Nutanix Targets Midmarket with Newest Partner Program

**Editor’s Note: Click here for our most recent list of important channel-program changes you should know.**

Nutanix is launching a new global channel partner program that’s geared toward key partners focused on the rapidly growing midmarket.

The Nutanix Velocity program includes accelerated selling processes, incentives and marketing investments for strategic, midmarket-focused channel partners. As part of the program, Lenovo is partnering with Nutanix to provide specific HX product bundles for midmarket customers based on the HX appliance.

Nutanix’s Rodney Foreman

In addition, the two companies are launching a new hyperconverged software-ready product – Lenovo ThinkAgile HX Certified Nodes – designed specifically for enterprise customers.

Rodney Foreman, Nutanix’s vice president of global channel sales, tells Channel Partners the new program comes “in parallel with our new channel charter, Power to the Partner,” which it presented to partners at its recent .NEXT conference.

“The new program emphasizes partner investments in Nutanix, rather than solely the revenue they bring to the company,” he said. “It also provides partners with solutions that are personalized to meet the needs of customers who aren’t just from the largest, enterprise companies, which gives partners more options to sell to customers. We have many opportunities in the midmarket, and the Velocity program combined with our new channel charter provides enablement, marketing tools and frictionless product pricing and approvals to scale our business with partners quickly.”

The channel program offers partners more incentives and opportunities to provide Nutanix Enterprise Cloud OS software to customers in the midmarket, the company said. Partners can demonstrate to these customers how hyperconverged infrastructure can help provide an “elegant solution to their needs without the cost and security challenges they may face with public-cloud-only models,” it said.

Lenovo ThinkAgile HX Certified Nodes provide enterprises with choices of software licensing terms and conditions that are most optimal for their business needs. These customers now are able to purchase the Nutanix software license separately from the Lenovo ThinkAgile HX platform with access to software support directly from Nutanix’s customer-service organizations.

Partners can build their own deployment and professional-services opportunities to increase customer value on solutions built on HX Certified Nodes, according to Nutanix. The offering also is eligible for the Nutanix New Customer Acquisition Rebate program announced to channel partners earlier this year.

“With this program and Nutanix’s channel charter, Nutanix will construct a new way of working with partners that moves away from legacy channel programs,” Foreman said. “We want partners of all sizes to succeed at Nutanix, and this program is just the beginning of our work to emphasize partner investment in Nutanix as the main measurement of success. Nutanix will work with our current partners and Lenovo to provide hyperconvergence solutions to a larger customer base, further simplifying data-center operations for even more companies around the world. We expect the Velocity program to increase our transaction volume and new customer wins through our partners in the midmarket.

“Since announcing our partnership with Nutanix less than three years ago, our ThinkAgile HX business has seen huge growth in customer count and revenue,” said Paige Garner, vice president of worldwide sales operations for Lenovo‘s data center group. “We are a fast-growing partner for Nutanix and we look forward to continuing this growth with our work on the Velocity program. Together, we can empower customers to embrace hyperconverged infrastructure with the HX product bundles and the new HX Certified Nodes portfolio.”