Dell's cloud arm goes back to Wyse channel roots

The department is increasing its support, training and incentives for partners in channel push

Dell's Cloud Client Computing (CCC) is "going back to its roots" as a mainly channel outfit with increased investment in its partners' training and support.

The unit was set up in 2012 when Dell acquired thin-client vendor Wyse, which went to market 100 per cent through the channel.

Jeff McNaught, executive director and chief strategy officer at Dell CCC, said he sees the added channel investment as going back to Wyse's origins.

"We are going back to our roots, which is increased dependence and investment in the channel," he said. "Wyse was 100 per cent channel. When we were acquired by Dell we transformed a little bit and took on a bit of direct business as well. But for this next year, we are increasing our investment in the channel in marketing, training and support."

The increased investment in the channel will include more enablement, better tools, better training and more incentives for partners to build their businesses, he said.

Dell CCC currently does over half of its business in the channel, and McNaught said the addition of former EMC partners provides them with the opportunity to recruit those partners to Dell CCC.

"We are going back to our roots - increased dependence and investment in the channel"

"We absolutely expect [Dell] EMC partners to join CCC," McNaught said. "Moving end-user computing to the cloud is for many a natural evolution, because without doing that it is very hard to embrace bring your own device and keep data in one place. The first thing we need to do is transform those [Dell][ EMC partners and expand their product portfolio to include all the software and end-points that CCC provides.

"They were already selling the datacentre solutions, but now they can deliver the entire solution end to end. It is a huge market opportunity for them. We are seeing a lot of growth in the desktop virtualisation space in general, so it is a market opportunity that their customers want."

McNaught said that Dell CCC will also be hoping to recruit partners from outside Dell EMC with new financial incentives which will be announced with the new programme in February.

"We are going to continue to see the channel grow because the business is growing. We would love to steal partners from anywhere they want to come from. When we roll out the brand new programme it will have a brand new set of financial incentives that will give them the investment to learn the business. We are making it very worthwhile for channel partners to make those investments," he added.

Phoenix Software has been a Dell reseller for a number of years and became a Premier partner last year. Its business development manager Frank Gregory said that over the past 18 months it has noticed a big change in channel focus from Dell's CCC.

"We have seen Dell moving over the last four or five years more towards the channel. Our engagement with the CCC team has increased quite significantly in the last 18 months or so. We are doing quite a lot more business with them," he said.

"The investments we have seen are in resource availability, time and support for the business. Rarely a day goes by without some level of contact with the support team. Our experience over the past 18 months as a channel partner has significantly improved from what it was two or three years ago."