Broadcom has confirmed it will move to a “more focused, capable partner ecosystem” for VMware in EMEA.
According to partners we spoke to last month, the virtualisation giant is gearing up for a “huge cull” in the number of EMEA partners under its new owner.
In a blog post published on Friday, Aytek Karagozoglu, Vice President of EMEA Partners and Commercial Sales at Broadcom, appeared to back that up.
He characterised impending changes to VMware’s resale channel as an “optimisation” of the partner ecosystem, however, stressing it is about “raising the bar” rather than “reducing the opportunity”.
Broadcom is aligning its ecosystem around EMEA partners who demonstrate four things, Karagozoglu revealed.
Most notably, they must possess a “proven ability to transact and support VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF)”.
Partners must also make a “meaningful technical and service investment” and boast a “capability to manage customer lifecycle engagements, not just point product transactions”.
A commitment to long-term customer success was Karagozoglu’s final demand.
“They want VCF acolytes”
This is all very much in line with the word already on the street in partner land.
“They’re very keen to have acolytes running around talking about VCF,” one partner leader told us last month, speaking anonymously.
“They want people who have invested heavily in technical capabilities to ensure they can get the customers to see the value by implementing it correctly, doing all the services and making sure they use all the features.”
Having completed its $69bn acquisition of VMware in November 2023, Broadcom has over the past year been “clear and consistent” that having a “smaller, highly skilled, and more accountable partner ecosystem delivers better outcomes for customers”, Karagozoglu wrote.
Customers are increasingly wanting to keep sensitive data within national borders, reinforcing demand for private and hybrid cloud, he claimed.
But addressing these challenges requires partners “who can move beyond resale and provide real technical depth, platform expertise, and mature services capability”.
“The partners we are prioritising bring local regulatory understanding, deep technical capability, and services maturity tailored to their markets. Across France, Germany, the UK, the Nordics, and beyond, we are seeing partners build dedicated VCF practices, invest in skills, and deliver early, repeatable customer success,” Karagozoglu wrote.
“That success requires partners who can speak the localised language of compliance, understanding national regulations and industry-specific requirements, while also addressing universal customer priorities such as cost optimisation, resilience, and security.”
