EMC, VMware staff head to Simplivity Australia

Simplivity has expanded its channel management and sales team after registering growth in Australia in its first year of operations.

The vendor has announced Peter Hill's promotion to channel manager ANZ and Antony Wright's appointment as channel solutions architect after a seven-year stint with EMC.

"Peter Hill, ANZ channel manager, was chosen by Simplivity to support its rapidly expanding channel program [after] his proven success with growing the company’s footprint in Queensland," said Simplivity Asia-Pacific vice president Scott Morris.

Simplivity, a self-proclaimed a 100 percent channel company, has expanded its PartnerAdvantage program with the addition of a new cloud service provider program, a technology alliance program, and development of new training for solution providers.

According to the hyper-convergence infrastructure vendor, the number of active partners around the world has increased by nearly 200 percent year-over-year, with "nearly half" the revenue generated outside North America.

"Our success in [Australia and New Zealand] has been supported by our network of over 40 partners," said Morris.

The local sales department has also expanded. Stephen Isles, a former regional sales manager at Lenovo, was hired in October 2015 to manage Queensland, Northern Territory and Papua New Guinea. Brad Morrison has been appointed to manage Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia.

Mark Oakey and Nicholas Paddon-Row were appointed as solutions architects to manage the financial services and public sector in NSW and ACT. Oakey worked at EMC for six years while Paddon-Row was at VMware for five years.

Simplivity recently stated that it more than doubled its year-on-year bookings and expanded its customer base by more than 2.5 times. Existing customers also returned to Simplivity, leading to 30 percent repeat bookings at the end of the fourth quarter.

In Australia and New Zealand, Simplivity has focused on customers in mining, oil and gas, government, financial services, education, manufacturing and health care.