After Macdonald, Deltek pulled back into its shell under a CEO, Kevin Parker, who strikes me as not interested in the press or anybody (including most employees) other than the investors and runs a pretty much one-man show that's more than a little paranoid. Clearly, Maconomy has been a great move for the company. However, it has drowned out all talk about the channel. In 2009, Parker talked about channel contributions to revenue in earnings webcasts. But those mentions have disappeared. Even at the points when the channel wasn't growing, NetSuite's VARs got a mention by CEO Zach Nelson. The percentage of revenue from resellers has not appeared as a metric in recent earnings webcasts and often out-of-sight means not viewed as particularly important.
DELTEK AND THE CHANNEL?
The recent death of Sean Hickey, the VP of sales at Deltek, had me thinking more about that company and its relationship to the channel. Hickey, you may remember, had taken over Taylor Macdonald's job after he left at the end of 2008. Since then, the channel has shrunk as stronger VARs have taken over the business of other channel members. But it's the acquisition of Maconomy that has my focus and Maconomy is clearly the hot ticket at Deltek and it's a direct sales organization.
