Other Dell SAP-related initiatives announced at SAPPHIRE NOW included ones around the Internet of Things, cloud blueprints to optimize SAP environments, and a new optimized architecture for SAP Foundation for Health.
CEO Bill McDermott didn’t exactly promise a kinder, gentler SAP, but he did pledge a company that will be more empathetic to customers, have a more complete vision, and be more focused on simplicity. He also offered a forecast of some trends he thinks SAP will be well positioned to leverage.
None of the announcements, which included joint validation for SAP HANA on the Azure platform, were earth-shattering, but they do speak to the significance of the relationship between the two long-time allies and how they see the market moving.
Long-time SAPer Scott Jones returns from a short sojourn at another company to take on the job of running SAP’s North American partner network.
At its partner event preceding the broader SAPPHIRE conference, SAP previewed a major new cloud program, which will be implemented in three stages, the first of which will be in Q3 and the next two, next year. Details at this point were exceedingly scarce.
The going live this week of Microsoft’s two Canadian data centres opens up significant opportunities for both Microsoft – and its channel partners.
The new two-component application infrastructure monitoring and management solution is aimed at the enterprise, where the former SMB-focused vendor has been increasingly looking for new business.
The program is designed to support a select channel deliver an ‘OpenStack Cloud-in-a-Box’ that is simple both for customers to use and partners to sell and install.
Project Horizon officially comes to market as EMC LEAP, next-gen cloud-native content apps sold on a SaaS model. While available free through a Loyalty Program to existing Documentum customers, the intent here is to greatly expand the customer base downmarket, with the aid of an expanded channel.
The new nodes equip VxRack to support OpenStack, and by next year, will support Hadoop and the VMware Photon Platform as well. They also have the effect of being able to turn Pivotal Cloud Foundry into an end-to-end solution for developers.
The new Web-scale object storage platform will extend on-prem EMC storage and backup applications into the cloud, and continue the trend of requiring the assistance of more channel partners than had been the case when Virtustream was acquired.
CloudJumper thinks its option of a concurrent user licensing model will be particularly popular in larger enterprise accounts, because rather than a license for each named user, it requires only licenses for the maximum number using the offering at the same time.
Dell Channel Chief Cheryl Cook provides some suggestions how partners can help ensure that their customer cloud deployments are successful.
The enhancements to the HDS unified storage platform aimed at the enterprise and mid-market also now allow cloud tiering from the appliance itself, and new support for VMware vSphere Virtual Volumes assists performance in virtualized environments.
A key part of this is a major strengthening of the Epicor channel, including in the United States, where it has always been a small proportion of sales. Significant programmatic initiatives will be coming this fall.
At its customer event, ERP vendor Epicor laid out its plans to become a cloud-first company, to which it asserted a strong commitment – even though the transition is greatly complicated by multiple factors.
Epicor has doubled the size of its Canadian business over the last couple years, and while most of its business in the U.S. is direct, the growing Canadian business is going entirely through channel partners.
Dell has formally launched a program with about 25 ISVs, but also makes it clear this is a pretty basic first step. Several months down the line they say there will be more useful functionality for partners, and also a lot more of them.
Joe Cowan told Epicor’s Customer Conference in Las Vegas that the company is committed to major changes to its systems and products, to take customers into the cloud and become easier to do business with.
Asigra looks to fill a void in the marketplace by providing its MSPs with a tool for snapshot management in AWS, which will assist partners with workload migrations to AWS and provide a service for which they can charge.
