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"We purchased the array through Dell for their support of EMC products," said Mark Craft, systems administrator at Dewberry and Davis. "So far, we haven't had any complaints."

But such a deal represents a big source of complaints among EMC solution providers. Many say the Hopkinton, Mass., storage vendor's Clariion reseller pact with Dell,now a year old,is squeezing their business because the direct computer seller wields a pricing advantage. Some EMC channel partners, in fact, say that Dell hardware in the data center almost ensures a lost sales opportunity for them, and others are concerned that Dell, Round Rock, Texas, could gobble up other segments of the EMC channel.

Their dismay comes with good reason, since Dell has become EMC's biggest storage reseller. EMC CEO Joe Tucci said at a accurate conference that one-third of the vendor's Clariion revenue comes via Dell, with solution provider and direct sales also each accounting for one-third of the product line's revenue. The Dell business, however, is the fastest growing segment of the three, Tucci said.

The Dell-EMC alliance particularly has become a thorn in the side of storage solution providers in the enterprise Windows space. For example, Pat Edwards, vice president of sales at Alliance Technology Group, a Hanover, Md.-based solution provider, bristles when people call Dell a reseller of EMC products.

"We're not in the same category with Dell," Edwards said. "EMC gets away with [selling around solution providers by saying that they don't sell direct. They sell to a direct manufacturer like Dell and wash their hands of it."

For storage-only solution providers, selling to a customer that has Dell servers in place is tough, Edwards noted. "If I want to compete there, I have to sell Hewlett-Packard, IBM or Sun servers. But I don't lead with servers," he said. "I will provide servers as a bundle with storage if customers need it. But it's not our business."

If a solution provider enters a customer site and sees Dell products on the floor, it's assumed that the customer shops only for the best price, Edwards added. "Our salesperson will ask if the customer is talking to other vendors. If they say no, we know they're lying," he said.

The Dell relationship is one of the few black marks on EMC's otherwise channel-friendly record, the storage vendor's partners say. Yet Gregg Ambulos, vice president of global channels at EMC, said there's no reason for solution providers to compete with Dell head-to-head on Clariion arrays.

Most of EMC's Dell business should come from the low-cost Windows NT market with EMC's new CX200 entry-level array, while solution providers can serve customers with the midrange CX400 and enterprise-class CX600 arrays, Ambulos said. What's more, solution providers' ability to offer customers complete solutions separates them from low-cost providers like Dell, he said.

"If a solution provider wants to compete head-on with Dell on hardware price, nine times out of 10 Dell will win," Ambulos said. "But if they target solutions, nine of 10 times the VAR will win."

While Dell receives better pricing from EMC than solution providers do, the arrangement is no different than the volume pricing EMC offers its largest partners, Ambulos said, adding that he can't recall a single solution provider that has left EMC because of its Dell relationship.

"If this was having a dramatic impact on the market, we would have a lot of partners question the relationship," he said. "Dell is a key partner of ours, but so are other channel partners."

J. Edward McCann, regional manager at Continental Resources, a Bedford, Mass.-based solution provider, said his company isn't very panic about competition from Dell right now. "Dell has done a real good job with its pricing. Once a customer has Dell servers, storage sales are tough. But if we are talking about a large solution, we can beat Dell," he said.

However, as Dell grows the market share for its EMC arrays in the Windows space, there's nothing to prevent it from entering the Unix space, said McCann, whose company is a Sun Microsystems partner.

"If Dell comes in from the NT side to my Unix side and offers service contracts that cost a third of mine, it will hurt the channel. If there is a large enough price delta, common sense says it will hurt us," he said.

And that scenario stands as a real possibility, if things go according to Dell's plans. When EMC introduced its CX600 array in August, Dell said it would use the array to enter the heterogeneous Unix/NT enterprise space and target Unix-only shops for the first time with its commodity-based pricing model.

But since then, Dell has relied on services and its ability to target key markets to ensure that it doesn't compete on price alone, said Terry Klein, vice president of the Advanced Systems Group for Dell Americas. Dell, which sells the Clariion arrays under the Dell-EMC name, is rarely the low-cost leader, Klein said. About 80 percent of the installation and product-readiness services related to Dell servers and Dell-EMC arrays are done by Dell staff, with help from EMC personnel when needed, he said.

"Because we mandate these services, we find that [with the real end-user sales price for the entire bundled configuration, we are rarely the low-cost Clariion provider to an end user," Klein said.

"We may have really aggressive hardware rates, but we find that very few other [EMC channel partners are mandating three years [of warranty or their own installation and/or minimal set of product readiness," he said. "Most of them have one year of service-type of warranty agreements. It's something that we battle with our sales organization about because that's not a typical Dell proposition. We're used to being low-cost, and we end up having to sell more on the value of understanding how this space works."

Because of such services, Dell ends up with a higher price than its competitors,including solution providers,in about eight out of 10 cases, according to Klein. However, about 95 percent of storage sales have gone into Dell server environments, he added.

"There are very few cases where we're going to sell the EMC product where we don't already have the servers," Klein said. "[These customers value our knowledge of Windows. They value our knowledge of the Linux environment. And they value us doing complete sets of server-storage consolidation. If we don't have that element with the customer, it doesn't matter if we're the low-cost provider or the high-cost provider. They won't buy it from us."

