Author: James Koopmann

OEMs face tough competition and slim margins so they are continually looking for ways to reduce costs while still providing exceptional products and service to their customers. One of the more favored tactics for OEMs to accomplish this is to get as many of the required components to build or support their solutions from a single source.

This blog entry contains a series of questions DCIG posed to Andy Johnson, OEM Product Manager at Bell Micro. Andy maintains a business development role for Bell Micro and has responsibility for Bell Micro’s branded solutions with a strong focus on Bell Micro’s HP relationship. In this interview, Andy gives us insight into how Bell Micro is working with HP to satisfy the OEM market and in particular how Bell Micro and HP provide solutions that differentiate it from the competition.

One can hardly argue against the success of Linux. User and developer communities such as The Linux Foundation and The Linux Developer Network attest to the success and steadily increasing set of robust development tools and user communities. And while Linux is still free, many large distributors, companies such as Dell, IBM, HP, and Sun Microsystems, have latched onto its benefits by creating business models that support selling, supporting and contributing to the Linux free software and open source initiatives.