VMware channel boss on why its 'antiquated' partner programme needed an overhaul
Programme changes will come into effect on 29 February 2020
VMware's spate of acquisitions in recent years led it to realise that it needed a more unified approach to its partner programme, according to Jenni Flinders (pictured), the vendor's VP and global channel chief.
The vendor made a handful of sizeable acquisitions this year, including that of cybersecurity vendor Carbon Black and Pivotal Software, as well as Kubernetes specialist Heptio last year.
"If you look at a lot of the acquisitions that we've made, how our cloud portfolio has expanded - the solution set that we've now made available to partners really expands on our services capabilities," she told press at VMworld in Barcelona.
"VMware has kind of grown up as the product portfolio has expanded to really rethink the channel strategy in terms of going deeper with highly capable and competent partners that can deliver successful customer outcomes."
The new Partner Connect programme will come into effect on 29 February 2020. Under the new regime, the tiers will change from Professional, Enterprise and Premier to Partner, Advanced and Principal, respectively.
The programme will also be aligned to the vendor's IT priorities, which are hybrid cloud, multi cloud, modern applications, networking and security and digital workspace. Partners can choose one or more of these categories in which to pursue Master Services Competencies.
This, Flinders claimed, is to allow partners to better differentiate themselves both in the market and with VMware.
Partners will fall under the "One programme, one agreement" banner, regardless of whether they are MSPs, resellers or solution providers currently.
"If you're a solution provider, you probably signed an agreement with us that you're a VCPP. If you're an MSP, you also had to sign a VCPP - it's pretty complicated and very transaction-focused," Flinders stated.
"When we looked at the customer journey and we looked at how our portfolio expanded, we said ‘We're bringing to market a single programme, one agreement - irrespective of your business model'.
"So we take all that antiquated nomenclature and throw it out the door and we will engage with you based on your business.
"We will support you based on your business model but we're not going to make you categorise yourself after antiquated architecture."
Partner Connect represents the first significant changes to VMware's partner programme in about a decade and partners of the acquired companies, such as Carbon Black, will now fall under it.
Flinders said partners of these companies seemed to be "chomping at the bit" to be able to take advantage of the changes.
"Carbon Black, for example, are excited about the scale and the opportunity and the depth that we're building into the programme. So it is going to be an easy transition and that's what we worked on with the acquisition," she declared.
"We're going to fit right in line with our strategic IT priorities, and that's why we kept it at that level. So any acquisitions or new product development and releases that we do, we built those competencies and we refresh those MSPs - that's the dynamic scenario and it makes it so easy to plug and play from an acquisition or product development."