VMware Takes Wraps Off Multicloud Adoption Program for Channel Partners

VMware is betting a big part of its future on multicloud adoption and wants its channel partners to do the same.

On Tuesday, the cloud computing vendor went public with the new Multicloud Adoption Program. The initiative delivers tools and financial incentives to partners handling the managed and professional services aspects of cloud migrations. VMware positions the program as acting “as a bridge in the early stages of a customer’s cloud journey (assessments and proofs of concept) with those rewarding ongoing cloud consumption, ensuring partners can benefit throughout the customer life cycle.”

There are, of course, requirements partners must meet to qualify for the Multicloud Adoption Program.

First, they must be at the Advanced tier, or higher, within VMware Partner Connect. And they must hold the VMware Cloud on AWS Master Services Competency. VMware has about 150 Master Services partners around the world. They mostly are the large system integrators, although some are smaller, regional players as well. Second, the contract to which the Multicloud Adoption Program applies must amount to at least $500,000 and be delivered within 12 months.

VMware’s Terence Gleeson

So what is the Multicloud Adoption Program, exactly? Terence Gleeson is senior director of partner strategy and go-to-market at VMware Cloud. He describes it this way: “It is a benefit to our partners to help pay or offset costs of cloud migrations to customers.”

For example, say a customer signs a $1 million cloud contract with VMware. If a partner was not already part of the sales cycle, VMware will bring one in at this stage of the process. That partner’s job? To handle the actual migration itself.

“Our professional services does a fantastic job at migration and such, but we need our partners to be able to truly scale this,” Gleeson said.

That’s where the Multicloud Adoption Program enters the picture. It will reduce migration costs – which are expensive and often deter organizations from progressing quickly – to save end users a chunk of money and keep them on the migration path.

Helping Partners Attain ‘Hero Status’

In the case of the theoretical $1 million sale cited, say migration expenses amount to $70,000. VMware’s incentive initiative would lop off a portion of that, depending on the master services partner.

“We’ll tell the partner what they’re eligible for in terms of … benefits to pay against the migration statement of work,” Gleeson said.

The customer would then pay less to move cloud environments to VMware.

“It helps put our partners in kind of a hero status,” Gleeson said.

VMware is betting that organizations would then consume more of its cloud computing offerings. At the same time, the Multicloud Adoption Program extends opportunities to partners to do more services work within the end user’s cloud environment.

“We just view this as another piece to be added in to all our other incentives,” Gleeson said.

The Multicloud Adoption Program-eligible products are VMware Cloud on AWS and VMware Cloud Universal Suite, which supports hybrid cloud deployments. The projects eligible for the benefit VMware Cloud on AWS and Google Cloud VMware Engine. Partners get access to VMware’s professional services tools (which they can add to their own), as well as best practices and processes guidance.

VMware has conducted pilots of the Multicloud Adoption Program in the United States and Canada. Nov. 1 marks the official general availability date.

As for why VMware is debuting the initiative now? The company is intent on building its recurring revenue (and multicloud adoption is core to achieving that) and bringing in that money faster. Indeed, VMware’s likely new owner, Broadcom, is buying it, in part, for the promise of that shift from legacy hardware to software as a service. With that growth in mind, VMware crafted the Multicloud Adoption Program.

“It’s going to accelerate consumption for our customers,” Gleeson said.

A Partner’s Perspective

Bob Olwig, executive vice president of global partner alliances at World Wide Technology, agreed. VMware’s Multicloud Adoption Program “is all about acceleration,” he said.

WWT’s Bob Olwig

“Our customers recognize the value of public cloud and want to adopt the approach as quickly and cost effectively as possible,” said Olwig.

The new VMware initiative, then, “will allow us to add even more firepower of technical and business resources to help customer along their cloud journey,” Olwig said.

That’s an attractive proposition for a company such as WWT. The Missouri-based technology services provider already reaches organizations across the globe. Now, with VMware’s Multicloud Adoption Program, it gains even more heft. Olwig said it’s hard to predict how many WWT customers will take advantage of the Multicloud Adoption Program. But WWT will introduce it “to nearly all” of its VMware customers.

In terms of differentiation, the new incentive will give WWT a chance to showcase “greater value” to end users, and fund proofs of concept and technical assessment, Olwig sad.

Olwig said the Multicloud Adoption Program is “not entirely unique,” because other cloud vendors have similar offerings. However, he added, “it’s unique in that it’s coming from VMware, [which] is by far the most ubiquitous technology in our customers’ data centers.”