Nutanix hails Dell deal as a channel winner

Datacenter infrastructure vendor signs OEM agreement with Dell to bring Web-scale technology to the masses

Dell’s channel partners are set for a revenue boost after the vendor signed an OEM deal with Nutanix to tap into a multibillion-dollar opportunity in the converged infrastructure space.

Under the terms of the deal, Dell’s new XC Series of Web-scale converged appliances will be built with Nutanix software running on Dell PowerEdge servers, offering firms of all sizes the chance to grab the benefits of a virtualised datacentre environment and ultimately save money.

Products will be on the market in Q4 this year.

The agreement also includes joint sales, marketing, support and service investments, as well as alignment of product road maps.

Steve Kaplan, vice president of channel and strategic sales at Nutanix, told CRN the deal was a boon for the channel.

“Web-scale is a technology invented and used by all cloud providers and Nutanix has brought this to the datecentre,” he said. “This deal with Dell will allow us to get mindshare in the market, because we are a fairly small vendor, and it will also allow those partners who have been selling just hardware to actually show customers the benefits of moving to a new architecture.

“Instead of buying arrays and disks, Dell partners now have the opportunity to change the game by bringing up Web-scale technology and providing a much better solution for their customers,” he said.

Kaplan claimed there would be opportunities for both Dell and Nutanix partners, as more and more customers transition their business to the cloud and a virtualised environment.

However, he also said the deal would have no negative impact on Nutanix’s existing partner base.

“Traditionally, an OEM relationship has meant that one manufacturer has carte blanche licence to another manufacturer’s product – but that is not the case with this relationship. Dell still has to register deals, and those deals have to be approved,” he stressed.

Alan Atkinson, vice president and general manager of Dell Storage, said: “Nutanix is a recognised leader in the converged infrastructure market with a software-driven offering that fits with Dell’s efforts to redefine datacentre economics and simplify IT for our customers. By combining infrastructure and software technologies from both companies with Dell’s capabilities, we believe our new solutions will be positioned to be a significant player in the growing, multibillion-dollar converged infrastructure market.”