VCE sets out to revamp channel
Tri-vendor coalition discusses partner programmes, latest products and distribution strategy
The Virtual Computing Environment Company (VCE) has overhauled its channel strategy to make it easier for partners to close Vblock deals.
VCE is the name given to the tri-vendor coalition formed by VMware, Cisco and EMC in 2009, when all three agreed to pool their resources and bring to market private cloud-enabling infrastructure packages known as Vblocks.
At the EMC World partner summit in Las Vegas last week, VCE announced an update to its Vblock product line, as well as changes to its partner programme and distribution strategy.
Speaking to ChannelWeb, Blake Salle, senior vice president for worldwide sales and channels at VCE, said: "We have designed the partner programme so that partners can now go to a single location to order a Vblock solution, rather than through VMware, Cisco and EMC."
The VCE has also tweaked its deal-registration programme in a similar way, to make it much simpler for partners to qualify and receive available incentives.
"In the past, a partner would register incremental opportunities through all three vendors, but the likelihood of them capturing all three of those was challenging, if not impossible," explained Salle.
Partners can now register converged infrastructure deals through VCE, which will then assume responsibility for any further financial rewards that partners are owed by VMware, Cisco and EMC.
"We now offer partners a single opportunity registration point," said Salle. "We will provide an incremental opportunity incentive to partners [when they register opportunities] and all the parental incremental incentive opportunities when partners close that deal."
The coalition is on the brink of announcing its European distribution partners, he added, who will be responsible for implementing many aspects of its partner programme.
"We want to drive most of our business through distribution. We want our distributors to act as a storefront for us and honour all our opportunity registration and rebate programmes so partners do not miss out," he said.
"We will also be relying on them to find out who the best datacentre partners are to help us push and sell the converged infrastructure message to customers."
Vblock choice
The coalition has also refreshed its Vblock line-up to accommodate the launch of EMC's VNX unified storage product and the latest version of the vendor's Symmetrix VMAX system.
As a result, VCE partners now have a choice of four Vblocks to take to market, as opposed to three, with the arrival of the new VNX-based Vblock series 300. A new version of the Vblock 2 has also been launched, which is VMAX-based, and renamed Vblock series 700.
"With EMC's announcements around VNX and VMAX, it has enabled us to move into new markets and we are seeing demonstrable traction across every market segment," said Salle.
The enterprise, public sector and commercial business markets, in particular, are proving particularly lucrative for VCE.
"There is a unique market opportunity around G-Cloud, local and state government and education, due to the importance placed on compliance, and we have a high rate of adoption," said Salle.
"We also have a number of major and emerging service providers using Vblock as a platform for their managed private and public clouds."
Aad Dekkers, chief marketing officer at VCE solutions provider MTI Technology, has been expecting the coalition to build out its product portfolio for some time.
"There are some smaller Vblock configurations available, which we will be able to offer to a broader range of customers," said Dekkers.
"It is good news that the partner programme has been launched, because it will simplify things, but the current setup has never stopped us from doing business."