In March 2023, ChannelE2E's Jessica Davis sat down with Tracy-Ann Palmer, who was then VP of global channel sales programs at VMware, to talk about the realization of the company's vision to unify its then-28,000-partner strong VMware Partner Connect program.
What a difference a year makes - Back then, the company said it was doubling down into managed services, recognizing that its partners were moving into new revenue streams as the marketplace evolved. But that all came to a crashing halt once the Broadcom acquisition of VMware was completed.
In mid-December 2023, thousands of VMware resellers, distributors and service providers were told that the partner program, along with its incentives and their status within it, was terminated and that it would be replaced with the Broadcom Advantage Partner Program, effective Feb. 5, 2024. Partners were told they would be contacted in January to learn whether Broadcom would invite them to continue to sell the products.
But in early January, published reports said that many VMware partners had not yet received information about whether or not they would continue, leaving them “scared, angry and terminated.”
Last week, Cindy Loyd, VP of global partner and commercial sales at Broadcom, said in a blog post that the "future of VMware by Broadcom is here." That future, though, apparently only included 18,000 reseller partners - not the 28,000 cited in March 2023.
Loyd wrote:
"The future of VMware by Broadcom is here. In November 2023, Broadcom announced that we completed our acquisition of VMware, advancing Broadcom's strategy to build the world’s leading infrastructure technology company. As part of those efforts, we have invited all active VMware resell [sic] partners (more than 18,000) to participate in the Broadcom Advantage Partner Program. If you are the primary partner contact listed in our system, you should have received an email invitation sent on or about January 19th. You simply need to “click to accept” and you will receive a login to the partner portal when your participation goes live on Monday, February 5th, 2024."
Loyd went on to explain that, in conversations with partners, Broadcom heard that most partners wanted simplification. The blog post laid out what that simplified partner program looks like, including:
A net margin model that discloses all discounts up front so partners can more easily track what they’re making on every deal, consistently across both new and renewal business.
Streamlined pricing that strips offerings down to four SKU bundles: VMware Cloud Foundation, vSphere Foundation, vSphere Standard and vSphere Essentials Plus.
Predictable partner profitability & deal protection: Renewals matter. Loyd said Broadcom's goal is to "protect partners who originally found an opportunity so they can confidently invest in customer adoption and successful deployment of their VMware investments. To that end, we’ve introduced incumbency protection and deeper up-front discounts. We are creating these incentives for you to drive focus on delivering customer outcomes for 95% of the business through the incumbency protection policy."
Streamlined systems & tools with a single online destination to access all partner-related resources.
Loyd acknowledged that change is disruptive and that a lot of change had happened all at once. She said that Broadcom looked at the most successful areas of the VMware program and retained those, and that initially, Broadcom mapped partners' previous program tier over to the same tier in the Broadcom Advantage Partner Program. You can check out the rest of the blog post here or, for more details about what to expect, visit this newly created FAQ.
