HP UK’s channel boss, Neil Sawyer, has been assuring the OEM’s partners that its latest acquisition, Apogee, will not receive preferential treatment.
As CRN reports, HP announced its plans to acquire the Maidstone-based Apogee at the beginning of this month, “continuing a trend of print vendors acquiring in their channel ecosystem.”
Following the revelation, HP’s Enrique Lores announced that Apogee would not receive “preferential treatment”, and Sawyer has subsequently backed up this statement by confirming that Apogee “will not be run by the UK HP team.”
“The key thing for me is that Apogee will continue to operate as an independent subsidiary of HP and the reporting line for that business will sit outside the HP UK and Ireland operation for good reason,” he said.
“None of our partners receive preferential treatment and in the same way that we manage all our partners regardless of product type, we have the same commercial relationships as any other partner and they will have the same access to tools and partner programmes that are offered today.
“It’s business as usual for all our partners. We have been speaking to a number of our managed print and IT reseller partners over the last couple of weeks and the feedback is positive.
“There is no change in terms of how we work together [with Apogee] on a day-to-day basis. They are independent and in terms of partner management they are an extremely important partner because they are Europe’s largest independent [print] reseller partner.”
Sawyer reiterated that HP would “continue to take the same approach as it does with its other partners” and “stressed that HP remains committed to working with other partners”.
“From our point of view, as with every partner, we want them to sell as many HP-branded devices as possible,” he said. “That is our objective; we have a long-term goal to make sure that we capitalise on our heritage and success in the print market.
“What comes with that is partnerships that have lasted the test of time. We have invested in many partners to work together and grow our business jointly.
“The objective with Apogee and all our other partners is to make sure that we are competitive and compelling with their end customers so that they choose our brand overall.”
