By Suresh Panikar, Director of Marketing, EMC Backup Recovery Systems

The first annual Global Partner Summit got underway, today, at the Venetian Ballroom in Las Vegas. To the accompaniment of very energetic, upbeat music from an on-stage live band and with EMC Blue as backdrops to 5 screens with continuous running statistics on the successes of EMC on all front, an eager crowd of about 3000 invited EMC Partners streamed into the Ballroom and watched screen after screen showing the partner connections in various parts of the world and language after language displaying the word “Transform” in the native script….

Also presented was the fact that 80 countries were represented;  6,600 new partners attending, 1,700 selling EMC for the first time; 30% to 3303% growth at various partners during the last year and greater than 85% of VMware revenues ; And much much more ….

On cue the MC , Mark Jeffries, took the stage and got it rolling with a few tips on business etiquettes, when meeting customers, and then quickly moving on the planned presentations by the Exec staff – who consisted of Jeremy Burton, Greg Ambulos, Terry Breem, Pat Gelsinger, Howard Elias, ending with Joe Tucci; mixed in were a couple of panels, too. [For full details of the topics and individual roles, pls see the list at the bottom of this article.

The focus of ALL presentations and panel discussions covered the subject of IT Transformation – an extension of the strategy that EMC put in place last year. Main highlights covered the following:

1. Cloud and the various forms of clouds – Private , Public and Hybrid Clouds
   1. EMC conviction being that the market would not just subscribe to Public Cloud, but would also have private clouds, too.
   2. 100,000s and more would be the number of Private clouds in a whole multitude of business scenarios and applications and workloads; and similarly 1000s of Public Clouds to satisfy the current models in data usage AND for future needs, as well.
   3. In addition, it is EMC’s belief that Hybrid Clouds will dominate and be pervasive and that the workloads will move from Private to Public and back based on changing needs as and when applications and needs change.
   4. EMC’s readiness are demonstrated by the 3 paths to Cloud – Infrastructure (supplied by Best of Breed products); VSPEX (a tried and tested reference architecture model to help partners sell a collection of EMC Storage products); VBlock.   Infrastructure being the fastest growing segment today. This being supported with the Channel-Only VNXe & DD160
   5. Primary Storage and Backup Recovery Systems are significant for EMC! .. and now Security, too.
   6. Partners are a preferred set of business and sales team ; and considered crucial for EMC’s growth and future successes
      1. Partners, SIs and their organizations are seen as an extension to the EMC’s Sales Force; for this purpose One Integrated Global Channel has been created by EMC
      2. 100% of EMC’s business is affected by our partners
      3. Partnering is strategic to EMC; and collaborative partnerships are key to our joint successes
      4. Cloud, Big Data and Trust for the 3 most significant areas , for EMC, in its plans for the future; and a solid component complementing the 3 is the Partner Service evolution
         1. Engrg. & Development, Solutions, Service Providers and Hybrid Clouds are ALL part of EMC’s engagement with Partners worldwide. Partners are at the center of our Strategy
         2. Service side of the business, which includes sale of such services make up $3B-$4B of EMC’s revenues; But the overall market is at $90B+, which leaves a lot of room to expand; and with partners to grow to higher levels with well planned services from EMC or from Partners.
         3. Velocity Service Provider programs are built to cover 3 distinct areas- Go-To-Market, Technology and Enablement; 11,000 partners have already been educated and more planned..
         4. On Cloud:  EMC made a Violent Declaration that it believes in Multiple Clouds and not just one Cloud!
         5. Big Data: with the high volumes of daily transactions on Google, Facebook, Twitter, and a whole lot of other sites, the concept of Big Data is clearly recognized, these days.; But there is the question “Now What?” that is often raised; EMC is going to provide a collection of products that would address the Analytics that would need to be looked at and acted upon with these Big Data volumes.
         6. EMC is working on a solid portfolio and expanding various elements – organically and through M& A activities and to some extent investing in newer technology start-ups too
            1. It’s a journey … and EMC is in the early stages, today..

A fine overview of the EMC’s strategy was presented by Joe Tucci; and after a few Q&As from the audience the event came to a close.

Leaving the Partner community to consider what was asked during the session- a challenge:  “Are You Ready?”

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