A new flexible consumption model for partners to sell is the big channel play here, although the product enhancements, including a new all-flash configuration option are also significant.
The IDPA series Dell EMC rolled out last year was aimed at the enterprise, but the DP4400 was specifically built for SMB and midmarket customers, and is being targeted there rather than at ROBO deployments of enterprises.
Dell EMC Canadian channel chief Deanna Thomson discusses the Canadian channel, and why its performance in Q1 was even better than overall Dell EMC numbers.
Dell EMC finally made its long-awaited breakthrough in storage in the first quarter – even though on a year-over-year basis, channel storage business was actually down. It’s seen as more of a statistical fluke, rather than the harbinger of an unwanted trend, and considerable confidence around storage exists going forward.
Veeam CEO Peter McKay credited Veeam’s expansion of their strategic relationships as critical to their success in 2017, and indicated they plan significant further expansion here going forward.
The two new models include the first quad-processor environments for Nutanix environments, and a new edge appliance that can be as small as 1U. The new Life Cycle Management capability may, however, be what excites customers most about the new announcements.
The SaaS option will strengthen go-to-market options for Virtustream and their strategic partners and channels. Virtustream also recently made an executive alignment to give a higher priority to the indirect channel.
Technology from the latest 14th generation PowerEdge servers significantly beefs up both the new Vxrail and VxRack offerings.
Dell EMC also previewed their new PowerEdge MX servers – again – due for release some time in the back half of the year.
Dell EMC also announced that native replication has been added to EMC XtremIO, and a ew entry point X-Brick XtremIO system at up to a 55 per cent lower cost than the previous generation.
At their Global Partner Summit kicking off their Dell Technologies World, Dell EMC delineated their channel strategy for the year ahead, and a lengthy list of program offerings designed to help execute it.
The changes include better definition of tiers and requirements to advance, new competencies in all the Dell Boomi solution areas, and much better partner accessibility to resources.
A new survey commissioned by Dell EMC finds that while objectively, as many organizations are laggards on the road to digital transformations as there are front runners, the vast majority now believe that this transformation is necessary for their organization’s health.
Metaswitch has entered into vendor reseller agreements that go beyond technical integrations before, but this is their first one in the Composable Network Protocol part of their business.
The Dell EMC channel business overall picked up in the second half of the year – always a good sign.
StorMagic announced a new strategic relationship around Schneider Electric’s APC products this week, the latest step in a strategy of building out a 100 per cent channel model and strategic partnerships that the company thinks has it poised for even more explosive growth.
Dell EMC isn’t becoming an SD-WAN vendor, but they will go to market with software partners integrated with their customized x86 adaption in the form of a networking platform, which is the first using the new Intel Xeon D-2100 processor.
Nutanix also announced a pair of incents, one of which is explicitly around XC Core sales, and the other, covering all Nutanix sales, introduces a five per cent rebate for bringing new customers to Nutanix.
Two of the new certifications, which also add a new Master level to the Dell EMC Proven Professional program, are available now, with the others coming in April and June. While partners will be eligible to complete them when they roll out, they will not immediately become part of the company’s partner program.
While in the old Dell EMC converged lineup, a System 1000 would have been a new high-end model, the new VXBlock completely restructures the approach, and integrates all storage types in one offering. It makes this a single-model family with additional flexibility, greater cost efficiencies and simplified lifecycle management.
