Within the halls of Dell EMC World 2016, the annual Dell Global Partner Summit is kicking off now. ChannelE2E has a front-row seat for the activities and announcements. Plus, we'll be posting interviews with a range of Dell Technologies executives. Here's a minute-by-minute recap.
First, the big picture: The Austin, Texas, conference originally was pitched as Dell World. But when the Dell-EMC deal was finalized in September 2016, the gathering was rebranded and expanded as Dell EMC World. Michael Dell and his lieutenants are on hand to describe the company's enterprise strategy. New Channel Chief John Byrne also is here to drive the partner summit.
The company has vowed to launch a unified partner program with a single deal registration platform by February 2017. A separate Internet of Things partner program recently expanded from ISVs (independent software vendors) and hardware partners to include systems integrators.
Dell's partner ecosystem has been evolving ahead of this event. As you'll recall, the company sold off its Quest Software and SonicWall businesses to private equity firms a few months ago. Those deals should be finalized by November 2016 or so. The company also is selling EMC's Documentum business to OpenText.
The Big Questions
Amid all of those market and company shifts, the new Dell Technologies faces a range of questions. Chief among them:
- Can Dell and EMC flawlessly integrate their partner programs?
- Can the combined companies deliver data center solutions that live up to Michael Dell's vision for big data information gathering and management?
- Where are the key recurring revenue opportunities for Dell's partners?
- How will Dell navigateVMware's decision to name Amazon Web Services as its preferred public cloud provider? And what does the VMware-Amazon relationship mean for Dell's other cloud business -- Virtustream?
We'll be exploring those issues and more in this live blog over the next few days.
Dell's Partner Advantages
Byrne described a range of advantages that allegedly give Dell Technologies a leg up against HP Enterprise, in particular. He said the company is spending about $4.5 billion on annual R&D -- roughly 2X that of IBM and HP Enterprise, he asserted.
Roughly 65 percent of EMC's revenues and 40 percent of Dell's revenues now involve partners, he added. We captured some video from the presentation -- which included the new Dell EMC Partner Program announcement.
Here's Part I of the Video:
More videos coming soon.
The partner program will include solution provider, OEM, integrator, MSP/CSP and other partner types. The partner levels will include Gold, Platinum, Titanium and Titanium Black. Partners will know their program levels by December 2016. Distributors will also be informed of their partner levels in December. The actual partner program will launch in February 2017.
Next up, Dell Technologies VP Cheryl Cook led a panel featuring leaders from VMware, Pivotal and VirtuStream -- three businesses that potentially unlock cloud and software opportunities for partners. Dell gained control of those businesses through the EMC acquisition.
Keep checking back every few hours for more updates.
