VMware APJ boss: More partners taking up certifications and trainings

The COVID-19 pandemic has seen more VMware partners signing up for certifications and training than ever.

VMware APJ senior vice president and general manager Duncan Hewett told journalists at the virtual VMworld 2020 last week that the vendor received “lots of requests” around access to education and trainings.

“One of the things that has happened is the democratisation of access to education and events has become much easier,” he said.

“Nearly all of our education has gone online, which has actually helped in a lot of ways.”

Hewett also remarked that VMware’s partners across Australia and New Zealand have grown alongside the company.

“What we’re seeing is customers are looking for partners who have depth in capability,” he added.

“We’ve had some great wins around transformation projects, like banks, retailers or government services, [thanks to our partners].”

“[Partners] are a critical part for us and always have been. We help drive a change and we need the partners lockstep with us on the way through. So they’re growing at the same pace as us, and [partners] have been coming with us on the journey.”

Speaking on the announcements at VMworld, Hewett credited partner feedback as a key driver for VMware’s new innovations.

“One of the good news around our partner channels is that they’re very active in giving us feedback,” he said. “And they were indicating that customers want to modernise applications faster and they want to leverage more of the assets available.”

Hewett said partners hear from customers wanting to leverage all the resources they have in their environment, but last year in particular the feedback has been around more complex applications.

Partners were asking what VMware was going to be doing to help provide more capabilities, particularly around AI and AI on-premises, as well as what the vendor would do with leveraging the increase to chipsets, SmartNICs and GPUs.