Dell and EMC partners seek reassurance over potential deal conflict
Partners argue that Dell's number-one priority should be to get a handle on deal management in wake of $67bn merger
Dell and EMC partners have urged the two vendors to tackle any potential conflict over deals as quickly as possible following their formal merger.
Next Wednesday will see the birth of Dell Technologies as Dell and EMC formally tie the knot in the tech industry's largest ever marriage.
The respective channel programmes won't formally be merged until 1 February, and partners have called on Dell to make minimising conflict between the respective partner bases a priority in the meantime.
Rupert Mills, managing director of Dell Premier partner Krome Technologies, said the merger would open up wider opportunities for his firm, and was particularly excited at the prospect of Dell launching VSAN appliances on the back of the deal.
But he warned there could be a five-month period of "semi-chaos" in the channel if the enlarged vendor fails to manage potential conflict between the two sets of partners correctly.
"The biggest challenge will be maintaining or managing deals and how they play out between people who have partnerships on either side of the fence," he said.
"We don't want to end up competing where we shouldn't be with other partners. Managing the partners competing against each other will be the key to the early stages of success. They need to try to merge their deal management systems as quickly as possible.
"We have had reassurances from the Dell side of the fence that they will be addressing that very quickly."
Ian Parslow (pictured), senior vice president of sales at MTI, one of EMC's largest partners, said MTI had been a "big supporter" of the tie-up since it was announced, but expressed similar concerns, adding that he had some initial reservations about Dell's direct sales strategy.
"The reality is that Dell is still a very direct business, far more so than EMC," he said.
"We do have some reservations that Dell not only acquired the technology but also the accounts of EMC as well. There's that initial reservation - and it's only a small one - that Dell might at the coalface, at a sales level, say that accounts ours as we bought the business. EMC and Dell need to work out the channel programme quickly to make sure there is a common deal registration process and that there's an easy-to-navigate process to ensure opportunities identified by the partner community are registered and protected, rather than Dell saying 'we own the account'."
Parslow (pictured), however, said he had met with top Dell executives this week and had "left feeling very encouraged about the support for channels".
"I remain convinced that Dell's senior channel management team will work on these small issues, and that it will be a positive outcome," he said.
Parslow said the tie-up would give customers the opportunity to buy converged infrastructure from a single source, and act as a springboard for MTI to target SMB and mid-market customers in Dell's traditional stronghold.
He also said the union could see MTI strike up ties with Dell technology partner Nutanix for the first time.
"We've been a fiercely loyal EMC partner for as long as I can remember but there are various competitive technologies in the market we've always looked at and thought 'that's rather nice'. Nutanix, for instance, is a cool product set that's going well in the market in the converged infrastructure space. With Dell committing to working with Nutanix going forward, and extending that relationship, we're quite excited at getting our hands on that type of technology and selling it to our customer base, which we might not have done if EMC had remained on its own."
Roger Harry, CEO of Dell Premier partner Circle IT, said the biggest challenge ahead for Dell will be providing clarity on the joint road map.
"I imagine there will be some crossover, so just getting clarity on where the bigger opportunities are and how to uncover them is the biggest challenge," he said.
"What Dell have done well in the past when they've acquired businesses is they've sold a lot of product - Wyse added another billion on their revenues just because of the animal Dell is, so if they open up the EMC portfolio to us quickly and we can get a good understanding of it, we can start moving on it very quickly."
Harry said he hoped the addition of EMC would also make Dell more channel-focused.
"We are a Dell-only house, so EMC coming on board, who are completely channel focused, will hopefully give us more opportunity. Hopefully Dell will become a little more like EMC. We are looking to become an EMC partner as soon as possible and move into the space they created."
Bill McGloin, chief technologist at Dell and EMC partner Computacenter, said: "It's very much business as usual for us now. We're still seeing growth in the product numbers. Customers are still adopting the technology on both sides - there's been no slowdown on that. EMC numbers have been very healthy this year, as we'd expect."