In an attempt to penetrate the market in China, hyper-converged vendor Nutanix has inked a strategic partnership with Lenovo that will also see the two vendors create new offerings.
Currently Nutanix has roughly 1,800 customers and will task Lenovo to resell Nutanix solutions not just in China but elsewhere. The two company also plan to work together to develop, market and sell a new line of Lenovo hyper-converged appliances powered by Nutanix software. These new appliances will have converging storage, server and virtualization services. Lenovo will also invest in a dedicated skilled global sales team for these products.
The partnership will see both companies introduce this new line that will be built on Lenovo’s enterprise systems. The joint solution features Intel microprocessors tasked to run workloads such as enterprise applications, databases, virtualized desktops, and big data analytics.
The channel will get an opportunity to resell the Lenovo/Nutanix appliances. Nutanix confirmed the combined solution will also be sold through Lenovo channel partners worldwide, as well as by Lenovo’s broader enterprise sales teams.
In addition, Lenovo and Nutanix are planning substantial investments in platform engineering and development, as well as aggressive go-to-market initiatives.
Related Stories
Matt Eastwood, senior vice president of IDC’s enterprise infrastructure and data centre group, said Nutanix has been a key player in the emergence of the hyper-converged market and was early to demonstrate demand for the technology.
“This Lenovo OEM partnership with Nutanix goes well beyond typical alliances, embracing joint engineering, marketing and a dedicated sales team. Combined with the global reach of Lenovo, this partnership with Nutanix will accelerate the reach of hyper-converged infrastructure into new markets,” Eastwood said.
Yang Yuanqing, chairman and CEO, Lenovo, said in a statement “We do not have to protect old ways of thinking or entrenched ideas. Instead, we can build our business on innovation, and partner freely with the most innovative, leading companies in this space to create new solutions.
Nutanix founder and CEO Dheeraj Pandey said Lenovo has earned the trust of thousands of enterprises around the globe. Partnering with Lenovo is a critical milestone in Nutanix’ journey to bring invisible infrastructure, with the efficiencies of Web-scale technology and power of consumer-grade design, to companies of all sizes.
The timeframe for release of these new products will be December at the Gartner Data Center, Infrastructure & Operations Management Conference in Las Vegas.