VMware Makes a New Deal, Steps Up its Incentive Program
When it comes to a channel program, one of the best things a company can do is offer its various partners a good deal. After all, these are the people who will hopefully be moving heaven and earth to find new users for the tools in question, so with that in mind, VMware stepped up its program incentives.
The new deal caused VMware channel partners involved in the Advantage+ program to change focus, away from server virtualization and more
on the “next generation software-defined data center,” a move that's starting to be made over large portions of the market. With this move, VMware is essentially focusing less on the standard project and more on a recurring revenue stream in subscription income.
To support that, the company's moving from a single discount that varies depending on the content of the deal struck to a complete package with a variety of available discount levels. This way, potential buyers will have greater access to a range of different potential purchase points, better reflecting needs on the ground. Sales of the Horizon remote desktop system, for example, will offer a 15 percent deal registration discount, while vSphere server virtualization nets a 20 percent discount.
Reaction to the changes has been positive on many fronts so far; GreenPages CEO Ron Dupler noted that the changes better reflect that sales reps can do better in the long run with a better trust built up among clients. Meanwhile, Nth Generation Computing's CTO Dan Molina noted that large portions of the client base were already involved in vSphere virtualization, so being able to advance clients to the next step in the process was a welcome move.
Further changes are likely to follow as the new deal starts to make contact with the customer base, but the good news there is that VMware is clearly devoted to helping its partners get as good a deal as can be had. That's the kind of thing that keeps partners working with a company even as new products and services emerge; when it's clear that change is as good for the regular partner in the trenches as it is for the people at the top of the ladder, it's a lot easier to get buy-in on change. A technology company desperately needs buy-in on change because there's so much of it going on, and so routinely. New deals help drive that change by keeping channel partners interested and working.
VMware's clear focus on offering that appropriate deal is likely to give it a lot of advantage in the field, as it demonstrates that the company values its channel partners. Valued channel partners deliver better than those who don't feel valued, and may well move on altogether.
Edited by Alicia Young
