The AMI-Partners Blog

Tweet There is a lot of talk and predictions about what will happen to the global PC market opportunity. I feel like I’ve heard all of them, but I am sure I haven’t. They are endless. What I find more interesting is reviewing what’s fundamentally driving those predictions. Arguably there are three primary drivers in [...]

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Suddenly the Netbooks have become the talk of the town and you cannot miss bumping into them on a visit to any IT Retail Store these days. Going by the shipment figures available last couple of quarters, this category of laptops has shown very healthy growth amidst the gloom experienced by all other form factors of IT Hardware.

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Tweet Channel programs, more often than not, reward channel partners based on the volume of business they bring in. Period.  There’s nothing wrong with that.  However, if you’re not #1 or #2 in market share then the question  is how good is your set of “platinum” channel partners?  Sure they are great within the channel [...]

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Tweet In today’s NY Times article:  As Medical Charts Go Electonic  Rural Doctor Sees Healthy Change, tp://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/11/technology/11records.html the complications and opportunities presented by the U.S. economic stimulus package are unintentionally highlighted for IT marketers.  The article’s focus is more about how a rural medical office sees opportunities, efficiency gains and cost-saving in adopting a more “paperless office” environment.  [...]

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Tweet Perhaps my 7+ years working at HP (with most of that time in HP’s printing and imaging group) makes me more sensitive to it than most.  Or maybe I just appreciate a well played hand.  Whatever it is, Kodak is doing something fascinating. Kodak is clearly taking the opportunity, presented by the downturn, to expand their marketshare by trying to get customers [...]

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Since the start of the downturn there were signs that this would happen.

Back in Oct/Nov 2008 timeframe we started seeing price (as a purchase trigger) shift a bit in terms of importance. Don’t get me wrong, price was still important, but it was starting to become part of a bigger story about the real reason to purchase IT for SMBs. Price, and even more so promotion, dropped in double digits (YoY) for key reasons to purchase IT like PCs. As small and medium businesses started to first evaluate where they could cut costs (e.g. headcount and travel) they started to look at IT investments in the context of fulfilling on other needs such as helping them reduce telecommunications spending, improve productivity so they could get more work done with fewer people. The story became bigger than just price/promotion. SMBs wanted more from their IT purchases, but with clear ROI that mapped directly to running their business.

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