EMC debuted new channel-only products at its annual EMC World conference in Las Vegas last week, as the company continues its evolution to a channel-focused business.

 

Dave Rosenberg, Westcon New Zealand managing director, says the biggest announcement from the conference – in a week which saw EMC's ‘most significant single-day launch' of 42 new products – was the company's ‘recommitment to the channel'.

 

"Not only was this referenced several times throughout the course of the event, it was also reinforced by the launch of several channel-only products,” Rosenberg says.

 

Those products included the VNXe3150 unified storage platform to provide channel partners with ‘the industry's most comprehensive and flexible cloud-enabling capability'. The channel-only offering delivers 50% more performance and capacity per rack unit, EMC says.

 

Rosenberg says the channel focus was led from the top.

 

"It was great to hear [EMC chairman and chief executive] Joe Tucci talking about EMC's commitment and movement towards being a more channel focused organisation,” he says.

 

Rosenberg says Westcon has been with EMC for nine years and has watched the company evolve from a direct organisation to a channel organisation.

 

EMC also put the focus on cloud computing and how partners can make profits from cloud computing technologies, something Rosenberg says is ‘obviously a very exciting opportunity here in New Zealand'.

 

Along with theVNXe3150, the company announced a range of new initiatives and products to enable channel partners to ‘accelerate their customers' journey to cloud computing'.

 

Among the announcements: a new branded designation within the Velocity Service Provider Program which recognises advanced levels of capability; a cloud builder practice to enable partners to design, build and manage cloud infrastructures based on EMC technology; and the Cloud Provider Practice, enabling Velocity Solution Provider partners advanced capabilities to design, build and operate their own branded IT-as-a-Service cloud offerings.

 

The announcements followed one the previous week introducing the VMAX Service provider platform, purpose-built to deliver enterprise-class storage to service providers using a simple-to-consume, simple-to-manage approach.

 

"From EMC World it was clear to me that Westcon's and EMC's strategies are aligned. We are both focused on enablement of the partner cloud services, rather than building our own or white labelling as some of our competitors do,” Rosenberg says.