VMworld 2012: New opportunities for Channel Partners
Last week during the VMworld annual conference held in San Francisco, VMware announced the VMware vCloud Suite, a comprehensive cloud solution that will help customers drive greater efficiency and improve operational agility. According to Paul Maritz VMware CEO, this solution offers customers everything they need to build, operate and manage their cloud environments. For more information about the features of this solution go to .
In order to understand more on how this solution creates new opportunities for channel partners I got in touch with Doug Smith, VMware’s Vice President of Global Partner Strategy & Operations. One of the things that we discussed was the available options that channel partners now have with a comprehensive bundle like the vCloud Suite. One of these options is that the integration in the bundle makes it much easier for channel partners to manage licenses for customers. There is also a great services and upgrade opportunity since VMware already have a large install base of vSphere. According to VMware’s latest survey, partners sold $15 worth of other products for a $1 vSphere license sale. These include servers, storage, networking and other software. All of these products depend heavily on IT services.
When I asked Doug about the target audience of the vCloud Suite he explained that this solution is targeted towards larger SMBs and enterprises. He suggests that the right solution for SMBs is their , a cloud-based virtualization and IT management solution.
Doug assured me that channel partners interested in selling the vCloud Suite have nothing to worry about since VMware provides extensive training on how to position the suite, deploy and service it. The company provides training material through its that has evolved in a solution based program divided into different competencies. Channel partners interested in selling the vCloud Suite would make use of the cloud based competency.
We had quite a good discussion on how VMware is ready to help channel partners at all costs. As the solution gets deeper, channel partners might need some extra help to decide on what to focus, as in which part/s of the vCloud Suite they should sell. Doug explained that the company is encouraging all partners interested in selling the suite to reach out to one of the Partner Business Managers that are ready to provide face to face guidance. As Doug clearly stated: “VMware is ready to help partners find their focus.”
The feedback about the suite so far is quite positive and the majority of channel partners see it as a very competitive offering. If you’d like to check this out for yourself just go to Twitter and search for: #VMworld.
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