Maureen Lonergan: Ahead of the Learning Curve
[est reading time: 3 minutes, 45 seconds]

So many times the key to finalizing a virtualization solution sale hinges upon how well you can answer questions about Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and Return on Investment (ROI). These are key questions that upper-level decision makers and C-level executives focus on. Being able to talk in their language and answer these questions effectively puts you in the position of an adviser allowing you to develop a strategic partnership with your customers.

So what if you don’t feel comfortable with the TCO/ROI-based approach to selling? Great news, we have developed Go Strategic With TCO/ROI Analysis, a 4-part training program that will help both the novice and the seasoned sales person become proficient in TCO/ROI-based selling. The training series focuses equally on the TCO/ROI Sale Process in addition to a robust set of TCO/ROI Tools. A TCO/ROI-based approach to selling provides a framework of language, data, and metrics that lets you present the technological benefits of VMware as financial and strategic incentives that are attractive to management.

There are 4 short models that make up the Go Strategic With TCO/ROI Analysis program:

Module 1: Introduction to TCO/ROI Analysis:
This module introduces you the benefits of using a TCO/ROI-based method to sell VMware and discusses how you can use this approach to achieve your sales goals through strategic partnerships with your customers.   You will learn TCO/ROI terminology and how to talk the language of the decision makers.

Module 2: The VMware Realized ROI Calculator
This calculator acts as a rear view mirror of virtualization that helps to justify the spend to date and show how additional investments would have benefited the business.  This kind of analysis allows you to quantify the savings a customer has achieved since their initial VMware deployment and helps you build a solid value-based business case for additional investment. The reports are key in producing and delivering regular, periodic ROI report cards for your customers.

Since a lot of these discussions involve adding additional capabilities, a realized ROI analysis can also help with up-selling vSphere editions and cross-selling virtualization management solutions such as View, SRM, Lab Manager, Stage Manager, Chargeback and others.

Module 3: The VMware Virtualization TCO/ROI Calculator
This calculator acts as a windshield view of virtualization that takes a snapshot of your customer’s IT infrastructure and shows them the difference in the road ahead if they virtualize.   This kind of analysis helps you build solid business cases for VMware by quantifying the expected savings and demonstrating the business value of your proposed solutions.

Module 4: Effective TCO/ROI-based Sales and Business
This module will show you how to use TCO/ROI analysis in your prospecting and new customer sales process and how to use TCO/ROI-based business development techniques in existing VMware accounts.

Your customer needs to trust the analysis and numbers that we are building.  You can use these processes and tools with confidence because we have addressed the following:

• The output needs to be built on a trusted financial model – VMware partnered with Alinean in building the TCO/ROI tools and assumptions.  Alinean has 15-years of experience in developing TCO/ROI and IT valuation tools. The principals created the TCO Manager and Analyst software for Gartner Group. They have exclusive partnership with IDC for research as well as research sharing and go-to-market relationships with Ziff Davis, publisher of Baseline and CIO Insight Magazines.

• It needs to use standard industry terminology that everybody recognizes and understands.  

• It has to be filled with data and metrics from the customer’s actual business – During the TCO/ROI analysis process customers can see exactly how the models are built and typically modify many of the values you’re using to suit their specific business situation, so everything is transparent.

• And it has to be presented in a flexible format – one that makes the case effectively to a wide variety of possible audiences, technical and non-technical.

With budgets being examined more closely than ever and customers expecting solutions to come with a compelling financial justification, the new "Go Strategic with TCO/ROI Analysis" self-paced training teaches you the benefits of quantifying reductions in total cost of ownership (TCO) and a quick return on investment (ROI) to achieve their sales goals through strategic partnerships with your customers.

Finally, the TCO/ROI training is a requirement for obtaining the Infrastructure Virtualization Sales Accreditation 4 and can be found by logging into Partner Central, accessing Partner University, and clicking on the Infrastructure Virtualization Sales Accreditation 4 Training Plan. You can also find training in the Sales Continuing Education Section under Sales Tools and Skills.

