Dell EMC Partner Program Reborn As Dell Technologies To Drive Channel Sales

‘With the Dell Technologies Partner Program, we are simplifying the whole opportunity for partners to embrace and participate in the breadth of portfolio and solutions across the strategically aligned businesses,’ says Cheryl Cook, senior vice president of Global Partner Marketing for Dell EMC.

The Dell EMC Partner Program has ended, effective immediately. Taking its place, is the new game-changing Dell Technologies Partner Program aimed at driving channel sales to the next level and leaving the competition in the dust by making it easier and more profitable for channel partners to sell across the entire Dell Technologies portfolio, according to Cheryl Cook, senior vice president of Global Partner Marketing for Dell EMC.

“No one is innovating and bringing innovations to market faster and more integrated than we are,” said Cook in an interview with CRN. “With the Dell Technologies Partner Program, we are simplifying the whole opportunity for partners to embrace and participate in the breadth of portfolio and solutions across the strategically aligned businesses.”

For the first time ever, partners in the program will be able to seamlessly buy, procure and sell solutions across the Dell Technologies family of businesses, which include Boomi, Dell, Dell EMC, Pivotal, RSA, SecureWorks, Virtustream and VMware. All products purchased through the Dell Technologies Partner Program, regardless of the family of business, will count toward the tier status and tier revenue requirements in the new program, according to Cook.

[Related: Dell Technologies Cloud: ‘The Best Hybrid Cloud Platform On Earth’]

“It brings a simplified access to the breadth of technology and portfolio on how they can uniquely help customers through their transformational journeys,” said Cook. “They can now team and align with our sales force through teaming agreements and joint account planning on really realizing the maximum opportunity.”

The new program, unveiled on Monday at Dell’s Global Partner Summit in Las Vegas, provides simplified engagement for partners to cross sell and procure both products and holistic solutions across Dell Technologies.

Robert Keblusek, CTO of Sentinel Technologies, ranked No. 107 on CRN’s 2018 Solution Provider 500 list, said the new program is “very meaningful” and “needed” for the channel in order to sell larger deals more seamlessly in the market.

“The depth and breadth of Dell offerings are vast and this offers us opportunities to bring a more complete solution to our customers working closely with the Dell team,” said Keblusek. “Dell investing in the partners to assure success is very meaningful and shows how committed they are.”

A major benefit of the Dell Technologies Partner Program will be around certification simplification and joint program tiering to ensure solution provider investments are maximized across the portfolio. For example, if a Pivotal partner is certified on Pivotal Ready Architecture or Kubernetes, they do not need to spend the time and money to get recertified around the technology inside the VMware or Dell Technologies programs. The goal is to cut out unnecessary repetitiveness and allow partners more time in the sales field rather than the training room.

One critical piece of information that all partners need to know, Cook said, is that each individual family of business will continue to maintain and operate their own Partner Program separately from the Dell Technologies Partner Program. All individual partner programs currently in place, other than the Dell EMC Partner Program, will remain the same.

As part of the new program and cloud push, Dell is launching a new solution badge for the Dell Technologies Cloud.

Dell unveiled its new Dell Technologies Cloud Platforms at Dell Technologies World 209 this week. The new on-premise platforms are built on the company’s flagship hyper-converged infrastructure, VXRail, as well as VMware Cloud Foundation, which is VMware’s hybrid cloud solution that provides integrated cloud infrastructure and cloud management services to run applications in both private and public environments. Additionally, Dell launched a new consumption-based Cloud Data Center-as-a-Service offering for VMware Cloud on Dell EMC infrastructure fully managed by Dell Technologies.

“Cloud services are the fastest growing area in our company,” said Sentinel’s Keblusek. “We have the foundation built for and are ready to work with Dell on the new cloud badge.”

The Dell Technologies Cloud Platform Badge will support these new Dell Technologies Cloud offerings. The new competency will be composed of the Dell Technologies Cloud Platform Badge and a few other certifications, including Service Delivery Competency on VxRail. Full cloud competency certification requirements will be announced later this year.

All Dell EMC partners will automatically become part of the new Dell Technologies Partner Program with their tiering intact. The new program is effectively immediately as of April 29.

“It’s really just an expression of the maturity, evolution and the journey we’ve been on as a company,” said Cook. “The solutions that we’re bringing to market and the offers are really simplifying the access and creating a phenomenal opportunity for the partners to really bring their services to help customers. It’s a hybrid, multi-cloud world. It’s moving fast and nobody has the offers and the breathe of technology we have. ... Now is the time for partners to really lean-in and embrace Dell Technologies.”