Monday Morning Impact – November 16

Avnet Unveils Next-Generation Cloud Marketplace

Avnet has launched its new cloud marketplace, providing comprehensive solutions from a variety of cloud service providers, consumption- and subscription-based payment models and a management toolset. The Avnet Cloud Marketplace, available in the US and Canada, also supports real-time provisioning and billing, as well as partner-branded storefronts through which VARs, ISVs and MSPs could establish white-label marketplaces with their own bundled cloud offerings customized for targeted verticals or other market segments.

“Services-based delivery is rapidly impacting the way businesses consume technology, and channel partners must be able to develop and implement cloud strategies with ease to ensure their long-term viability,” said Sergio Farache, senior vice president of Avnet’s Solutions and Strategy business unit in the Americas.

The Avnet Cloud Marketplace is based on Avnet’s digital distribution strategy, which focuses on providing a combination of digital tools, processes and services that simplify the cloud and services provisioning, operational and financial requirements, while reducing costs and providing scale throughout the entire cloud ecosystem. The platform offers dashboards that give partners and their customers access to real-time, full-detail cloud usage with drilldown capabilities to better understand what services are being consumed by whom, as well as where they are being consumed. It also has analytics capabilities to assess cloud spending as well as analysis on security risks and recommendations on best practice changes to remove potential vulnerabilities in customers’ environments.

Channel Impact
Though there are many cloud service exchanges in the world today, the ability for partners to white label their own storefronts is always an important differentiator.

Lenovo Pursues Hyperconverged Infrastructure Market through Nutanix Alliance

Lenovo and Nutanix announced a strategic partnership to develop, market and sell a new family of Lenovo hyperconverged appliances.

Hyperconvergence combines server platforms with specialized software to build private cloud datacenters that match the agility, scalability and fractional consumption of public clouds. The joint solution will be designed to run nearly all workloads, including enterprise applications, databases, virtualized desktops, and big data analytics.

While the joint solution will be made available through Lenovo channel partners, a specialized sales team is also being assembled. Go-to-market initiatives from Nutanix are also reportedly in development.

The two companies plan to formally announce their new solutions in the coming weeks.

Channel Impact
The Lenovo brand should be very useful in penetrating China, but the actual opportunity for channel partners will be linked to the forthcoming details around the go-to-market model, which will blend direct and indirect sales.

Brocade Names New Channel Executive

Brocade has announced that industry sales veteran Pete Peterson has joined the company as vice president of Worldwide Channel Sales to manage its go-to-market ecosystem of channel and distribution partners.

Peterson brings more than 30 years of sales and leadership experience to Brocade, including 20 years working in various senior management positions at Tech Data Corporation. Most recently, he was senior vice president of Global Business Development where he was responsible for new vendor partner acquisitions and diversification opportunities at Tech Data.

Peterson holds a bachelor of science degree from Tuskegee University and a master’s degree in business administration from Florida State University.

Channel Impact
Peterson is called upon to manage partners with a background highly developed in the distribution space.