HPE’s Simon Ewington On New Unified Partner Ready Vantage: ‘This Is A Partner Program For Innovators Not For Imitators.’

‘Our innovation engine keeps increasing,’ said HPE Worldwide Channel and Partner Ecosystem Leader Simon Ewington. ‘That is what I think makes HPE so interesting for partners is being an innovator and not being an imitator. That is the thing that we do well.’

Hewlett Packard Enterprise Worldwide Channel and Partner Ecosystem Leader Simon Ewington says the “revolutionary” new unified HPE Partner Ready Vantage is aimed at helping partners push the technology innovation envelope.

In fact, Ewington said the “revolutionary” new Partner Ready Vantage, which combines 11 different programs into a single unified channel program, is helping partners cross the chasm into hot markets like AI with HPE Private Cloud AI or the $4 billion virtualization market with HPE VM Essentials.

“Our innovation engine keeps increasing,” said Ewington in an interview with CRN. “That is what I think makes HPE so interesting for partners is being an innovator and not being an imitator. That is the thing that we do well. And our partner program and HPE Partner Ready Vantage – the new framework pulling together 11 partner programs into a single program- is pretty revolutionary for those that know HPE really well. This is a partner program for innovators not for imitators.”

Ewington said his “innovator not imitator” Partner Ready Vantage program shout out refers to HPE’s ability to a “really good job of holding the hands of partners in new technology areas and helping them to speed time to revenue.”

HPE Private Cloud AI is the perfect example, said Ewington. “Everyone else came up with blueprints and theoretical ways of leveraging AI,” he said. “We actually came up with a turnkey solution that partners can buy off the shelf, and now with the Unleash AI program we have added ISVs pre validated.”

The new unified program, which brings together HPE Partner Ready Vantage, HPE Partner Ready and HPE Partner Ready for Networking, is set to be rolled out in phases beginning November 1.

As part of the new program, HPE is rolling out a new exclusive Triple Platinum Plus tier for its largest partners who qualify as Platinum level in the sell track reselling compute, hybrid cloud and networking in both a capital expenditure and operating expenditure model.

The Triple Partner Plus tier comes even as HPE networking rival Cisco moves to Cisco 360 which does away with the traditional Cisco Gold medallion. Cisco, for its part, is shifting incentives for partners in favor of AI and security, software adoption and renewals as part of its fully-revamped partner program, Cisco 360, that's launching in February 2026.

Ewington said the new unified program allows HPE to reward both “transactional partners who are driving great volume in compute, storage and networking products” and specialty partners.

The Triple Platinum Plus allows HPE to reward transactional partners through the medallion structure “they know and love,” said Ewington.

“We've seen some of our competitors remove those structures and make major changes to their programs that have not been super popular I would say,” he said.

With the new unified partner program, HPE has an opportunity to drive more “revenue and margin” with partners cross selling the full HPE portfolio including networking, said Ewington.

“We've still got a massive untapped opportunity for ourselves and our partners to leverage the (full) portfolio,” he said. “We've got lots of networking only partners who, by the way, some of them, want to only be networking partners because that's what they specialize in, and we don't want to change that. We want to embrace their speciality. But we've got other networking partners that we work with who are selling other competitors compute products or storage products, and that's where we need to do a much better job of leveraging the power of HPE, the power of the Greenlake portfolio, the power of HPE cloud operations to drive more revenue and margin for us and our partners.”

What will be the economic impact of the new Triple Platinum Plus tier?

With the new (unified partner) program and (Triple)Platinum Plus, we get to reward and encourage partners who really sell across the portfolio. Because at the moment the structure we have today doesn't recognize those who equally sell our compute solutions, do a great job in hybrid cloud and in networking.

Now we're going to be able to do that and really reward those partners who understand the breadth of portfolio selling and leveraging the HPE Greenlake cloud platform. That's really, really important.

The other thing that the program allows us to do is almost operate with two types of partners: the transactional partners who are driving great volume in compute, storage and networking products. That is so critical for us. They are going to be rewarded, through the medallion structure that they know and love and they really value. And we've seen some of our competitors remove those structures and make major changes to their programs that have not been super popular I would say.

Then the other set of partners that (this unified program) allows us to address- which we haven't done so well to date - probably aside from in networking - is specialist partners.

These specialist partners who may not be huge from a dollar perspective, and therefore have struggled to hit traditional vendor thresholds for medallions, but who are super critical in scaling new technologies.

So the fact that we're going to have the ability to work with specialist players who are not disincented from working with HPE because they will still get very good rewards by being competent partners I think is a great step forward.

So think SASE, hybrid cloud operations, and Morpheus virtualization partners. So we're going to have the ability to recognize partners who drive that breadth of transactional business, as well as specialist partners. Everybody has a place within our new Partner Ready Vantage program.

Will there be a place for specialist partners in Triple Platinum Plus?

It's unlikely and to be honest, specialist partners probably don’t care so much about medallions.

Typically, a lot of vendor rewards are aligned to medallions. So if you're a SASE partner, and you want to get the best rewards through our networking program, or through our networking sell track, you're not going to be a Platinum partner because you are not going to meet the volume thresholds. So basically you are getting a lower level reward. What we are saying is in specialist areas of our portfolio the competencies and competency adoption will mean that in specialist areas, specialist partners can get access to still high levels of reward for specialized parts of our program.

