Vertiv Increasing Partner Benefits, Rebates To Drive 5G And Edge Sales

With some telecom operators expecting to roll out 5G services this year, Vertiv is pushing partners to drive new opportunities around the rise of 5G, energy consumption and the edge by boosting channel rebates and incentives.

“To be able to ensure we capture all that opportunity with our partners, we’re enhancing our partner program,” said Ricardo Duque, vice president of channel strategy, Americas, at Vertiv in an interview with CRN at Dell Technologies World this month. “We’ve increased significantly some of our tools to enable those partners to better capture these opportunities. We are having greater benefits for partners, additional rebates, additional programs. … It’s a big opportunity [for partners].”

The Columbus, Ohio-based company, which received a 5-Star Rating in CRN’s 2019 Partner Program Guide, recently conducted a joint survey with analyst firm 451 Research of more than 100 global telecom decision-makers with visibility into 5G and edge strategies.

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The survey participants were overwhelmingly optimistic about the 5G business outlook and are aggressively moving forward with deployment plans, with approximately 12 percent of operators expecting to roll out 5G services yet this year, according to the research report. An additional 86 percent expect to be delivering 5G services by 2021.

According to the report, those initial offeringswill be focused on supporting existing data services and new consumer services. About one-third of respondents expect to support existing enterprise services, with 18 percent saying they expect to deliver new enterprises services.

Vertiv, which also was named to CRN’s Data Center 50, has the product set to capitalize on the 5G and edge markets by specializing in critical power and cooling systems, data center infrastructure, cloud tools, racks and enclosures, energy management and services, according to Martin Olsen, vice president, global edge and integrated solutions at Vertiv.

To support 5G services, telcos are ramping up the deployment of multi-access edge computing (MEC) sites, which bring the capabilities of the cloud directly to the radio access network. Thirty-seven percent of respondents said they are already deploying MEC infrastructure ahead of 5G deployments while an additional 47 percent intend to deploy MECs. Additionally, 94 percent of respondents expect to increase network energy consumption.

“We saw energy consumption is going up,” said Olsen. “Across the board it’s increasing, and that is supported by our studies as well that say about three-times as much energy is being consumed at the edge.”

Vertiv is innovating rapidly at the edge and in energy efficient solutions while also expanding its reach in the channel, the executives said.

In a move to expand its channel presence in North America, Vertiv added D&H Distributing to its network of distributors in April. On the innovation front, Vertiv introduced this year new and upgraded thermal energy management products including its new Vertiv VRC rack cooling system designed to easily fit into racks in edge computing environments.

Vertiv currently has around 20,000 employees with customers in more than 130 countries.

“There’s significant growth out there, and Vertiv is committed completely to our partner ecosystem,” said Duque.