HPE Partner Ready Vantage: 10 Big Things To Know

Let The Ecosystem Channel Wars Begin

Hewlett Packard Enterprise—a perennial channel leader with its Partner Ready program—is upping the ante in the cloud services battle with Partner Ready Vantage, its first Everything-as-a- Service ecosystem channel program.

“As the customers evolve and we evolve the strategy to support them, it is critical that the channel program follows suit,” said HPE Worldwide Channel Chief and Head of Partner Sales George Hope (pictured) in an interview with CRN. “So we need to be as innovative on the program side and build off our industry-leading Partner Ready program.”

The program, which was unveiled at HPE Discover, does not yet include new incentives but is rather the starting point of a three-year “North Star” vision and framework for the GreenLake ecosystem. The program will be rolled out in phases with the first details coming at the start of HPE’s new fiscal year on Nov. 1.

In the meantime, HPE is maintaining its Partner Ready program for the foreseeable future with traditional robust GreenLake incentives like the 17 percent up-front rebate on GreenLake deals.

The new unified Everything-as-a-Service program includes the full range of GreenLake partners from influencers that do not want to sell hardware or deliver services to born-in-the-cloud providers to ISVs.

HPE is “doubling down” on partners that are evolving quickly to deliver consumption-based cloud services to customers while at the same time maintaining the core Partner Ready channel program for those that are not ready to make the big GreenLake cloud services bet, said Hope.

“We want to make sure that we are leading the charge in helping the ones that are ready to evolve today and we also have a home for those that still have customers that are focused more on our core offerings,” said Hope. “So we are trying to double down on the ones that are ready today without leaving the rest behind.”