Chuck's Blog

Escaping The Channel Partner Vise

One of the more interesting things I've done recently was speak with the executive leadership of one of EMC's valued channel partners.  They were going through a strategic planning cycle, and wanted an outside perspective. 

I thought that wonderful on several levels.

First, they were investing serious leadership effort in a meaningful and non-trivial strategic planning process.  It seems that far too few of our channel partners do this, and -- given all the structural changes occurring in our industry -- it's probably a good time to do so.

Second, they invited me (on behalf of EMC) to lead a business discussion -- not on technology, but on the broader industry, the changing face of IT, new business models and -- hopefully -- what it might mean for them.  Although mapping my world to their world was a bit of an stretch for me, I like that sort of exercise.

The title of this blog post came from an industry analyst who described their business model as "in a vise" -- as in under severe and unrelenting pressure from several directions.  I found it an apt description, as simply maintaining the status quo means you're planning on getting compressed into a smaller space.

Although we talked about several subjects (and I did what I could to link them together into actionable scenarios), there's one key thought I wanted to share with anyone who's in the VAR / reselling / distribution end of the IT business.

IT Transformation: The EMC Partner Opportunity

Having been here a long time, I've sort of come to accept that EMC can take a perceived weakness, and -- working like mad -- eventually turn it into a strength. 

Our relationship with partners -- resellers, integrators, service providers, etc. -- is no exception. 

While it's true there's always room for improvement, we've done an admirable job of building deep business relationships with hundreds of partners around the globe.

During this period of time, our focus has visibly shifted from "here's someone who can sell our stuff" to "here's someone we can partner with around a business opportunity". 

I get involved in these discussions frequently: I always take some time to understand our partner's current business model, and then share some of the things things we're investing in to create more opportunity for them to serve their customers even better.

An increasing number of our EMC partners now appear ready to take on a big opportunity we at EMC have been working for a while: IT transformation.

But, just as every IT organization isn't ready for an IT transformation, not every EMC partner is ready to go do this.

Delivering Storage As A Managed Service: VMAX SP

One of the more interesting EMC announcements in the run up to EMC World 2012 came out today with little fanfare, but probably deserves more attention.

It's the VMAX SP: a specific, enhanced edition of the VMAX targeted at IT service providers. 

For one thing, it includes all the software components needed to provision, meter and bill enterprise-class "high QoS" storage services.  

All in one box.

It's also notable because it creates the option of transferring all the operational heavy lifting of running an enterprise-class storage farm back to EMC -- which we then deliver as a service to owners of the VMAX SP.

It's interesting to me because it shows what happens when you starting thinking about technology as a service vs. simply as a product.  

And -- please pay attention -- you'll probably see more variations on this theme going forward from EMC and other vendors.

Introducing VSPEX

This morning, EMC introduced VSPEX: a partner-centric pre-configured and pre-integrated infrastructure stack.  

Yes, we're pretty excited.  

Some will inevitably classify this announcement as yet another variation on a popular theme in the IT infrastructure marketplace.  

I mean, isn't every IT vendor packaging up infrastructure in new ways?  

Yes, somewhat true -- but many of us believe that there's plenty of room left for innovation and differentiation in this category.

VSPEX is not only interesting in what it does on its own, but how it nicely fits in to other things EMC is investing in -- like VCE and Vblocks.

Why Having A Broad Portfolio Is Cool

In the IT industry, everyone can be a critic, and one of the criticisms occasionally leveled at EMC is that our portfiolo is somehow "too broad".  I never really understood that perspective.

Everyone's entitled to their opinion, but -- from that increasing breadth -- can arise some interesting solutions that might be hard to achieve otherwise.

Such is the case with today's announcement (spearheaded by EMC's Iomega division) around partnership with AXIS (a video surveillance technology service provider) to provide a cloud-based video surveillance solution.

And there are a couple of interesting angles to this one ...

Talking Cloud To EMC Partners

One of the highlights of my week was going out to Barcelona to spend some quality time with EMC's EMEA partners -- a great bunch of people, simply because their perspective is usually very different than, say, the North American crowd.

Rather than do my usual powerpoint keynote, I instead moderated a panel made up of representatives from VMware, Cisco, RSA as well as VCE.

The topic?  Cloud, of course.

Live From EMC Partner Council

Monday, I took a six-hour flight from Boston to San Diego to spend time with EMC's North American Partner community.

I'm very glad I did.  The new insights are incredibly invaluable.

So, what could possibly be so interesting?

EMC And Oracle

As the industry consolidates and standardizes, we as vendors are getting far more comfortable in the new world of co-opetion with other vendors: a nuanced world where we cooperate in some areas, and compete with others.

No longer can various inter-vendor relationships be easily and exclusively categorized as either "friend" or "foe" -- the answer is usually  mix of both, with customers giving as strong input on where we need to cooperate, and where they'll encourage a little friendly competition.

Many of the customers I work with are getting more comfortable in this new landscape as well.  They're learning to look beyond the press releases and brochures to figure out how well various vendors are working together -- or not -- as the case might be.

And I think the relationship between EMC and Oracle is an excellent case study in how these dynamics can result in better outcomes for everyone: customers *and* vendors.

Securing The Foundations Of The Private Cloud

Lots of activity at VMworld this week, plus the predictable flurry of vendor announcements.

Most people would agree that virtualization is *the* key enabling technology for most cloud models.  Make virutalization (e.g. VMware and associated infrastructure) provably secure and compliant, and you've gone a long way to securing the the clouds built on virtualization.

That's what RSA has announced -- an end-to-end GRC (governance, risk and compliance) solution that takes security in the virtual world to entirely new levels.

And if you see yourself living in a fully virtualized world, it's probably worth just a moment of your time ...

Managing Your Skills Portfolio

I was fortunate enough to be invited to speak on a panel here at the "Everything Channel" event in Dallas.

Ostensibly, we were supposed to be talking about 2011 storage opportunities for resellers and solution providers.  But, somehow, we got into a number of far more interesting areas, including the strategic importance of the above topic.

We ran out of time, but the thought keeps rattling around in my head ...