VCE restructures Australian channel under EMC

VCE is restructuring its Australian channel and its top management following its rebranding as "the converged platforms division of EMC".

David Barker exited his role as Australia & New Zealand managing director of VCE in December, and was replaced by Andrew Foot, whose has been appointed general manager, Australia and New Zealand across the converged platforms division.

The vendor will also cease its distribution partnership with Westcon "at some point in time", said Foot, and align with EMC's two disties, Ingram Micro and Avnet – the latter of which plucked the EMC account from Westcon after a competitive tender last year.

The rebranding of VCE as a division of EMC reflects the larger role of the storage giant, which took the command in late 2014 as founding alliance partner Cisco stepped back, reducing its stake from 35 percent to 10 percent.

A VCE spokesperson told CRN that the changes "reflect the tighter alignment between VCE and EMC, in order to leverage EMC’s broader channel eco-system".

"Andrew is a five-year veteran of EMC, with 20 years’ experience in the ICT industry across Australia and New Zealand. In his new role Andrew will be responsible for the business’ go-to-market strategy and performance."

Paul O'Connor has also departed his role as VCE's director of partners & alliances, Asia-Pacific & Japan, with the partner community now overseen by EMC executives. "Paul has made an amazing contribution, taking VCE from a start up in the APJ region to where we are today.  We are hugely grateful for all his hard work and of course wish him well in his future pursuits," said an EMC spokesperson.

Heading up the team is Mark Fioretto, general manager service providers, systems integrators and alliances.

Other key individuals include Shant Soghomonian, now senior manager of partner sales; Chris Moyle, senior manager, partner sales; and Brett Harris, general manager, midmarket, inside sales and distribution.

Speaking to CRN, Andrew Foot explained that he expected a broadening of the reseller base for EMC's converged systems portfolio.

EMC's partner base will be able to sell the full VCE range, which comprises the flagship Vblock product, as well as the VxBlock and VxRack.

"The thing that will help that [alignment between EMC and VCE] is the compensation plans for VCE and EMC have changed in 2016. The core EMC team are now paid a dollar for dollar on the whole converged infrastructure portfolio, which means our sales team and go-to-market motion will significantly expand as we align ourselves more and more with the EMC team," said Foot.

"VCE certification will be the same type of metrics as EMC requires for certification, and the partner tiers will automatically come under the EMC partner program," he added.

"Just in the last week, I have met with with five different large partners of EMC – four are [also] large VCE partners – and they are really excited about the closer alignment between EMC and VCE, and they can see significant market opportunity," said Foot, revealing Dimension Data as one example.

Cleaning house

The changeover of VCE's country manager and APJ channel chief aren't the only such personnel changes across the EMC Federation in Australia.

First VMware saw a double-barrelled departure as channel manager John Donovan took a role at up-and-coming security vendor ForgeRock, and long-serving VMware managing director Duncan Bennet departed for family reasons. VMware yesterday announced Donovan's role would be filled by by Kerrie-Anne Turner.

EMC was not immune from management changes, with EMC managing director Alister Dias announcing that he will move across to take the VMware managing director role on 1 April. In the interim, Dias' role will be covered by EMC's Asia-Pacific & Japan president, David Webster.

EMC channel manager Chris Trevitt has not announced his next move following his January exit.

The clean sweep of country managers and channel managers across EMC, VMware and VCE come as Dell makes progress on its plan to acquire the vendor for US$67 billion, the largest tech acquisition of all time.