What Dell-EMC Merger Will Mean for Channel Partners

By The VAR Guy

The first Global Partner Summit at Dell EMC World kicked off on Tuesday with a keynote from John Byrne, President of Global Channels. In front of an audience of nearly 1,500, Byrne outlined the details of the newly combined channel program for Dell Technologies

Dell Technologies, which is the result of the $67 billion merger of Dell and EMC finalized in early September, is now the largest privately owned IT organization on the planet. The company drives $74 billion in combined revenues and dedicates $4.5 billion of that to research and development. To put this number in perspective, Byrne said it’s almost double the R&D investments of IBM and HPE. Dell Technology now leads over 20 of Gartner’s Magic Quadrants, including converged infrastructure, server virtualization and all-flash, and has now surpassed HP in worldwide server shipments.

Over 60 percent of EMC’s revenue and more than 40 percent of Dell’s is driven through the channel, for a total of $35 billion. “The PC market is not dead,” said Byrne. “That’s nonsense.” In contrast to many competitors in the PC market, Dell and EMC combined have shown 15 consecutive quarters of shared growth.

See also: Dell Technologies to Cut at Least 2,000 Jobs After EMC Deal

Dell EMC Partner Program

It’s been six weeks since the merger was finalized, and during that short time, Byrne and his team have made some impressive progress in the newly combined program. Beyond the fast-tracking of partners from each entity into the program, Dell Technologies has implemented the Dell EMC Line of Business Incumbency Program for Storage, effective as of this past Saturday. The program enables channel partners to protect their investments with their installed base as well as expand to serve new customers interested in the full Dell EMC portfolio. Any partner who has worked with a customer over the last three years, Byrne says, gets to keep them.

“The new Dell EMC Partner Program will bring together two great programs into one extraordinary program that enables our partners to leverage our industry-leading portfolio and accelerate their business quickly,” Byrne said in a statement. “Our partners wanted a program without unknowns, and this program provides that transparency while ensuring predictability and profitability. The opportunities to win big with this program and with Dell EMC are extraordinary. Our goal is to excite and delight this amazing and powerful partner community.”

See also: Why Michael Dell is Smiling

The new program has three tiers, and partners will have six months to meet the new criteria: Gold, Platinum and Titanium. In addition, an exclusive differentiation called Titanium Black is available for top-performing partners. Byrne said Dell Technologies built the program around three main characteristics: simplicity, predictability and profitability.

Simple – Byrne’s team has been tasked with creating a single partner portal and single deal registration program by February 1 (though he was sure to say that date is a target, not a guarantee). The program will adopt EMC’s training platform and provide single suspend MDF dollars for partners.

Predictable – In addition to the LOB incumbency, Byrne told the audience that new criteria, tiers and tracks based on partner feedback will be developed by early December. Programs will run for an entire year instead of changing quarterly, and more realistic market targets will be implemented.

Byrne stressed that there will be a zero tolerance policy when it comes to deal registration violations, pointing out that before, Dell’s inside sales reps received the same compensation and commission whether they sold direct or through the channel. “We have your back,” Byrne said. “We will protect you.”

Profitable – By December, the new program will roll out initiatives around six areas of focus: Revenue/share of wallet, multiple LOB, services, new business incentives, MDF and exclusivity. ”Be all in with us,” Byrne says, “and you get rewards.”

This first ran at http://thevarguy.com/information-technology-channel-partner-programs/breaking-news-details-dell-emc-partner-program-annou