VMware goes on the partnerpath

The idea behind VMware’s changes is to help make it easier for partners to quickly establish or expand their virtualisation practices.

Alterations made to reach this aim include extended education, training and certification, with the introduction of a virtualisation training roadmap, partnerpath, which includes a new free-of-charge online course called VMware Technical Sales Professional (VTSP) training.

The new roadmap aims to ensure partners can utilise online aids to increase their virtualisation knowledge and understanding. The vendor has also introduced further benefits and incentives, alongside more marketing programs and tools.

VMware has been expanding at a rapid rate, with its most recent results demonstrating revenue growth in the region of 80 percent year-on-year. Despite the huge expansion, David Blackman, director of the partner organisation at VMware A/NZ told CRN there is still a huge opportunity in the market.

“Whilst we are growing fast, only 10 percent of servers in the market are virtualised. That means that 90 percent are still to be virtualised and for most customers it is not a case of if to virtualise, but when. So there is still a huge opportunity out there and that is largely in the SMB market, as they make up the majority of businesses.”

Blackman said the lowering of the entry point for partners and the new online training tools will attract a whole host of SMB resellers to the vendor’s VIP Partner Program.

“We have hundreds of partners in Australia and in the last quarter 25 to 30 partners signed up to the partner program. We are seeing that sort of attraction on a quarterly basis,” he said. “There is a great opportunity for partners who usually make seven points of margin, and can make 20 to 30 points of margin with VMware.”

Blackman added that issues around green concerns and cost savings are attracting customers to virtulaise their servers.

Steve Houck, vice president of worldwide channels at VMware, said: “We have refreshed our partner program to make it easier to do business with us, provide incentives that make partnering with VMware more rewarding, and offer enablement tools and training to make our relationship more supportive.

“As more and more organisations deploy VMware to virtualise their data centers, we are providing our partners with the programs they need to help develop a strong and viable VMware virtualisation business that adds value, accelerates their overall performance and helps them maintain a thriving practice,” added Houck.

Jake Wynne, managing director of local reseller Oriel, said: “The virtualisation market is growing rapidly and VMware is enabling us to leverage the opportunity by being a lot easier to do business with.”

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