‘Never Been A Better Time To Be An IBM Partner:’ IBM Ecosystem Sales Exec David La Rose

‘It is all around driving predictable, recurring revenue on a consistent basis,’ says David La Rose, general manager of IBM’s partner ecosystem sales.

A revamping of IBM’s 3-year-old Partner Plus program should help align partners and IBM with how customers consume products with better incentives, tools, co-marketing support and selling routes through hyperscaler partner marketplaces, IBM channel executive David La Rose told CRN in an interview.

Part of the changes will include an incremental 15 points on top of the transactional sale that partners make around the license to drive the deployment and then the consumption and recognition for those who drive multiyear contracts with customers, said La Rose, general manager of the Armonk, N.Y.-based technology giant’s partner ecosystem sales.

“It is all around driving predictable, recurring revenue on a consistent basis,” he said. “Together, that’s going to mean that we’re going to be able to scale faster and get expanded reach for our clients and for the IBM portfolio. … There’s never been a better time to be an IBM partner, frankly.”

IBM Partner Plus

La Rose put the midmarket customers many of its solution providers serve at a $200 billion opportunity for its partners, with nine out of the 10 Fortune 500 companies inside that segment.

In an online post Monday, Kareem Yusuf, IBM’s senior vice president of ecosystem, strategic partners and initiatives, said that the vendor is accelerating its Partner Plus program with new incentives, expanded benefits and support, AI‑driven selling experiences and scalable co‑marketing funding.

The vendor is investing in hyperscaler marketplaces, its IBM Agent Connect partner program aimed at ISVs and other streamlined routes to market. As part of the changes, IBM is revising its coverage model and improving how its internal sellers and partners connect to drive deals faster, according to the vendor. IBM also aims to remove friction for resellers with improved incentives, better automation and stronger offers and products meant to drive pipeline.

“IBM is committed to helping partners deliver meaningful results for clients as they navigate and deploy new technologies,” Yusuf said. “With trusted relationships spanning thousands of partners, we will continue collaborating with them to solve real-world challenges with AI and accelerate business outcomes.”

Read on for more details on the upcoming partner program changes La Rose discussed with CRN.

What do IBM solution providers need to know about the Partner Plus program changes?

AI is changing the way that we do work. It is changing the way clients buy technology. Decisions are happening a lot quicker, and clients are looking for more flexible, subscription-based solutions and moving faster.

We’re aligning our Partner Plus program, which effectively is how partners earn money from IBM, as they build with us, as they resell our products, as they influence our products and go forward.

[We are aligning] our program and the way we incent our partners with not only the way the market is aligning, but you know how IBM has continued to transform itself over the last few years.

It all has to be grounded in value for our clients. So whether it’s better incentives, it’s better tools, it’s better co-marketing support, it’s easier in terms of opening up new routes in through our hyperscaler marketplaces, what we really try to do is get our partners to succeed with our clients so that everybody wins.

Our partners are serving our midmarket clients today. That’s arguably about a $200 billion opportunity. Nine out of the 10 Fortune 500 companies [are] inside that segment.

There’s a tremendous amount of opportunity for our partners to take the IBM technology portfolio into the clients and drive gains through both how they’re accessing AI and where they’re investing for growth.

IBM has had the program in place now for three years, and so we’re aligning that toward how the market is buying, our clients are buying and then serving our partners to really capture that growth.

It is all around driving predictable, recurring revenue on a consistent basis. And so you’ll see what we’ve done with our incentives is all around a SaaS-first approach or a subscription-solution approach.

Together, that’s going to mean that we’re going to be able to scale faster and get expanded reach for our clients and for the IBM portfolio.

Are you hoping this appeals beyond the IBM ecosystem?

We’re really looking at targeting not just the organizations that work in our ecosystem but also working very directly with the sellers inside the channel.

[This is] focused on that midmarket segment where they can really earn incremental dollars as they close deals. And then it’s very personal for them. We’ve got personal reward cards that they have access to go and recruit products, and whatever they effectively want to use those cards for.

How should partners think about IBM doubling down on subscriptions at a time when AI has everyone thinking about new and evolving business models?

We have focused on this midmarket segment, which is now a partner-first segment. We’ve always been partner-led, but that’s a partner-first segment.

We have now got a very well-defined or focused set of products—both software and infrastructure—that serve that market, which are SaaS-led or subscription-solution based.

The incentives now align directly to that and to partners that are then deploying those solutions and driving consumption around those solutions.

Incremental earnings for partners that are deploying the software and driving consumption—we call that the ‘adopt incentive.’

