Category: Bell Micro HP OEM

The announcement in early July that Teneros, a provider of application continuity appliances for Microsoft Exchange 2003 and 2007, selected Hewlett-Packard’s (NYSE: HPQ) ProLiant DL380 G5 servers as the hardware on which to base their appliance platform is pretty straightforward on the surface. Microsoft Exchange is one of the most, if not the most, mission critical applications in many companies so it only makes sense for Teneros to use servers from HP in conjunction with their email continuity appliance to support Exchange. In these environments, Teneros wants the highest level of assurance that the hardware and software are compatible with one another and will not experience any unexpected interoperability hiccups after its email continuity appliance is deployed in the field.

The yardstick for measuring the effectiveness of technology distributors has become exceedingly narrow. Most would agree that distribution competitiveness is currently measured as a function of component price and time-to-delivery for their reseller partners. Competing for new and expanded business opportunity using these criteria is tough, because of the maturity of distribution models and distributor practices which look largely the same from one to the next.