Maureen Lonergan

Maureen Lonergan is the Director of Global Channel Enablement. She has responsibility for building training programs to enable all Channel Partners; Solution Providers, Corporate Resellers, Technology Providers, Alliance Partners, System Integrators and System Outsourcers, and Hosting. She has been leading the Channel Enablement Team since August 2008.

 Ben Matheson: The vMarketing Expert 
[est reading time: 1 minute, 25 seconds]

If you haven't already heard, VMware was part of a major announcement this week – Cisco and EMC, along with VMware announced the Virtual Computing Environment (VCE) Coalition. This coalition is focused on accelerating the deployment of virtualization and private cloud infrastructures. For customers this means getting to 100% Business Infrastructure Virtualization quicker than they could have otherwise. For partners this coalition provides pre-packaged solutions, services and support that can help you sell and deploy virtualization and private clouds to your customers.

First off, some of you may be asking whether this announcement with Cisco and EMC means that VMware won’t be working with other technology partners. Plain and simple, the answer to this is no.  This announcement does not impact our willingness, ability or desire to continue working with our other partners like Dell, Fujitsu, HP, IBM, Netapp and others. We will continue working with and supporting their solutions as we have always done.  Customers want flexibility and choice for their technology infrastructure and we will continue to provide that. 

While we will continue to work with a broad ecosystem of partners, there are a number of very interesting components to the Virtual Computing Environment coalition that I believe you should know about. 

1. New Joint Solutions – We announced the immediate availability of Vblock Infrastructure Packages – fully integrated, tested and validated architectures that combine virtualization (using VMware vSphere of course), networking, computing, storage, security, and management technologies from Cisco and EMC. 
2. Integrated Presales, Professional Services and Support – A unified pre-sales as well as post-sales technical support experience so that customers and channel partners have a single contact to have support for the lifecycle of the Vblock deployments.  VCE will also be creating a series of jointly developed and delivered services to accelerate deployment times of the Vblock solutions.  
3. Solutions joint venture –  Announcement of a company named Acadia – solutions joint venture created by EMC and Cisco along with minority investments by Intel and VMware. Acadia is designed to build, operate, and transfer Vblock infrastructure to organizations that want to accelerate their journey to pervasive virtualization and private cloud computing.
4. Partner Ecosystem - The Virtual Computing Environment coalition has established a robust set of partners committed to the coalition. This includes representation from the entire partner ecosystem, including systems integrators, value added resellers, service providers, and independent software vendors.
    

Check out the webcast featuring Cisco Chairman and CEO John Chambers, EMC President and CEO Joe Tucci, and VMware President and CEO Paul Maritz as they unveil all the details of VCE.

Talk to you guys soon.

Ben Matheson
Senior Director, Global Partner Marketing

See the official press release at www.vmware.com

Brandon Sweeney: From the Virtualization Front Lines
[est reading time: 1 minute, 55 seconds]

I've been on the road a lot lately, and am currently in South America with our Americas General Manager talking with partners about their businesses and how they are reinventing themselves. Many are in the midst of business model makeovers. They're restructuring their companies, changing their go-to-market strategies, retraining their people, and re-investing in their customer relationships. This is happening with partners both large and small.

Why?  There are many reasons – betting on an economic upturn, competitive pressures, maximizing profitability, and changing customer expectations. One constant theme supporting these changes is the desire to capture more of the IT spend around virtualization, and specifically VMware. Multiple third-parties have confirmed the $11 of additional spend associated with each $1 of VMware spend – the topline and GP opportunities across server, storage, network, application and all flavors of services do add up. The key to getting more of these dollars is to focus on outcome-based selling, not product selling.  Helping customers understand how virtualization will increase their business agility, improve IT resiliency and accelerate IT efficiency from the desktop to the datacenter remain key themes for CXOs.

