HP Inc.’s Kobi Elbaz tells CRN he sees the PC refresh lasting another six to nine months, along with a massive opportunity for partners.
Kobi Elbaz, HP Inc.’s senior vice president and general manager of its global revenue operation, told CRN that the company’s Amplify AI MasterClass has now educated some 20,000 partners through role-based training to prepare them for the rigors of selling AI into the market.
“We look at them as the extension of us. So the same way we train our people, we introduce the AI MasterClass to our partners,” he said. “We were the first one to do a role-based training. Because it’s different if you are technical or in sales.”
Elbaz (pictured above) said the AI MasterClass — which now offers five courses in 10 languages to drive AI adoption — will expand the program based on what it sees in the industry around trends in software and geared towards eliminating friction for customers.
Partners who are enrolled in Amplify represented 70 percent of HP’s revenue during the third quarter, Elbaz said.
[RELATED: Leadership Shake-Up At HP Inc.: PC Boss Departs, New Strategy Officer Arrives]
According to industry data tracker IDC, Palo Alto, Calif.-based HP is winning share among competitors in the PC space with the firm holding its number two spot and distancing itself from third place rival Dell Technologies.
With 20.8 percent of the market, HP shipped 14.2 million units during the most recent quarter, up 4.5 percent year over year. The upturn is happening as PCs are undergoing a Windows 10 end of life that is pushing all PC users to Windows 11.
Elbaz said he sees that refresh lasting another six to nine months with millions of PCs yet to be updated to Windows 11. Additionally, demand drivers like AI PCs will help partners win deals.
“And the reason why we are optimistic about the market is we think both the refresh and the mix of AI PCs that continue to grow will help this industry to continue to be very strong in terms of market,” he told CRN.
“It’s important — and this technology is evolving very, very fast — that our partners will be knowledgeable about what’s happening in the industry, what tools and capabilities exist and how they can advise the customer to take the benefit of that,” he told CRN.
Customers are looking for help with understanding pain points, while looking for a partner that can deliver managed solutions that include the ability to service and care for fleets of devices, Elbaz said.
“I think the biggest opportunity for our partners is really to help our customer through this journey,” he said. “And depending on where you play, of course, the opportunity may vary, but there is opportunity in many different elements, between managed devices, and manage print.”
Elbaz said AI PCs already represent a greater than 25 percent mix of its overall PC sales, and he expects that to grow.
“Channel partners are a key part of helping customers in the migration, helping customers understand where they are and where to use it, and help them to decide not only what to migrate, but what’s the right mix of devices they need to have in an organization,” he said.
To help partners out, Mary Beth Walker, vice president and head of partner experience and enablement at HP, told CRN that the Amplify program itself will undergo a few changes in the coming months. One of the first is that partners can win additional revenue recognition for achieving specializations with a product category.
“We want to make sure that our partners have the right capabilities to actually sell, understand and represent the products themselves, and be able to be certified in them,” she said. “We want to make sure that they have the right sales specialist, and so in return for the investments that they make to be able to do that, we’ve provided the growth play for them, which actually allows them to be able to get additional incremental recognition, again earn more for that specialization.”
Walker said beginning in HP’s 2027 fiscal year, the company is going to get rid of its point system that it had been using to track partners through either its synergy track or its power track. The company is holding off on rolling that out for a year to give partners time to get aligned with the change.
“We just found that the way that the points ended up being utilized by partners, there was enough consistency in that that we really don’t need them,” she said. “So we’re taking that out. It’s a simplification that they’re really looking forward to, but we want to work with them through the year and transition to that over time.”