The frequency with which Dell competes against solution providers depends on the customer type, according to Klein. For instance, in the Fortune 2000 space, it's rare for Dell to go up against EMC channel partners, but in the government space,where Dell's server market share tops 50 percent,competition depends on which integrator owns a particular government contract, he said.

Similarly, while Dell pretty much owns the state and local government market and the education space either directly or via its relationship with EDS, it has trouble against EMC partners in the health-care arena, Klein said.

Indeed, if EMC solution providers leverage the Dell-EMC relationship, it can mean more business for them, said Bill Taylor, director of EMC's global channel development group.

"I can ensure you that a lot of our partners are doing well with the Clariion business because of all the Dell hype," Taylor said. "It's a brand-name recognition game."

Some solution providers say they're finding that Dell's sales of Clariion arrays can even benefit their business. "We can get some services from Dell because of customer needs," said Chris Swahn, national president of sales at Amherst Corporate Computer Sales and Solutions, Merrimack, N.H. "Our technology, integration and delivery capabilities offer value to our customers. We do a lot of imaging, ghosting and loads on Dell servers."

For Amherst, the Dell-EMC alliance is a minimal factor in the midrange and enterprise spaces, but that could change, said Swahn. "Even in the midrange shops that have Dell relationships, we're not seeing a lot of action with Dell storage. Of course, maybe the other shoe will fall, and [Dell will come in later," he said.

A former EMC partner, Amherst is mulling the possibility of reuniting with the vendor now that its channel-unfriendly past is fading away, according to Swahn.

"EMC wants to get into the SMB market. [Now they're looking at how to do it," he said. "They already have the best technology. So we're evaluating them again, based not on technology but on their channel capabilities."

Alliance Technology Group also had previously dropped EMC's Clariion line, but the solution provider recently decided to restart its Clariion relationship with the vendor, Edwards said.

And those solution providers likely will see more competition. Looking ahead, Dell and EMC executives expect their relationship to expand.

In late October, the vendors announced that EMC had licensed Dell to manufacture the entry-level CX200, slated to ship early this month. EMC's Tucci also said he isn't ruling out the possibility that Dell could eventually make Clariion storage arrays for the rest of EMC's channel,a move that some industry observers say would put EMC partners in the difficult position of purchasing EMC products from its strongest competitor.

"We are not closing any doors," Tucci said. "We continually [review it, like any relationship. In any relationship, you plant the seeds, grow and learn from each other. Right now, far and away, the volume seller by Dell will be the CX200. And they are manufacturing it to control their own destiny."

The fact that future EMC arrays could be manufactured in conjunction with Dell doesn't concern Kevin Reith, manager of strategic technology at Info Systems, a Wilmington, Del.-based solution provider.

"Who makes it is not important," Reith said. "I believe in the virtual organization: Do what you do best, and let others do the rest. So it doesn't bother me. What's more important is how they support and market the products."

STEVEN BURKE contributed to this story.

Dell Computer EMC

Dell is positioning the new Clariion CX600, which EMC unveiled this week, as its high-end array, and using it to enter the heterogeneous Unix/NT enterprise space, said Matt Brisse, Dell product manager for the new array, called the Dell/EMC CX600.

Dell will also target 100 percent Unix shops for the first time with this array, Brisse said.

"Dell has a commodity-based sales model," he said. "We can bring a value to those customers, where before they could only use proprietary or monolithic products. . . . Traditionally, Dell has a maniacal focus on costs. Now we can bring this to the Unix market."

While Dell currently offers NT and Linux servers, it does have the storage management software capabilities to leverage in mixed Unix/NT environments for a seamless user model, Brisse said.

Eighty percent of Dell's systems consultants are now Unix-certified, thanks to training and other support from partners such as EMC, Brisse said.

Consulting, planning, design and implementation services for the Clariion will be done by Dell-badged employees or, if customers prefer, personnel from third parties such as EMC, said Brisse. Dell employees are currently going through thousands of training sessions each day, including mandatory Unix training, leveraging EMC procedures, he said.

Further cementing the Dell bond with EMC is the first public acknowledgement of a manufacturing arrangement between the two. EMC executives this week said an entry-level version of the CX600 is planned to be introduced six to eight months later. The entry-level model will be manufactured by both EMC and Dell, but EMC's solution providers will be tapped to resell the EMC version.

Solution providers are concerned about Dell's low-cost push into the enterprise and how that will affect their EMC business.

The problem is not just that Dell comes in with lower numbers, said Hope Hayes, president of Alliance Technology Group, a Hanover, Md.-based EMC partner. It is more a case of how the vendor combines products and moves margins between various products to compete in the storage space.

"We see customers say they want to buy Dell servers or other products," Hayes said. "They say they also want disks. We can bring in the disks. But if Dell hears of the deal, they will come in and move things around to make the numbers. You can never beat Dell on price."

One solution provider who requested anonymity said the Dell model is driving prices down and putting pressure on margins.

