HPE’s partner revenue rocketed by around two-thirds in its latest quarter, the vendor claimed as it revealed it is switching more of its software portfolio to a channel-only model.
Around 1,700 partners descended to HPE’s Partner Growth Summit in Las Vegas today to hear its latest channel updates ahead of HPE Discover tomorrow.
Chief among these was the news that the HPE and Juniper Networks partner programmes will come under the HPE Partner Ready Vantage roof from 1 November.
During a media pre-briefing, SVP of Channel and Partner Ecosystem Simon Ewington said HPE’s partner community saw a “massive increase” in Q2 revenues to the tune of around 67% (compared with the 40% growth HPE registered overall).
Software handover
Also catching the eye was the news that HPE is extending its channel-only model to include HPE Private Cloud PC3000, HPE SimpliVity PC1000, and HPE Zerto Software.
This follows its decision to do the same with HPE Morpheus VM Essentials Software last February, a move VP of Worldwide Hybrid Cloud Channel Kristian Kerr claimed had created “tremendous impact and momentum across the partner community”.
“Since announcing that, we’ve got 700 more partners that have sold VME software in the last 12 months,” he said.
“This is including more of the private cloud and disaster recovery portfolio as channel only, so it’s a huge step forward and further commitment to our partners.”
At the same time, HPE is enabling partners to “drink their own champagne” via the introduction of its VM Essentials for Partner IT scheme, Kerr announced.
This will see HPE provide the software licenses free of charge for three years with “just a nominal support charge”, Kerr explained.
It will be made available to around 600 partners who gain the Private Cloud with Virtualisation competency by year end.
“This is effectively allowing partners to deploy VME software in their own IT environment and benefit from the significant virtualisation savings, whilst also providing an environment to build up hands-on expertise,” Kerr said.
“Partners are almost scrambling to join the club”
When it comes to the impending partner programme integration, VP of HPE WW Partner Strategy, Programs & Operations Jesse Chavez said that Juniper partners are currently being tiered based on their Elite Plus, Elite Select or Resell status.
The former will become Platinum Partners on the networking centre, for instance.
HPE will also be launching a competitive storage takeout programme on 1 July, Chavez added. This will see it pay up to 15% front-end margin on top of the current rebates.
The vendor has been “somewhat surprised” at the uptake of its Triple Platinum Plus status, which it brought in last year to help mark out partners for selling HPE’s full portfolio, Ewington said.
“Partners are almost scrambling to get in the club. There’s one great example of a partner who was Platinum in hybrid cloud and compute, but wasn’t in networking. They made a commitment and an investment to become Platinum in networking so they could be part of the club.
“Partners in that programme are growing much, much faster than others.”