One of the fastest ways to be best prepared to have these business level discussions is to get your entire sales team accredited and your company achieve the VMware Solution Competencies. This is a key catalyst to capturing more of these 'VMware Drag' dollars.  We have data from hundreds of partners that show that VSP (VMware Sales Professional – our most basic cert) accredited sales people are twice as productive selling VMware solutions than those who are not accredited.

As the title of this blog says, Competencies are the Gateway to Profitability. Here is how the logic works:

• Training and certifications are the foundation of VMware Competencies (today we offer Competencies in Infrastructure Virtualization, Business Continuity and Virtual Desktop)

• VMware Competencies are a foundation for enabling partner differentiation and outcome-based selling

• Differentiation and outcome-based selling are key contributors to profitability

• Competencies are the gateway to increased profitability and customer retention

• The competency journey at VMware starts with our Infrastructure Virtualization Competency. All other VMware Solution Competencies build on it.

Find your company's dashboard in Partner Central. There are also reports available to see how a student is progressing.  Remember, partner companies achieve competencies, people achieve accreditations.

First step is you need a Partner Central user account. If you don’t have one, use this link:
http://vmware.force.com/PartnerForms/self_reg_search

If you have a Partner Central user account, use this link to get started. There is lots of information on this page as well as a link to your company's Competency Dashboard:
http://www.vmware.com/partners/partners.html?apex/page?name=myprogram.competencies

Rarely in this industry has there been such a powerful technology catalyst to drive your growth and profitability. VMware has the most proven, most technically advanced, and most complete virtualization platform. Get your accreditations, get your competencies. Assume the lead as a guide for your customers on the virtualization adoption journey.
 
Thanks for the great support.  I look forward to seeing you all in Las Vegas this February for Partner Exchange 2010.

Good Selling!

Brandon Sweeney

Brandon Sweeney is the Vice President of Americas Channel Sales. He has responsibility for all channel partners; Solution Providers, Corporate Resellers, Technology Providers, Alliance Partners, System Integrators and System Outsourcers, and Hosting. He has been leading the Americas Partner Organization since 2007.

Maureen Lonergan: Ahead of the Learning Curve
[est reading time: 1 minutes, 20 seconds]

The most rewarding part of my job is when I get to hear good things from you – our partners. As the Director of Partner Enablement, I’m constantly striving to make you more successful and I believe our SolutionTrack series does just that, with 97% of all attendees saying that they would attend a future session and 95% saying the course will help them sell and position VMware solutions more effectively. We decided to take SolutionTrack back on the road for Q4 – if you still haven't signed up for this free series, maybe some words from our past attendees can convince you. Here’s what some of them had to say:

• "Whiteboard presentations will definitely help my presentations to end-users from admins up to C-level execs. The combination of a business pitch and technical pitch will help my business grow significantly."

• "Role plays were terrific as well as the practice whiteboarding of the material.  The instructor was thorough and had terrific rapport with the team.  He offered many competitive selling advantages VMware offers."

• "I was able to leave the session able to understand the value proposition much better and ready to discuss more issues and whiteboard with customers."

• "The whiteboarding overview was genius."

• "Instructor's in depth explanation of features and real life examples enhanced the on-line training and on-line whiteboard session."

• "Instructor was very knowledgeable and group role playing scenarios discussed key selling points and work-arounds to customer rebuttals."

Sales teams presenting to customers

Showing what works best when presenting to C-level execs

By the end of the day, you'll learn how to identify key customer challenges and map them to product benefits. More importantly, the role-playing scenarios will help you gain confidence in effectively delivering the customer value proposition, handling sales objections, and whiteboarding solutions to senior IT management, application owners, and C-level executives.

While there is technical whiteboarding involved, the material is geared towards pre-sales and sales professionals. I also recommend a VSP certification before attending the SolutionTrack – while you don't need one, the course material comes easier if you have it. The trainings are half-day sessions for Disaster Recovery and full-day sessions for VMware View and vSphere 4 with an interactive format that combines classroom
presentations, whiteboard tutorials, and role-play scenarios.

We
just announced a new schedule and opened up registrations on Partner University for Q4 events.
In addition to the tour, we also have the
SolutionTrack whiteboards available online for your benefit.