"We focus on value, so Dell's model is contrary to ours. Yes, you can argue that you can make it up on value services. But we like to get margin on the hardware, too. When [Dell's in the picture, it becomes more of a price-driven scenario than a value-driven scenario. The lower end you get, the more formidable the competition with Dell.

At the lower end, deals are more margin-driven anyway, the solution provider said. "The trick to competing with Dell is know when to walk," he said. "If the price is the sole determining factor, it's hard to compete."

Short-term spiffs and special pricing to Dell from EMC shows that EMC's direct guys don't understand marketing, said another solution provider. "Sales people are coin-operated," the solution provider said. "But what about us? We are always trying to win the direct guys' hearts. We bring them into accounts. But they can make more money with Dell. Sure, EMC is saying it's moving into the channel. But the biggest beneficiary to that is their Dell relationship."

Not all solution providers agree that EMC's relationship with Dell hurts the channel.

James Kernan, president and CEO of Networks Plus Technology Group, a San Diego-based solution provider, said his company resells Dell products, including the EMC-made Clariion storage arrays, and even does subcontracting for Dell on services such as on-site consulting, design, installation and support. "This happens especially if we are in the account and create the opportunity for Dell," he said.

It helps Networks Plus that not many people resell Dell, said Kernan. "We actually make more margin on Dell than with many so-called channel-friendly vendors," he said. "If you sell Dell as a solution instead of as a single box, it works."

Federal government has lamented the ineffective implementation of policies in the nation’s education sector.

It said there was urgent need to ensure proper implementation of policies to raise the standards of education in the country.

The permanent secretary, Federal Ministry of Education, Mr Andrew Adejo, stated this at the 67th National Council on Education (NCE) meeting with the theme: ”Addressing the Challenges of Policy Implementation: A Panacea for the Achievement of Education 2030 Agenda” held in Ikeja area of Lagos State.

Adejo, who was represented by Mrs Obianuju Anigbogu, the director, Educational Planning, Research and Development (EPR&D), Federal Ministry of Education noted that the theme is apt in view of the fact that the policies are usually well-crafted, but are faced with ineffective implementation.

The permanent secretary said that the educational policies faced delay and lack of regular review to reflect national needs and aspirations, lack of consistent monitoring and evaluation to checkmate policy implementation.

”When policies that guide a nation are not implemented at the appropriate time the consequences are backwardness, under development, unemployment for graduates, poverty, insecurity, etc.

”However, in order to tackle the challenges of policy implementation all hands must be on deck,” Adejo said.

The permanent secretary hoped other states would also emulate such budgetary examples for the good of the nation.

”It is not enough to have adequate funds to show positive improvement in our education sector, we must all commit to put in our best to ensure that programmes are delivered appropriately to reach the desired beneficiaries,’’ he said.

‘To make policies more concrete and valuable, policy implementers; curriculum planners; curriculum developers and policy-makers must imbibe realistic policies that the country’s education makes them less dependent on others for survival by analysing reliable factors that obstruct or accelerate the implementation process.’’

Also speaking, Gov. Babajide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos State said that the NCE was a major stakeholders’ forum designed to brainstorm and collectively articulate ideas, towards improving education service delivery of the country.

Sanwo-Olu, who was represented by Mr Jamiu Alli-Balogun, the Lagos State Commissioner for Basic and Secondary Education charged educators in the education sector to ensure they turn out graduates that are fit for the labour market.

Implementing Agile in the Classroom

Individuals and interactions over processes and tools.

Working software over comprehensive documentation.

Customer collaboration over contract negotiation.

Responding to change over following a plan.

Responding to change may be one of the easiest values of Agile to incorporate into your classroom. The first area to look at is curriculum planning. At the beginning of the term, you lay out your curriculum for the semester in a comprehensive, structured and organized plan. Instead of looking at these plans as concrete, Agile teaches us that concretely abiding by your plan is not effective. Evaluate where your students are. Are they ahead of the material? Do we need to perform some review before they can understand this material? A better way to treat the curriculum is to constantly edit it and adapt the material to your student's needs. Generally, the value says to plan, do, act and check. In the classroom, this can be translated to course planning, lesson delivery, student assessment and course valuation and delivery. 

Remember to start small and take on thing on at a time! Games and Agile projects are a great place to begin. Establish an environment of open thinking and support, sustain that throughout the term and students will follow, regardless of initial hesitation. The largest Agile implementation blocker is not understanding it.  

Classroom Tools

In a classroom, there are many free tools available for use to being the implementation of Agile to your class. Below is a list of just a view available tools for students to use to being becoming Agile:

• Trello - Online Agile Story Board. Students can sign up for free with an email and add one another to their story boards for team collaboration.
• Taiga.io - Online Agile and Kanban Story Board. Students can sign up using their Miami University email for a free account.
• Slack.com - Group Communication tool. Ability to have different conversations based on course within one group chat. Great for team collaboration and communication. Students can sign up with an email for a free account.
• Popplet - Online Mind Mapping tool. Students can sign up for free using their university email.

The Dell Latitude 13 Education Series is a tough desktop-replacement laptop with a battery that lasts 10 hours. It should be on the top of your shopping list for the upcoming back-to-school season.

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