China is the second largest market for Dell in the world and the commercial product partnership plan is an important part of Dell's long-term strategy in China, said Min Yida, president of Dell Greater China. He also said it is an extension and complementary to the company's established pattern of direct sales, but we believe he was just being cautiously diplomatic in saying that.

If Dell signs up 1,000 channel partners in China and then undercuts them by selling directly for less, it won't keep those distributors and resellers for long.

Abandoning the direct sales model that's been so successful for it in the US is apparently what Dell believes it needs to do in order to successfully penetrate the still somewhat insular Chinese market.

Reportedly Dell's China channel strategy will focus on two kinds of partners, industry authorization partners and commercial product franchise dealers.

This is not the first report that Dell's changing its business model to sell into China, and we've covered it before. But this is the first time it's quantified how many channel partners it plans to work with across the vast reaches of the Middle Kingdom.

Oddly, China Tech News apparently hasn't fully grasped the difference between direct and indirect sales models yet, but perhaps the Chinese nuances were lost in translation to English.