I look forward to seeing you on the road!

Maureen Lonergan

Maureen Lonergan is the Director of Global Channel Enablement. She has responsibility for building training programs to enable all Channel Partners; Solution Providers, Corporate Resellers, Technology Providers, Alliance Partners, System Integrators and System Outsourcers, and Hosting. She has been leading the Channel Enablement Team since August 2008.

 Ben Matheson: The vMarketing Expert 
[est reading time: 2 minutes, 10 seconds]

Earlier this month we announced that Partner Exchange 2010 – our annual global partner conference – is going to take place in Las Vegas from February 8th – 10th, 2010. Last year we gave more than 1,600 attendees a preview of the new VMware Partner Network and got them educated on vSphere, VMware View and our other solutions.  This year we are scaling it up to be bigger than ever, so I thought I'd give you a sneak peak into some of our plans with my Top Ten List…here it goes:

Ben's Top 10 for Partner Exchange 2010 (catchy, right?)

10.) VMware is the industry leader in business infrastructure virtualization.
VMware is the global leader in business infrastructure virtualization and we’re uniquely positioned to successfully enable you to address your customers’ virtualization needs. VMware Partner Exchange is the only event solely dedicated to helping you succeed in 2010.

9.) Get there for the Super Bowl, stay for Partner Exchange
Super Bowl XLIV is on Sunday, February 7. Fly in on Sunday morning, place some bets, and hit the Super Bowl parties in the afternoon. Who’s your pick to take it all? I’m still counting on my Pats to take it all the way, but even if your team won’t be there, Vegas is an awesome place to enjoy the big game if you’re not at Land Shark Stadium in Miami.

8.) Network, network, network
Connect with more than 1,800 partners and peers from the VMware global partner ecosystem, including Channel Partners, Technology Alliance Partners, Distributors, and OEMs. Meet face-to-face, share best practices and cross-selling solutions, and build better business relationships. It’s always great to sit down with friends that you haven’t seen since PEX 09 or even VMworld 2008!

7.) House of Blues
The partner party this year will be at the world-famous House of Blues at the Mandalay Bay Resort. Mingle with the biggest names in virtualization, network with your peers, and have a few drinks on us. Oh, I think there’s some music there too.

6.) Make yourself a virtualization rockstar
Whether you are new to VMware or have extensive familiarity in virtualization solutions, our comprehensive conference program is designed to deliver content specific to your job role and business needs. We’re going to have some new sessions this year, including vertical-specific markets like Government & SLED, Healthcare, and SMB, and as always, the featured tracks include Sales, Services, Technical, Labs, Executive Forum, Partner Solutions, and Technology Alliance. 

5.) Stay ahead of the game
No, I’m not talking about the Super Bowl this time! Get latest announcements on the hottest virtualization products and the roadmap for the future so you know what’s in store before it hits the general public. We announced VMware vSphere 4 at Partner Exchange 2009 – wait until you see what’s coming in 2010.

4.) Hear the vision from Carl Eschenbach
The man always gives killer presentations and is one of the most passionate leaders at VMware. Dave Lawrence (aka The VMguy) said "If you ever have the opportunity to see Carl speak, go.  He’s a great presenter and very easy to follow."

3.) Hands-on technical training with VMware virtualization experts
One of the most consistently valuable experiences for our attendees is the chance to develop skills and technical expertise in interactive hands-on labs. You’ll also have numerous opportunities to interact with VMware enthusiasts during Birds-of-a-Feather roundtables and get all your questions answered by VMware sales and technical gurus at the Experts Bar. We’ll also be offering VSP and VTSP Workshops, VCP Prep Courses, and Certification Exams during the week!

2.) It’s your conference, and we’re listening
Partner Exchange is all about you, and we listen – last year we unveiled the award-winning VMware Partner Network program, which delivers competency-based, industry-recognized training and tools to help our partners grow their virtualization practices and continue to be trusted advisers to customers of all sizes. Some of the products and features that VMware develops come from ideas and feedback that we get directly from our valued partners at Partner Exchange.

