After decades of being a direct computer seller through its website and phone lines, Dell, Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) has embarked on the only path it could to shore up sales in 2007: retail. As cost cuts and manufacturing efficiency was duplicated by the competition, Dell found that it could no longer survive just by selling direct, and launched a massive foray into retail in the U.S., including selling at Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) and Best Buy, Inc. (NYSE: BBY). It didn't stop there -- Europe is on it's mind, too.

But the consumer market is not the only one Dell needs to reach in Europe. The computer maker wants to snuggle up to more system integrators and corporate resellers by getting its products into the reseller channel. This after years and years of battling the reseller channel by only selling direct. Can you cozy up to a former nemesis in the market and play nice on a dime? Sure one can, but Dell will need to exemplify cost competitiveness as well as ensuring those resellers are trained on knowing what advantages all those Dell systems can provide. To that extent, Dell is providing a certification program and is encouraging any and all resellers to become "Dell Certified."

Dell's Josh Claman says that the computer maker has tried to really warm up to European computer system resellers by "establishing processes, consolidating our sales team across Europe, making sure that we focus and understand the needs of the partners we've inherited." Well, that's great -- and it will need to continue doing that. Larger competitor Hewlett-Packard Corp. (NYSE: HPQ) is positioned very well (and has been) in the European reseller market. Dell can't just encroach on this territory by proxy -- it will face quite a few obstacles in stealing corporate market share from HP in Europe. As always, it'll be a long haul, not a year-long process.