When will the Triple Platinum Plus be available?

It will be ready for November 1, but we need to set thresholds for the year.

We need to think about how we are going to do it.

We already have a certain number of partners who already meet those thresholds. We have to think about how we implement it. But the intent is the program is up and running from Nov. 1.

With one unified program will there be the same channel investment in compensation with the total pool of dollars including MDF incentives?

There is no intent to reduce compensation. That's not the intent. What we really want to do is work out how do we spend compensation in a more effective way to drive our business as well as drive our partner’s businesses.

The other thing I would say is whilst there is not a greater Contra envelope as a percentage of revenue -because that's typically how we work things - the fact that we're entering new markets means there is more money and rewards available for partners.

So let's look at something like virtualization. So on virtualization we're obviously offering a flat rate of 10.5 percent for all of our partners. Well, we weren't in that market before. So before there was 10.5 percent of nothing.

Now we are entering a $4 billion market as estimated by (market researcher) IDC. Now partners can earn 10.5 percent (rebate on an HPE VM Essentials deal) on a market we were not in.

So the overall envelope in terms of dollars just got bigger because our portfolio keeps increasing. Our innovation engine keeps increasing. That is what I think makes HPE so interesting for partners is being an innovator and not being an imitator. That is the thing that we do well. And our partner program and HPE Partner Ready Vantage – the new framework pulling together 11 partner programs into a single program- is pretty revolutionary for those that know HPE really well. This is a partner program for innovators not for imitators.

Will the highest margins in the new unified program be with those emerging offerings that received the highest compensation multipliers in the past like Alletra MP, Morpheus With VM Essentials, HPE Compute Ops Management?

Elements where we innovate means that we have higher margin because it's our IP (intellectual property). It’s not a big secret. Where we have our IP and higher margins partners earn more money because there is more to share with our partner community.

When I talk about us being an innovator, not an imitator, what I mean by that is, I think we do a really good job of holding the hands of partners in new technology areas and helping them to speed time to revenue. HPE Private Cloud AI is the perfect example.

Everyone else came up with blueprints and theoretical ways of leveraging AI. We actually came up with a turnkey solution that partners can buy off the shelf, and now with the Unleash AI program we have added ISVs pre validated.

So when a customer is saying, ‘Hey, I want a Vision AI solution’ Hey guess what? We've got an answer for you with a pre-validated set of technologies, with all of the Nvidia software integrated, and with some of the key ISVs around Vision AI already pre validated. So you can buy that and speed time to revenue. That's why we innovate in the market.

What does the future hold for those ISVs partnerships with offerings like the Unleash AI program?

ISVs are something that we used to do really well as a company. Those who've been working with HP for years know that. We were the company that validated ISV solutions on our technology. Think about SAP. Seventy or eighty percent of SAP installations were deployed on HPE. I think we lost a little bit of that muscle strength. We are regaining that muscle strength. AI and Private Cloud AI combined with some key ISVs is the fuel that is going to fire that engine up again.

With networking being a big opportunity with the HPE Networking and HPE Aruba now coming into one program what are the compensation benefits partners will see?

One of the great joys of integrating the Aruba channel organization into one global sales organization is learning from each other. And to be blunt, I mean, a lot of what we've taken for HPE Partner Ready Vantage with the new framework, particularly that big focus on some of those specialist partners, like SASE partners, we've taken that from some of the success we had within the Aruba business.

We're looking at what works well because that business has scaled phenomenally well over the last eight or nine years since we acquired the company. That's probably been one of the biggest benefits that we've had.

Now by pulling everything together, I think the opportunity is for us to get, to be blunt, more revenue and margin by partners cross selling across our portfolio much better than they did before. Networking is fundamental to the AI opportunity. If you don't have a good network, you can't access the data which is critical to AI models. So that's the first thing.

The second thing is we've still got a massive untapped opportunity for ourselves and our partners to leverage the (full) portfolio. We've got lots of networking only partners who, by the way, some of them, want to only be networking partners because that's what they specialize in, and we don't want to change that. We want them to embrace their speciality. But we've got other networking partners that we work with who are selling other competitors compute products or storage products, and that's where we need to do a much better job of leveraging the power of HPE, the power of the Greenlake portfolio, the power of HPE cloud operations to drive more revenue and margin for us and our partners.

Do you anticipate any changes in the Aruba network as a service model given the Dell Apex 20 percent margin?

It’s not something I can comment on today.

I would like to clarify that I think the model Dell has and the model we have is completely different. Dell offers 20 percent up front, basically margin that partners then use to potentially get to the winning price.

We get to the winning price and we give them a guaranteed rebate. So it is a completely different model. So I don’t think you can compare the 20 percent up front that may get eaten up in pricing versus the model that we have.

But we understand that the changes that were made and the flat rate that we had before was very popular and is still discussed in the industry. I would say no comment, but we understand.

How much training and enablement is HPE investing in AI versus Dell?

We had 1,000 partners and 8,000 modules completed as part of our AI enablement program. It is going great guns!