1.) We’re headed to Vegas.  ‘Nuff said.

The intent of the event is that partners can confidently walk out and discuss the latest VMware solutions and technologies with their customers – everything else that happens in Vegas that week stays in Vegas!

Ben Matheson
Senior Director, Global Partner Marketing

Register for VMware Partner Exchange 2010 at www.vmware.com/go/partnerexchange
Interested in sponsorship and exhibit opportunities? Contact partnerevents@vmware.com

Brandon Sweeney: From the Virtualization Front Lines
[est reading time: 1 minute, 10 seconds]

WOW…did you attend VMworld? Did you feel the energy from the 12,000+ attendees, of which more than 5,000 were partners? Are you ready to take your customers on the Virtualization Journey?  VMware vSphere 4 is the indisputable industry-leading virtualization platform – it is not some "good enough" come-to-market-late application.  vSphere is the platform foundation for Infrastructure as a Service, Software as a Service, and Platform as a Service.

Virtualization Management is the key technology to help your customers "manage the factory," "offer a cloud," and "put apps on auto pilot," as Paul Maritz demonstrated in his keynote address at VMworld.

VMware vCenter Server provides a scalable and extensible platform that builds the foundation for virtualization management. This is as important for ten virtual machines as it is for tens of thousands of VMs and in a small business as well as large enterprise data centers.

There is a tremendous services opportunity for you, as a VMware partner, to help your customers move forward on their virtualization journey. The VMware vCenter family of products provide powerful solutions that fully leverage the capabilities of the VMware vSphere platform to deliver dramatically simplified and more effective IT management:

• Application Performance: Ensure business owners that performance SLAs will be met as you manage and ensure the performance of multi-tier applications.
• Capacity Management: Ensure service levels and minimize waste through optimized virtual infrastructure capacity.
• Dev/Test Cloud: Deliver on-demand access to a library of system configurations and simplify management of software testing and development.
• Chargeback: Get accurate costs for deploying virtualized workloads for cost transparency and accountability across business units when you can model, measure and assign costs for IT service delivery.
• Automated Provisioning: Reduce the number of administrators needed to manage your virtual infrastructure and automate and control virtual machine and server provisioning workflows.

Check out these resources:

http://www.vmware.com/solutions/virtualization-management/

http://www.vmware.com/solutions/virtualization-management/resources.html

Peter Drucker said, "The best way to predict the future is to create it!" It’s time for you to start creating your future. Let's go execute together.

Good Selling!

Regards,
Brandon

Brandon Sweeney is the Vice President of Americas Channel  Sales. He has responsibility for all channel partners; Solution Providers, Corporate Resellers, Technology Providers, Alliance Partners, System Integrators and System Outsourcers, and Hosting. He has been leading the Americas Partner Organization since 2007.

Doug Smith: Leading with Partners
[est reading time: 2 minutes, 15 seconds]

VMworld 2009 in San Francisco was a great success!  It was my third VMworld and this has truly become an industry event. The official numbers are out and we had more than 12,000 total attendees with over 5,000 partners involved. That's 42% of the total attendance! Thanks to all of our partners -  we couldn't have done it without you!

There was so much going on at VMworld this year, I thought I’d share my day-to-day experience.

Sunday we had a number of break-out sessions with our distributors and Premier Solution Providers.  We got lots of great feedback on moving our program to a competency-based model.  We also held a Partner Technical Advisory Board; here partners provide direct feedback to our engineering teams on what product and service directions VMware should be looking at.

Monday was the kick-off to Partner Track.  During the keynote sessions we heard from Paul Maritz on the VMware vision, Carl Eschenbach on our commitment to our partners, Raghu Raghuram on vSphere and Cloud Computing direction, and Jocelyn Goldfein on the desktop virtualization opportunity.  There was an exciting buzz after hearing from the VMware leaders that made its way to the show floor as the exhibit hall opened to lots of traffic and interesting solutions for the welcome reception.

