VMware today at their Partnership Leadership Summit announced four VMware Master Services Competencies spanning cloud management automation, data center virtualization, network virtualization and desktop and mobility.
The goal is to encourage partners to build out additional services capabilities in these areas to help VMware address a backlog in demand for solutions, says Jenni Flinders, vice president of worldwide channels for VMware. Flinders, who held various channel positions at Microsoft through 2015, reports to Brandon Sweeney, senior vice president for worldwide commercial and channel sales at VMware.
VMware is trying to encourage partners to expand the number of technical services staff in the field that have the skills in these areas to increase the rate at which VMware products are more broadly consumed, says Flinders.
“In terms of our overall services capacity we want out to take it up a notch,” says Flinders. “We don’t want our partners to be as transaction oriented.”
Partners that achieve these competencies will receive additional service credits for helping VMware accelerate product deployments, says Flinders. Also, those partners will be eligible to receive additional pre and post-sales support from VMware, says Flinders.
VMware is betting that the more partners focus on services, the more likely the attach rate for VMware products and services will increase. For example, instead of focusing primarily on VMware hypervisors, partners that achieve master competencies will also pull through network and storage virtualization products that in turn collectively create a need for higher-margin services for the partners.
It may take a while for VMware to reduce its services backlog given the length of time required to achieve a competency. But as instances of VMware technologies become more distributed, inside and out of the cloud, the number of services opportunities for VMware partners shows no signs of abating any time soon.
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