Partners can earn an incremental 15 points on top of the transactional sale that they make around the license to drive the deployment and then the consumption. And the other thing that we’ve led into here with this new stack is multiyear contracts. Really having the partners drive value for the client over a two- or three-year period and leaning in in terms of additional earning capability for the partners in that space as well.

What’s the timeline for rolling out these program changes?

We built this with our partners and for our partners. We had several consultation sessions with both our value-added distributors and both our infrastructure and software partners. And one of the key things that they said is, ‘You’ve got to give us time to realign our resources and in our investments to drive the strategy that you want.’

We’ll take a two-step approach. For the first part of 2026, partners will continue to earn what they do today.

On July 1, we will bring in this incremental drive toward the adopt incentive where they can earn incremental dollars to do the deployment and the consumption drive around our SaaS and subscription portfolio.

And then we will complete the transition at the end of the year, which will go effective [Jan. 1, 2027].

So a two-step process, giving partners plenty of time to realign their business, capture the growth, for us to enable the channel correctly so we’re not moving on a dime and give them more than enough opportunity to figure out how they can earn money with us and where we want them to work.

Any changes to note in how IBM works with distributors?

Only that we continue to rely on value-added distributors to really drive the long tail.

We differentiate with our top resale partners across the Americas and Europe. And so we’re extending coverage to some of those bigger partners.

But no change to our two-tier model that we’re very committed to.

What do you think about more conversation in the channel around an outcome-based approach to working with customers?

I think the outcome approach is fine. All of my peers will talk about that. I think that’s a given. And I think that that is a meet minimum, if you like, in terms of the service offerings that our partners are providing.

There’s a bigger play here on—how do we capture the opportunity in the market around continued hybrid cloud and AI? In particular, how do you bring that to life through our automation and data portfolio? Particularly as you think about some of the recent acquisitions that we’ve continued to complete.

HashiCorp [which IBM purchased in February 2025] now is core to the automation portfolio with Terraform [HashiCorp’s infrastructure-as-code software] and Vault [HashiCorp’s identity-based secrets management product]. We have Apptio [which IBM purchased in 2023] … which is really important around the FinOps area.

We announced the acquisition of [data-streaming and processing vendor] Confluent, which is going to be important as we close that deal sometime in the middle of the year.

If you haven’t looked at the IBM technology portfolio in a while, it’s time to take a look at it again. And we are fit for purpose here in terms of SaaS-first and subscription license base. And there’s never been a better time to be an IBM partner, frankly.

How about the ability for IBM solution providers to help customers carry their existing products forward into the AI era—is that still a powerful message?

We’ve had a strong history of enterprise software. That doesn’t go away.

We’ve continued to augment our portfolio and automation and data with the acquisitions that we’ve made over the last few years—and then most recently, with the Confluent acquisition that we announced.

We’ve got an incredible infrastructure portfolio. And our storage offerings and how we’re integrating AI in the box with our Fusion [platform modernization and data management] offerings is something which I think differentiates us from some of our peers.

What should partners know about IBM growing closer to hyperscalers?

Access to new routes—so the hyperscaler marketplaces—and leveraging the committed spend that our clients have with the likes of AWS or Microsoft is something which is a huge new opportunity for the IBM partners.

And so having a SaaS-first set of offerings that can tap into that goes a long way to opening up new routes for our ecosystem.

For [partners in] the United States, we are open for business as it relates to working with our very good partners AWS and Microsoft in the areas of helping both of us bring value to our joint clients through the committed spend that they’ve already made.

Do the new incentives specifically encourage partners to use hyperscaler marketplaces or IBM’s marketplaces?

We’ll meet the client how they want to buy.

We don’t penalize our partners if they want to resell the product through a distributor or if they want to act through a tier-one marketplace motion; the earnings are the same.

There’s no differentiation. We don’t penalize. So I guess you could say in some regards, we actually are leaning into the marketplace because it is a lucrative route for our partners to play with.

What do you think of other vendors in the channel questioning margins for reselling?

Sometimes [vendors] overestimate the effort required to go down that route.

If it’s a fulfillment transaction and the client knows exactly what they want, then that’s one thing.

[But] there are these outcome-based expectations from our clients. This is not about just transacting and fulfilling a license agreement, but how do I deploy that in my environment? How do I bring value and drive consumption? Ultimately, if you are driving consumption, you’re bringing value.

We’ve learned a lot from some of the acquisition partners that are now part of the ecosystem. The HashiCorp partners in particular have incredibly strong services businesses. And it’s a very, very sticky relationship that they have with their clients. And that’s helped inform us in how do we have to evolve the program that we’re bringing to life?