5 Keys For Partners In Dell EMC's Aggressive New Midrange Storage Push

Storage Wars

Dell EMC is introducing a new crop of storage and data protection incentives designed to reward channel partners for displacing competitors like Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Pure, Veeam and Commvault.

Cheryl Cook, Dell EMC vice president of partner marketing called out those competitors by name during a webcast Thursday, saying the slate of new spiffs and incentives were designed to take "Veeam, Rubrik and Commvault out of the equation" and help partners "tell a story to beat HPE, Pure and NetApp."

The moves are part of Dell EMC's effort to help partners better position midrange storage and data protection solutions in the market and capitalize on the Round Rock, Tex.-based IT giant's leadership position in those categories.

Today, the channel accounts for about 70 percent of the overall storage business at Dell EMC, and the company introduced a refreshed storage lineup in time for its Dell EMC World conference last May, including new VMAX, XtremIO, Unity, SC Series and Isilon platforms.

The new spiffs are aimed mostly at the midmarket Unity and SC products, but also cover certain high end systems like VMAX and XtremIO, as well as data protection products. Click through for more.

The Opportunity

Dell EMC Storage President Jeff Boudreau said the company is investing in the future by doubling down on investments in flash, cloud-ready, multi-dimensional scaling, analytic, software-defined storage, as well as emerging storage technology like autonomous, application-aware storage. The midrange market, however, is a $14 billion opportunity and growing, and Boudreau said Dell EMC is planning major releases there later this year. "It's all about demand, building the pipeline and closing deals," he said.

Spiffy

Cook said Dell EMC's channel team is trying to "rally your sales team with spiffs and incentives to drive demand and to fill the pipeline to uncover opportunity." In all, Dell EMC is introducing four new spiffs for North American Titanium partners. Partners earn the spiffs by selling eligible solutions and redeeming points for things like pre-paid debit cards, high-end merchandise and travel, Cook said.

Match Point

Partners can earn $1,250 worth of points when they close Unity, SC Series VMAX, XtremIO or data protection deals. That spiff can climb to $5,600 in points when partners are displacing competitive products. There's a spiff worth $2,100 in points for partners that complete a "data protection clean sweep," by booting a competitor's solutions from an account, allowing Dell EMC to "take Veeam, Rubrik and Commvault out of the equation," Cook said. There's also a $1,000 spiff for replacing competing solutions with Dell EMC Unity, SC and XtremIO solutions.

Pole Position

Cook said partners will have the path to those spiffs prepared by her team in the form of a midrange storage positioning guide that helps partners make the case for replacing HPE, Pure and NetApp with Dell EMC solutions. The guide is available now in the Dell EMC Partner Portal. Partners will also be able to offer customers "pay-as-you-grow" financing through Dell Financial Services, which allows customers to pay for storage as it's consumed.

Get Active

Dell EMC has also refreshed and updated its midrange storage training, Cook said, and has begun offering "partner activation packs." The packs sit in the Dell EMC Partner Portal and include enablement and training information and demand generation activities. The storage materials are available now and a new batch of data protection materials are arriving next week, Cook said.