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EMC exec - we will not sell clouds direct
Fat margins promised for loyal legworkers
Half of the channel firms EMC expects to hoist into its cloud partner programme next year will be resellers, an exec at the storage giant has predicted.
The 18 month-old Velocity Service Provider Programme (VSSP) has had more than lick of paint as EMC formalises engagement with channel partners to resell its two reference architectures or push services from cloudy providers.
Michelle DeHertogh, EMC service director for global alliances and service provider marketing, said 60 service providers were invited onto VSSP initially but it expects to treble that by the end of 2013.
"We are hearing loud and clear from VARs they are expecting to join and half of that [programme] growth in 2013 will come from the VAR community," she told The Channel.
She said EMC will not sell cloud services directly to customers and in line with its recent channel love in, the firm is building a community of parters to act as its feet in the street.
Finding two analysts to agree on the current size of the cloud market or how it will grow is a virtual impossibility but EMC says there is no doubt the service model is taking business from traditional on-premise tech.
DeHertogh reckons: "Business critical workloads are moving very rapidly to the cloud".
The three-tiered framework did not distinguish between partners and was based largely on the size of applicant, she added.
From the launch of the revamped VSSP from January, the storage giant plans to introduce increased marketing development funds, lead-generation and discounted training.
Platinum partners are given a revenue target - EMC refused to make this public - and they must plan a quarterly biz review, have a dedicated alliance manager, four customer success stories and sell EMC powered services.
The requirements of the Gold and Silver prospects are lower, but then again so are the rewards.
So far EMC has built two reference architectures - backup-as-a-service and storage-as-a-service for resellers to push.
DeHertogh said EMC is also pairing up service providers with resellers to help build mini channels for cloud purveyors, initially through industry events but via a portal over time. ®