VMware shares the VAR love as Value Channel unveiled
Vendor urges partners to invest in it more ahead of channel programme overhaul
VMware has promised to better reward partners for their investments as part of a new channel programme set to launch in EMEA soon.
The Value Channel, which was first unveiled at the vendor's global event in San Francisco in the summer, is set to launch across all global regions before next February. At this week's VMworld Europe, the virtualisation giant's global partner boss Dave O'Callaghan said the new programme would be quite different from other those of other vendors.
"As a fairly young company, you're constantly thinking about how you go to market," he said. "Many vendors in my time across the industry throw up a pyramid with segmented partners on it. They have certain partners who have done certain things... and others are SMB and so on.
"I believe the pyramid is fairly irrelevant to partners' business model. This [new programme] is relevant."
The Value Channel will divide partners into four sections – Enrolled, Professional, Enterprise and Premier – with investment and reward increasing through each respective level. Separately from these four segments, an Elite status can be gained by partners across any level of which they show particularly detailed knowledge in a certain subject area.
The new programme is being previewed at the moment, O'Callaghan said, but it is expected to be fully rolled out globally before its Partner Exchange event next February.
The news came as the vendor – whose presentations have focused strongly on customers and products throughout the event – declared its commitment to its channel partners, through which some 95 per cent of its business in EMEA is transacted.
It reiterated its new rebate system on some of its products – which yesterday it revealed had driven the number of partners transacting its products up by six times – and said that partners were at the heart of its business.
Andy Hunt, VMware's EMEA partner boss, pointed to an $8bn addressable market opportunity in both the software-defined datacentre and end-user computing markets, and a $14bn opportunity with the hybrid cloud, and said partners will be at the heart of its charge to take the market.
"We as VMware remain committed to our partners. I've been here around 11 years and we started our strategy and said that the way we are going to be successful in Europe is through partners," he said.
"The channel represents about two thirds of our business [in EMEA]. As we grow, [partners] grow at the same rate. We remain absolutely committed to partners."