Taking direct aim at Dell, HP Inc. is set to launch a new PC and printer SMB  offensive, HP Inc. Americas President Christoph Schell told Best of Breed Conference attendees Monday,

Schell said HP Inc. is set to add 80 new reps charged with "hunting" new SMB business in a 100 percent channel-led model.

The SMB assault comes just as the $55 billion HP Inc. is set to spin off into a separate company as of Nov. 1 and as rival Dell grapples with the fallout from its $67 billion enterprise-focused acquisition of storage leader EMC and its subsidiary VMware.

Taking aim at the Dell SMB stronghold, Schell told partners: "I think they are going to be preoccupied. I am going to ask those 80 reps to go after that business. I am counting on you to help us develop that business."

Schell said the SMB customer base has historically been underserved in the U.S. "This is a big deal," he said. "This is hunting and passing it on to partners."

Stephanie Dismore, the vice president and general manager of U.S. channels for HP Inc., said the new SMB campaign is a watershed moment to grab share from Dell.

"We haven't had this type of focus specifically for that SMB customer in a long time,"  she said. "We really feel like there is a huge opportunity for HP and our channel partners to really take share from Dell. Dell owns this space, and they own it direct.This is Dell's sweet spot. We want to go after that segment with our channel partners."

HP Inc. is also looking at 4,000 SMB accounts and optimizing that business through the channel. "If they are buying direct today, we are going to make sure we offer those to our channel partners," she said.

Rich Baldwin, CIO and chief strategy officer at Nth Generation Computing, a San Diego-based solution provider and longtime partner of HP, said he sees a big opportunity to work with HP in SMB accounts.

Nth Generation is looking at putting together some new SMB resources to team with the new HP reps in the field. "Going more after the SMB makes sense," he said. "We are getting more and more traction with HP there with changes in their call center.  We are seeing HP working with us on more mid-sized opportunities."

Baldwin predicted that the turmoil from Dell's acquisition of EMC will result in significant growth in his HP business. "We are growing our HP business at 20 percent, and the Dell-EMC deal is going to accelerate it even more," he said.

Baldwin said he sees huge opportunities to move HP products into Dell accounts with the wide range of HP products, including PCs, printers and even 3Par. "If you are a customer that owned [Dell] Compellent and you see Dell merging with EMC, you have to ask which product are they going to keep? This is a great time to take the 3Par message to the Dell and EMC base."