LAS VEGAS – For nearly 10 years, Velocity has been the brand for EMC Corp.’s partner programs, but as its Global Partner Summit got underway Monday the IT infrastructure company announced that it is “retiring” that brand this year.
“Effective January 1, 2014, Velocity will be going away,” Greg Ambulos, senior vice-president of global channel sales at EMC, declared before thousands of vendors, partners and EMC users. “Now the program you will market with your customers with is EMC Business Partners.”
“Yes, it’s simple. But that’s our goal. When a partner is presented as an EMC Business Partner, the customer will know the company has all the vision and strength of EMC backing it up,” he said.
Ambulos noted that EMC accounts for 30 per cent of the storage market worldwide.
“Last year, EMC posted storage systems revenue that grew three times faster than the IT industry sector,” he said. “We just posted our 14 consecutive quarter of revenue and EPS growth.”
Despite the Velocity consolidation, EMC still maintains other separate programs such as its VCE infrastructure alliance with Cisco Systems and VMware, as well as programs involving EMC’s latest acquisition, Pivotal Labs.
EMC has a 62 per cent stake in Pivotal, followed by VMware at 28 and General Electric at 10 per cent.
“Pivotal reported $300 million in revenue so far in 2013, but perhaps the biggest indication of its success and potential is the fact that a company like GE would invest $110 million in it,” said Jeremy Burton, executive vice-president for product operations and marketing at EMC.
Partnership programs such as these are vital to EMC’s strategy to push big data solutions in Canada, according to Dave Pearson, research manager for enterprise storage and networking with analyst firm IDC Canada.
“Canadian firms have always been characterized as slow adopters, but interest in dig data in Canada is catching up,” he said. “The solution provider that will be successful here is the one who can provide companies the guidance they need as they make their big data baby steps.”
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Since completion in the space is bound to be fierce, Pearson said, he expects a lot of acquisitions and partnerships to take place in the next few years.
“Partnering and purchasing is one of the fastest ways to develop technology and acquire expertise in the area,” he said. “Right now much of the big data tools and solutions available in the market are not that different from each other.”
“The big differentiating factor among solution providers will be in service,” said Pearson. “If EMC can provide customers with the guidance they need around big data solution implementation then they can lead in this market.”