Monday Morning Impact – March 13

Dell EMC Enhances Cloud Service Provider Partner Program; Builds Solutions Engineering Practice

Dell EMC is investing more heavily in its approach to the service provider industry, including communications service providers, cable multiple system operators, hosting/co-location providers, public cloud providers, vertical market cloud specialists, and consumer webtech providers. The effort includes an expanded service provider track in the Dell EMC Partner Program and a new solutions engineering practice.

The Cloud Service Provider track is designed to facilitate the creation of differentiated cloud services, shorten time-to-market and accelerate time-to-revenue. Components include new rebates and access to both earned- and proposal-based business development funds; higher rewards for cloud resale partnering between participants in the Dell EMC Partner Program Cloud Service Provider and Solution Provider tracks; and increased sales and marketing investments.

The company is also investing in a global solutions engineering practice to produce a wide range of tested and validated systems for various service provider use cases. The solutions integrate software-defined storage (SDS) and software-defined networking (SDN) from Dell EMC including ScaleIO and OS10 respectively, as well as SDS and SDN capabilities with partners.

“Our goal is helping service providers digitally transform their operations and delivery models with modern internal infrastructures using common, scalable and flexible building blocks,” said Tom Burns, Dell EMC’s senior vice president & general manager, Networking, Enterprise Infrastructure & Service Provider Solutions. “With our deep knowledge of the service providers’ environments, business requirements and partners, we can deliver best-in-class solutions – from hardware to platforms to fully validated systems.”

Service providers have the opportunity to partner with Dell EMC Services and build relationships that go beyond typical off-premise services.

Channel Impact^®
The upgrades are intended to help accelerate service creation, adoption and monetization. These facets will be necessary as the merged company attempts to build strengthened relationships with partners.

CenturyLink Updates Programs for Alliances and Strategic Partnerships

CenturyLink, the Monroe LA-based service provider, has rolled out a variety of alliance program enhancements.

Highlights include new program tiers for independent sales agents or brokers; software alliance upgrades for companies who partner with CenturyLink to build, integrate, deploy, maintain and sell co-created solutions; a systems integrator alliance program; and a strategic partner alliance program.

“We are transforming the way we meet and exceed the needs of our customers through our alliance programs,” said Bill Corbin, CenturyLink senior vice president, alliances and strategic partnerships. “By tailoring our alliance programs for software, strategic and system integrators, we are building stronger, long-term relationships with our trusted partners.”

CenturyLink offers network and data systems management, Big Data analytics and IT consulting, and operates more than 55 data centers in North America, Europe and Asia.

Channel Impact^®
The world of the indirect sales channel has become far more diverse than ever before. Effective go-to-market strategies need to be designed in ways that meet the needs of all of a company’s sales constituencies.

ServiceNow Names New President and CEO

ServiceNow, of Santa Clara, CA, has named John Donahoe as the company’s new president and CEO.

With more than 30 years of management experience, Donahoe currently serves as chairman of the board at PayPal. He served as president and CEO of eBay Inc. from 2008 to 2015, where he oversaw the eBay, PayPal and eBay Enterprise businesses. He received a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Dartmouth College and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He serves on the Board of Directors for PayPal, Nike and Intel Corp.

“I am honored to lead ServiceNow,” said Donahoe. “ServiceNow is extremely well positioned to expand its leadership in the years ahead.”

Current president, CEO and chairman of the board Frank Slootman will continue as chairman upon stepping down from his management role on April 3, 2017.

Channel Impact^®
Donahoe brings solid management credentials to his new role.