For the first time, we had a social media broadcast booth in the exhibit hall.  I got to interview Mark Hilz, President of INX, and Melinda Wilken, Senior Director of Product Marketing for vCenter. Melinda made some great points on the vCenter product famiy and Vision that was announced at VMworld – the vision of enabling and managing IT as a service. Instead of managing complex, non-standard environments, Melinda gave us an explanation on how IT needs to manage the datacenter at a much higher level and be measured by what counts, like service levels and response times. This is what the vCenter product family offers.

Mark gave us a Solution Provider's feedback on the value of VMware competencies and solutions he is seeing from complementary vendors. Talking on the vSphere 4 Momentum announcement, he said that it mirrors his experiences, as INX's customers with vSphere implementation on any level were really thrilled. The ones who had some initial hesitation on virtualization only virtualized a small portion of their infrastructure, only to come back wanting to virtualize their remaining IT infrastructure after realizing the technology and level of service offered by vSphere 4. INX's new customers, many of who never wanted to virtualize because they thought they had no need for it, now see vSphere as the real deal.

INX had more SEs out on the show floor this year than ever before and Mark was truly excited by the energy and buzz on Monday's show floor.

On Tuesday Paul Maritz and Steve Herrod gave the general session keynotes. Paul discussed the recent announcement of the SpringSource acquisition and our new vCloud Express initiative; as well as other topics.  Our CTO Steve Herrod talked about a "people-centric" approach for IT. Managing users and giving them access to their applications and data from any device is the direction we are moving.  The Wyse PocketCloud demonstration was impressive and gives us an idea of what people-centric IT will look like.

Throughout the week partners got to attend 20 Partner Track breakout sessions.  Partners split their time between learning about new products and solutions and getting up to speed on the new VMware Partner Network.

Then it was time to join the VMWorld 2009 Party, it was just amazing. Thai food, Mexican food and good ol' burgers. Our very own band Elastic warmed up the crowd but in the final hour we were all jamming to Foreigner, those guys still know how to rock.

Thanks to all of you who joined us.  You made this event happen. For those who couldn’t attend, check out vmworld.com.  Here you can watch the keynotes, and click on the Virtual Pavilion for VMworld sessions and labs.

We're already starting to plan for VMware Partner Exchange 2010.  This is our Global partner-only event and will be in Las Vegas the week of February 8th-11th. So save that date on your calendar. 

Doug Smith
VMware Global Partner Sales

Doug Smith is the Senior Director of Worldwide Partner Sales at VMware. He manages the VMware Global Partners team.

Maureen Lonergan: Ahead of the Learning Curve
[est reading time: 4 minutes, 40 seconds]

You might have noticed that the VMware Certified Professional certification now has a number appended to it.  The name has been changed to reflect your areas of skill – VCP2 for those who have been around the longest and took the VCP test when it revolved around version 2, VCP3 for those of you who studied and mastered version 3 of ESX, and now VCP4 for those who chose to remain in the forefront of the virtualization craze.

The good news is that your certifications now have no end date. Once you have earned your VCP3, you are always a VCP3! Earn the VCP4 certificate and it will always be valid. Just as with prior versions, acquiring your VCP4 involves taking a course to gain important understanding of the features and capabilities of the new version, taking the time to gain some hands-on experience in your workplace, and then passing the certification test.

If you are already on the road to becoming a VCP3 (or better yet you've already earned that title) then you're in luck when it comes to achieving your VCP4. A special path has been created to reflect your efforts thus far; a path that can greatly reduce the amount of time and money you'll need to spend to achieve your goal – becoming a VCP4. To qualify for this offer you must already have earned your VCP3 or have already attended one of the official VMware qualifying courses for the VCP3 – either the "Install and Configure" course, the "Deploy, Secure, and Analyze" course, or our "v3 Fast Track" class.

