As Dell Buys EMC and largely grabs control of VMware, the $67 billion deal sets the stage for multiple winners and losers. ChannelE2E's advice to the bulk of Dell's channel partners in the small business sector: Stay the course.
Indeed, Dell's buyout of EMC isn't expected to be completed until May 2016 at the earliest. In a prepared statement, Dell mentioned the strength of its small business and midmarket solutions, and EMC's focus in the enterprise.
Read between the lines and I suspect the Dell PartnerDirect partner program will continue to hum along for the vast majority of Dell's partners. No major changes. No force fitting of EMC solutions into your small business accounts.
Still, there are some small business and midmarket components to keep an eye on. For instance, many small businesses and midmarket companies are trying to decide whether to (A) virtualize their servers or (B) more those workloads to a hosting provider or cloud provider. Dell's stake in VMware could influence those conversations going forward.
Related Coverage
Somewhat similarly, security is now an "every company" conversation rather than just an enterprise-class discussion. Dell already has some small business security offerings in place, but I'm curious to see if or how EMC's RSA Security business steps down from the enterprise into the midmarket and small business discussion.
