if he was involved in things like that." - Channel Web

The full article is here.

This tomfoolery will deliver bad dividends.