Basically, the paths to VCP4 revolve around you – your current position within the hierarchy of the VCP realm and your comfort with the VMware products. There are four kinds of people in the VCP system; professionals who earned their VCPs in the old days (on ESX 2.x), people who have met the course requirements for VCP3 but haven't taken the test, professionals that have earned their VCP3, and people who are new to the whole idea of earning a VCP. There are paths available for each, some of which are only available until the stroke of midnight on December 31st, 2009.

VCPs on ESX 2.x
Let's start with the old timers. You earned your VCP on ESX 2.x – or to use the current terminology you are a VCP2. First of all – thanks! You were an early adopter, and much of our current success can be attributed to your use and promotion of our virtualization infrastructure! You've probably been thinking about taking the VCP3 test for awhile, and there's never been a better time for you to do so. The biggest benefit you get for the length of time you've been working with VMware products is that until December 31st, you can take the VCP3 exam without having to take one of the VI3 courses.

Once you've earned that VCP3 your options continue – you can either self-study or attend the 2-day What's New course and then take the VCP4 exam, earning two certifications in very little time and with very little effort on your part (let's face it, you've been working with our products long enough to have a very good feel for what they do, how they work, and why they're so critical in today's data centers.)
 
Taken the VCP3 course, but haven't taken the test
If you have already taken one of the qualifying VCP3 courses (again, the "Install and Configure" course, the "Deploy, Secure, and Analyze" course, or our "v3 Fast Track") but have yet to take that exam, you have a couple of options as long as you act before the December 31st deadline. You could take the VCP3 test and then the VCP4 test, earning both certificates before the end of the year. Of course, this would imply that you are very comfortable with the new features available in vSphere 4.

If you, like me, need a little kick start, you can sit in the two-day "What's New" course, get a little hands-on time, and then take the test. Either way, just like the old timers (the VCP2s) you have a "twofer" option – earn both certificates by the end of the year with relatively little time and money!

Current VCP3s
As a current VCP3 you have proven your abilities – you are a knowledgeable VMware professional able to create and maintain a virtual infrastructure with ease. As with the VCP2s, first let me say thanks! You are the VMware army – out there installing and maintaining our products in the field. Without you our success story might have a very different ending. You also have a couple of paths available for earning the title of VCP4. You could download a demo version of vSphere4, spend some time learning the ins and outs, and then schedule the test and earn your VCP4. If you feel the need for some class time, VMware has the "What's New" course – two days dedicated to just the changes between ESX 3 and vSphere 4. So another option would be to attend the "What's New" class, get a little keyboard time with the new product, and then take your VCP4 exam.  Just remember, we all turn into pumpkins on December 31st – so don't wait too long before making your move!

New to the whole VCP thing?
If you are just starting the VCP process, either as a seasoned professional who wants to finally earn that coveted title or a complete virtualization newbie, you are also in luck! While there are no short cuts for you (like anything worth having, the VCP certification requires a certain amount of effort) the VCP4 courses are available, the product is out there so you can gain some experience with it, and the test is ready. Your next steps are easy; just register for one of the VCP qualifying courses, get some stick-time, study a bit, and then take the test.

If you are interested in getting a certification or updating your current version and joining our community of over 16,000 Certified Partners, log into Partner University through the Partner Central Portal to get started in course and certification registration.

Maureen Lonergan

Maureen Lonergan is the Director of Global Channel Enablement. She has responsibility for building training programs to enable all Channel Partners; Solution Providers, Corporate Resellers, Technology Providers, Alliance Partners, System Integrators and System Outsourcers, and Hosting. She has been leading the Channel Enablement Team since August 2008.

 Ben Matheson: The vMarketing Expert 
[est reading time: 0 minutes, 55 seconds]

Are you going to VMworld? My team has worked hard this year to make VMworld a truly valuable experience for partners. I can say with confidence that there is more at VMworld this year than ever before and I'm looking forward to sharing them with our partner community, so here's a little sneak peak.

Starting with a partner-only kick-off on Monday (we're expecting 2,000 of our closest friends) attendees will get first-hand information on our new partner initiatives, product releases, and roadmap from Paul Maritz (CEO and President), Carl Eschenbach (EVP of Field Operations), Raghu Raghuram (GM Datacenter) and Jocelyn Goldfein (GM Desktop).

