EMC hires ex-Nutanix channel manager Darrin Edkins

Former Nutanix channel director Darrin Edkins has joined EMC as manager of its mid-market all-flash solutions business.

In the newly created role, Edkins will focus on EMC’s mid-market flash storage offerings to channel partners and solutions providers.

Early Tuesday morning, the storage vendor unveiled at its global conference the Unity range of flash arrays that are specifically targetted at small and medium clientele.

“This is a really exciting time for the all-flash market. With the launch of Unity at EMC World overnight, this technology truly has reached a point where it is accessible and affordable to all markets,” said Edkins.

"I’m looking forward to working with EMC’s channel ecosystem to put in place plans to make all-flash data centres a reality. It’s a privilege to join a market-leading team and I’m eager to see where flash takes us over the next year.”

Edkins joined hyper-converged storage vendor Nutanix in September 2014 as director of channels for ANZ. He left Nutanix in April, and was replaced in the interim by Asia-Pacific director of channel sales Andrew Cheong.

EMC is competing against Nutanix in the fledgling hyperconverged systems marketplace. Nutanix has a first-mover advantage in Australia, after hiring its first country manager in 2013 and appointing Avnet as a distributor in September 2014.

However, EMC's VCE division is chasing its startup rival with the VxRail appliance, which was launched in February.

Prior to joining Nutanix, Edkins was enterprise and storage channel development manager for Dell from 2010 to 2014. He worked in various roles for Hewlett-Packard from 2000 to 2008, ending up as enterprise storage and server partner programs manager. He was also a x86 systems specialist for Sun Microsystems ANZ from 2008 to 2009.

“Over the past six months, EMC’s flash storage portfolio has expanded to include solutions for customers spanning all market segments and application use cases,” said EMC regional sales manager Darren McCullum.

“This puts our channel partners in a fantastic position to support their customers as they modernise their data centres. With Darrin’s extensive knowledge of the channel market, we are pleased to welcome him to the EMC All Flash Solutions team.”

Overnight, EMC senior vice-president of worldwide channel sales revealed that the company would merge partner programs with Dell next year after the two companies combine. Once the merger is completed later this year, EMC and Dell partners will be able to cross-sell the entire range from both vendors as long as they have been approved.

Dell boss Michael Dell also told audiences at the opening day of EMC World that the new parent company would be rebranded to Dell Technologies, which encompasses the enterprise business, known as Dell-EMC.