HPE, Eyeing VMware Exits, Makes VM Essentials Sales Partner-OnlyHPE, Eyeing VMware Exits, Makes VM Essentials Sales Partner-Only

Hewlett Packard Enterprise, looking to capture its share of VMware exits, says channel partners will now exclusively sell its new virtualized infrastructure, HPE VM Essentials Software.

“HPE has always built our strategy to be customer-first and partner-led,” wrote Gilles Thiebaut, senior vice president of worldwide hybrid cloud sales, in a Feb. 20 blog. “Delivering the best business outcomes for our customers and partners means including the right people at the right moment for the best-fit solution. Transforming virtualized infrastructure with HPE VM Essentials Software now led by a channel-only route-to-market strategy is no different.”

Introduced by HPE late last year, VM Essentials provides a unified experience for managing virtualized workloads across hybrid environments. Putting channel partners at the fore of HPE VM Essentials sales, Thiebaut said, gives customers hypervisor choice and a gateway to a hybrid cloud operating model. 

“HPE VM Essentials represents a new market opportunity for both HPE and our channel partners to help customers navigate changes in their virtualization strategy,” Thiebaut said, obliquely referring to the industry changes Broadcom has stirred since its $61 billion purchase of VMware. “Additionally, partners can build value-added services around the offering that strengthens their customer relationships.”

Related:HPE's Juniper Networks Acquisition: A Complete Timeline

Partner-Only VM Essentials Sales 'Demonstrates Our Commitment'

Thiebaut added that the standalone version of HPE VM Essentials oversees virtual machines across both existing VMware hypervisors and the HPE VM Essentials hypervisor (KVM-based). This approach, Thiebaut said, is “enabling our channel partners, globally, to lead customers toward a more open future.”

He further said that, combined with HPE ProLiant Compute Gen11, the new Gen12 servers and socket-based pricing for HPE VM Essentials, customers can reduce their costs and complexity. Along the way, managed service providers, value-added resellers, system integrators and other third-party sales experts will benefit, too, Thiebaut said.

“This channel-only model demonstrates our commitment to our partner ecosystem,” he noted. “Working with partners, we are leveraging existing relationships where customers can take advantage of existing investments, expand options with new hypervisor choices, and continue to reclaim control of their IT budgets.”

Thiebaut appeared to be alluding to Broadcom’s pricing changes to the VMware portfolio. While the chipmaker has streamlined VMware’s SKUs, it has packaged VMware technologies in such a way as to make them mandatory to purchase, and changed to core-based pricing. These adjustments have made VMware more expensive for many customers. Some have reported increases of more than 1,000%. HPE says its VM Essentials Software strategy will help partners to alleviate some of that burden for customers. 

Related:The Broadcom VMware Acquisition: A Complete Timeline

For example, the portfolio features predictable, socket-based pricing that includes integration into VMware and the HPE VM hypervisor, Thiebaut said. At the same time, customers will get “a path to hybrid cloud simplicity with upgradeability to the Morpheus cloud management solution,” Thiebaut explained. They’ll also have access to enterprise-level support as well as their partners’ services.

Overall, partner and end-user interest in HPE VM Essentials Software has been “overwhelmingly positive as they are facing ongoing challenges” in the virtualization market, he added. In sum, Thiebaut said partners will be able to provide alternative virtualization solutions “from a credible vendor"; build value-added services around VM Essentials Software; and deliver lower total cost of ownership to clients.

Simon Ewington, senior vice president of worldwide channel and partner ecosystem at HPE, agreed.

HPE's Simon Ewington

“A ‘channel-only’ sales motion for the standalone HPE VM Essentials Software capitalizes on the excitement of partners and the opportunity in the virtualization market, by providing customer choice and reduced total cost of ownership,” he said. “It also reinforces the criticality of our channel and partner ecosystem to the success of bringing HPE’s edge-to-cloud strategy to life.”

HPE VM Essentials Software is now available to channel partners worldwide. 

‘Planning to Exit VMware Greed’

The partner-only access to HPE VM Essentials comes as organizations assess their IT spend more closely and consider HPE VM Essentials as an alternative. For instance, on Reddit two weeks ago, one user wrote, “I'm currently setting up a 60-day trial. We're planning to exit VMware greed after our support contracts end next year. We're a small community college with three single-socket hosts, so five years with VME is going to be less than $3,000 versus $20,000 with VMware.”

Another said, “When there's no budget for what VMware is asking for renewal, you do what you gotta do.”

“Seven days in production,” said another. “Won’t look back. [VM Essentials is] fiddly to implement but once you’re up and running it’s rock solid. HPE gave us a one-year eval, but after that we are looking at $230nzd per socket/per year.”

Still, HPE might have to prove itself to some expert VMware users.

“I think the idea is, this is your last VMWare contract, and now you have x amount of years to slowly move everything over,” chimed in another Redditor. VM Essentials “seems to include most of the basic features of vSphere/vCenter, so as long as the pricing is right, seems like a good way to smooth the transition from VMWare. That being said, I'm not a fan of HPE hardware/software/support, so I doubt I personally would consider this without a significant price savings.”