Australian EqualLogic customers can expect "business as usual" following the company's acquisition by Dell, according to the company's Australian leader Chris Casey.
"Being bought by Dell is a huge validation for iSCSI, EqualLogic and our product line," he told SearchStorage ANZ. "The major difference will be that our product is added to Dell's storage suite. Michael Dell has said our products will become a part of their lower-end PowerVault range."
Casey added that EqualLogic products, and eventually their Dell incarnations, will still be sold through the channel.
"Nothing much changes," he said.
Overseas EqualLogic customers and partners, however, have expressed unease at the transition, despite Michael Dell EqualLogic CEO Don Bulens appearing together at "town hall" meetings in the USA.
Dell held a customer town hall meeting in late November and a partner equivalent on December 7th and fielded many queries customer service.
Dell's reputation for outsourced customer service focused on "deflection rates" - the number of calls turned away - precedes it. "Dell seems to outsource service and support, while we have a very hands-on experience of sales and engineering support [from EqualLogic]," one customer said on the customer town hall call.
Dell and Bulens responded that EqualLogic's support organisation will have to be scaled out to take on Dell's customer base, but they pledged that the quality and style of EqualLogic's support would not change.
"The plan is going to be to continue the on-site support model EqualLogic already has, and leave it in place," Dell said, even though EqualLogic keeps help requests active even after it's been determined the problem is not with EqualLogic's product, a practise Dell does not follow for its other products.
But the acquisition will mean increased customer self-service, with Bulens saying EqualLogic will "identify ways to enrich self-help resources among the community of users and provide more proactive support as we go through sales."
Hoping for lower pricing
Customers asked that EqualLogic engineers remain tasked with designing systems, while hoping that Dell's economies of scale would lead to lower pricing on system parts. Bulens responded that the intention was to add value to that "full package," but not to reduce the overall price.
Storm brewing with channel partners?
So far, EqualLogic customers seem willing to give Dell the benefit of the doubt about its integration plans. It's not quite the EMC-VMware scenario some of them hoped for, with Dell running EqualLogic as an independent division. But Dell's saying the right things about retaining EqualLogic's products and commitment to service. "So far, I have no reason not to be positive," said Alan Hunt, operations manager with a major law firm.
But Dell may have a tougher time convincing EqualLogic's channel partners. Dell is considered no friend of the channel, with a direct sales model and a reputation for poaching channel sales for its direct sales force.
Dell made channel partners suspicious by revealing plans to sell EqualLogic direct, but promised channel partners on their conference call that they will be formally protected from the vendor's direct sales.
The best Dell can hope for from EqualLogic's channel partners is a "wait and see" approach. "Dell has been a very tough competitor," according to Chris Baer, account executive with Broadleaf Services, a consulting firm that's also an EqualLogic partner. "Traditionally, we haven't had any kind of relationship with them. I want to see if they really are interested in building that relationship."
Another EqualLogic partner, GreenPages Technology Solutions, started to partner with Dell over the last year and found them more solicitous of partners than in years past, said Ron Dupler, president of GreenPages Technology. "Due to our relationship with Dell improving, we're somewhat less apprehensive than others about the acquisition," he said. But, he added, "We know we're in the minority."