VMware Marketplace

Migration to the Marketplace – Marketplace Resources

On September 15th, we consolidated the VMware Cloud Marketplace with the VMware Solution Exchange to form a combined catalog known as VMware Marketplace. We introduced this new, exciting Marketplace in our last blog, and in this blog, we want to share a few additional resources that will help you migrate over seamlessly. 

 

Why VMware Marketplace? 

Before diving into all the resources, we first want to address why we decided to create this new Marketplace. The growing migration to the cloud across industries has resulted in three key problems that arise among customers. These are:  

  1. Need for a seamless multi-cloud adoption: Customers are using different clouds for different use cases; increasingly, they seek software solutions that work across the stack, compatible with their specific choices in infrastructure
  2. Need for ecosystem management: As the industry moves towards subscriptions, customers need an easy way to manage, track, update and access all their third-party ecosystem licenses from a single place
  3. Need for a superior customer experience: Customers seek different solutions to fill in the gaps within their existing cloud portfolio through seamless ecosystem integrations into their core platform. Moreover, customers expect these integrations to match the underlying platform’s UI/UX capabilities  

The VMware Marketplace was launched in order to address these three key customer needs. VMware Marketplace is a one-stop shop that enables our customers to discover and deploy validated third-party and open-source solutions across VMware products.
 

Listing Options 

Partners on the VMware Marketplace have two options when publishing solutions: 

  1. List-OnlyWith this publishing option, partners showcase marketing information about a particular solution. It is a great way to drive leads and is ideal for partners that want to expand their pipeline through presence on the VMware Marketplace. It is also an ideal choice for SaaS (Software as a Service) solutions where an asset upload is not feasible.

    To publish a List-only solution, a partner only needs to register for the Technology Alliance Partner (TAP) program and click-to-accept the VMware Marketplace developer agreement (available in product at the start of the publishing process).

  2. BYOL/TrialWith this publishing option, partners enable download or deployment of solutions to the customer’s endpoint by uploading deployable assets such as OVAs, ISOs and containers. 

    Solutions published under the BYOL option drive leads, usage, and even trials for the partner. This type of option is ideal for partners that want to connect end-to-end with VMware and support our joint customers.

    To publish a BYOL solution, partners will need to register for the TAP program, validate their solution(s) through the relevant VMware program (Partner Ready / VMware Ready) and finally click-to-accept the VMware Marketplace developer agreement in-product.
     

Partner Onboarding Process 

As described in the previous section, there are several key steps that partners need to complete in order to publish a solution on the VMware Marketplace: 

  1. Register for the TAP program
  2. If uploading a deployable asset (i.e. BYOL option), validate your solution through VMware Ready or Partner Ready program
  3. Review and sign the VMware Marketplace developer agreement in-product
  4. Onboard and set–up your self-publish portal and account 

The VMware Marketplace admin team will then review and publish your solution to the Marketplace. 

What’s Next? 

Looking ahead, we have more big-ticket items on the cards. As the single source of all VMware ecosystem solutions, VMware Marketplace is now set up for rapid growth. To further support this growth, we are planning two new projects: 

  1. UI/UX and publisher workflow revamp: In the near future, we plan to improve the categorization, filtering and search capabilities in our catalog to better represent the much larger set of solutions now in the VMware Marketplace. In conjunction, we plan to streamline the publisher workflow to reflect these changes across our user interface and user experience.
  2. Commerce enablement:  Above, you may have noted that the VMware Marketplace currently offers find, try and use capabilities. In the near future, we plan to incorporate the buy functionality as well – so partners can purchase paid licenses directly from the VMware Marketplace.

In addition to these two major projects, we are also fine-tuning our internal processes related to administration, legal and other pieces, so that we can better serve our much larger (and growing) customer base. Stay tuned for more details in future blog posts!

 

To learn more about these Marketplace updates and resources you can view our recent vmLIVE (password-protected Zoom link, Password: #J0r7M1q), hosted by the PM and PMM for the service. 

 

Additional Marketplace Resources

  • Did you know that the VMware Marketplace now has a presence on Partner Connect? Find us HERE. 
  • We have also added a new Press Release template to announce your new marketplace listing. To submit a PR request for this type of announcement, please follow the instructions below:
    1. Login to Partner Connect
    2. Click the Marketing tab in the top right corner
    3. Click Marketing again from the dropdown menu
    4. Find the TAP Press Release templates with a link to access them
    5. Download the VMware Marketplace template to get started!You can also use this quick link to find the PR templates: https://vmware-alliances.secure.force.com/prsubmit/  

 

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