I think partners are going to find this year's first-ever partner track sessions especially valuable. There's all kinds of great information on key technical, sales and marketing initiatives that will help you drive your virtualization practice. However, not everything this year is new – we've kept what is most popular with our partners in the years past like the hands-on labs and self-paced labs that focus on our latest technologies. I highly recommend attending presentations from our joint ecosystem partners like Cisco, Dell, EMC, HP, IBM, Intel, Netapp, Symantec, Wyse – and many others.

It all goes down at San Francisco’s Moscone Center next week. Exciting stuff, right?

There's still time to get a pass and attend, but if you just can't make it this year and want to find out the latest and greatest we have a way for you to do it. Just go to the following social media sites and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and of course, our blog. 

I'll see you there.

Ben Matheson
Senior Director, Global Partner Marketing

Brandon Sweeney: From the Virtualization Front Lines
[est reading time: 2 minutes, 0 seconds]

The SMB market offers an incredible opportunity for our partners. Over the last few months VMware has invested heavily in market research in the SMB segment and the results are surprising – while virtualization penetration is very low in the segment, nearly all customers know what it is, they all know that VMware is the market leader and they all think that virtualization is too expensive and complicated for their business. 

So what does that mean for you? Simply put, there's a lack of awareness in this segment. With the new VMware SMB packages, virtualization is actually not too expensive or complicated for SMBs at all.  The best part is that solution providers who understand how to explain this to customers have a massive green field market in front of them!

In my travels the last few weeks, I’ve heard some great tips from partners who are successfully selling to SMB customers today…

1. Availability is Key – Application availability in the small and mid-sized space is critical.  Unplanned downtime isn’t fun, and it's worse when you’re a small operation with limited staff and expertise to get things back online.  The tough part is that most high availability or fault tolerance solutions on the market today are too expensive for smaller customers. Most customers just end up dealing with downtime as a cost of doing business. Partners are telling me that their customers are very surprised to hear that the new VMware Essentials Plus product provides High Availability for just under $1,000 per server and that the new Advanced Acceleration Kit provides zero-downtime fault tolerance for just under $3,500 per server.
2. Focus on the Power of Virtualized Servers Instead of Consolidation Ratios – a 10:1 consolidation ratio doesn't sound as compelling when you only have 18 servers – in fact, it doesn’t really make sense.  What's easy to undertand is telling your SMB customers that they can get 10 times the productivity out of their servers by virtualizing one of them.  It’s the same message, just presented in a way that will be much more impactful to the IT professional in a smaller environment.   
3. Start Thinking Server Attach – In the past, I've always told partners that virtualization was a great way to drag incremental server, storage and services business, and while that is still true, partners are now telling me that they’re defaulting to attaching the new VMware SMB packages to their new server sales.  With the Essentials line starting at $330 per server, you now have the ability to add virtualization in every sales cycle!  

VMware has lots of tools to help you in the midmarket. In the SMB Virtualization Kit, there is a white paper by John Madden at Ovum.  There is a case study on my alma mater, Bowdoin College, which describes how virtualization has helped them deliver an improved SLA across campus departments.  Interestingly, the paper also covers a collaborative arrangement with Loyola Marymount in LA for disaster recovery. Good reading!

In closing, VMware is driving awareness, or The Energy, around the benefits of virtualization.  Our distributors are ready to help you, they provide The Edge.  You – our Partners – provide The Execution by helping your customers leverage the benefits of virtualization.

Look for me at VMworld and on this site in the future – thanks for reading!  Good selling!

Regards,
Brandon

Brandon Sweeney is the Vice President of Americas Channel  Sales. He has responsibility for all channel partners; Solution Providers, Corporate Resellers, Technology Providers, Alliance Partners, System Integrators and System Outsourcers, and Hosting. He has been leading the Americas Partner Organization since 2007.