EMC Underscores Cloud Service Market Commitment with Velocity Service Provider Program Enhancements

HOPKINTON, Mass., Nov. 1, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --

News Summary:

• EMC is evolving its service provider program to accommodate the needs of a rapidly growing cloud service provider market. As a result, significantly more service provider partners are expected to participate in the program, many of which will be resellers that are expanding their business models to deliver cloud services
• EMC is adding new benefits and requirements as well as greater differentiation between the three Velocity Service Provider Program tiers to ensure customer satisfaction, accelerate partner growth and recognize advanced levels of capability in delivering best-of-breed cloud solutions and services
• The company announced a new entry path to EMC's Velocity^™ Service Provider Program for qualifying resellers within the Velocity Solution Provider Program, enabling reseller partners to transform and grow their business as cloud service providers
• EMC is facilitating communication to connect its Velocity Service Provider and Velocity Solution Providers (resellers) partner communities to capture additional opportunities for growth

Full Story:

EMC Corporation (NYSE: EMC) today announced a series of enhancements to the EMC Velocity Service Provider program. The latest program elements usher in a new era of growth opportunities for EMC service provider and reselling partners to capture the potential of the cloud services market, differentiate their business in the marketplace, and provide more value to customers. As a result, the enhanced EMC Velocity Service Provider program is adapting to support current and anticipated growth in cloud services delivery and recognizing and rewarding those service provider partners that are delivering the most transformative IT value to enterprise customers.

Examples of the new enhancements include:

• Greater tier differentiation to distinguish and support partners who are just beginning to build out a service provider capability with EMC-powered services from those solutions providers who offer more established cloud services. Today's announcement  not only increases the benefits available to Velocity Service Provider partners who achieve the highest tiers, Platinum and Gold, but also raises the minimum requirements for each level to ensure high customer satisfaction and maximum value for our joint customers. The clear designations foster a more predictable and mutually beneficial engagement model.
• New Onramp to the Velocity Service Provider program for Velocity Solution Providers (resellers) that wish to transform their business model and become providers of EMC-powered cloud services. Velocity Solution Providers will enter the program at the appropriate tier based on their qualifications and after having met specific revenue and training requirements.  Once requirements are achieved they can then begin to leverage Velocity Service Provider enablement services. 
• Modified partner qualification and earned participation at tiered levels helps to ensure, as the program continues to scale, that partners continue to be fairly assessed and rewarded commensurate with their commitment to partnering with EMC.
• Additional process automation has been designed to create repeatable and scalable processes to more efficiently grow our partners' cloud businesses as well as EMC's.
• Cross-program communications initiatives to bridge and stimulate mutually beneficial linkages between the EMC Velocity Solution Provider and Velocity Service Provider partner communities yielding greater cloud business opportunities for both. 

By strengthening partnerships with the most differentiated, innovative and proven providers, EMC is helping to serve customers seeking the most optimum cloud services available.  The program requirements, eligibility and corresponding benefits increase as partners' progress through the tiers. Requirements have been designed with current service provider profiles as well as growth goals to adapt and flex as a partner grows with EMC.

The Velocity Service Provider program is designed to create customer value by empowering partners to offer customers agile, differentiated and cost-effective public and private cloud options built on EMC technologies. By aligning EMC's cloud computing architecture, proven expertise and go-to-market strategy with a league of trusted service provider partners, customers will gain greater flexibility in their choice of cloud models for their applications without sacrificing control. 

The Velocity Service Provider Program provides sales, marketing, marketing development funds, campaigns, field execution, planning, and education benefits to partners commensurate with their level of investment in EMC technology solutions. The multi-faceted Velocity Service Provider program is open to cloud service providers of all types including telco/cable companies, hosters, ISVs and enterprises enabling them with the ability to create, deploy, market, sell and deliver differentiated and innovative EMC-powered public and private cloud services. 

Availability:

The new Velocity Service Provider program elements will be effective in early Q1, 2013. However, current partners in the Velocity Service Provider program as of December 31, 2012 will have until December 31, 2013 to meet the new tier requirements.

Value Added Reseller Quote:

Henry Fastert, Managing Partner and CTO, SHI International Corp.

"Delivering avant-garde approaches to create true customer value and solving complex business for IT is a sweet spot for SHI.  Offering SHI Cloud services built on EMC technologies is another way that we are listening and responding to meet the needs of our customers. EMC's Velocity Service Provider program enables us to continue to evolve our differentiated offerings and help our customers drive their IT transformation."

Service Provider Partner Quote:

David M. Parsons, Vice President Global Alliances and Chief Marketing Officer, CSC

"The shift in cloud delivery models to do everything as a service enabled by new innovative technology platforms is a game-changer for CSC and gives us the opportunity to help our customers transform IT by accelerating their journey toward cloud computing.  Leveraging trusted and proven EMC infrastructure technologies helps drive enterprise IT transformation through mutual collaboration so that CSC continues to deliver innovative and differentiated services designed to help customers speed deployment of workloads creating business benefits that increase agility, performance, scalability and availability."

Analyst Quote:

Melanie Posey, Research Vice President, IDC

"IDC Research shows that overall cloud computing adoption is increasing dramatically – from 21% in 2010 to 56% in 2012. At the same time, business-critical workloads such as ERP and supply chain/logistics are increasingly taking up residence in public, hosted private, and hybrid clouds.  As a result, the delivery capabilities of cloud service providers becomes even more crucial determinants of competitiveness.  The Velocity Service Provider program highlights EMC's focus on ensuring the success of its customers' journey  to the cloud. The expansion of this program demonstrates EMC's continued commitment to investment and innovation that enables service providers to leverage EMC technologies and deliver reliable, cloud solutions to their joint customers."

EMC Executive Quote:

Michelle De Hertogh, Senior Director, Global Alliances and Service Provider Marketing, EMC Corporation

"EMC Velocity Service Providers play a crucial role in delivering the value of hybrid cloud computing for our customers and EMC is committed to enabling market leading, trusted and proven service providers for this role. EMC continues to devote resources across the company to help enable the success of our service provider partners to ensure our customers realize the benefits of IT delivered as a Service."  

About EMC

EMC Corporation is a global leader in enabling businesses and service providers to transform their operations and deliver IT as a service. Fundamental to this transformation is cloud computing. Through innovative products and services, EMC accelerates the journey to cloud computing, helping IT departments to store, manage, protect and analyze their most valuable asset — information — in a more agile, trusted and cost-efficient way. Additional information about EMC can be found at www.EMC.com .

Additional Resources:

• Learn more about partnering with EMC
• Connect with EMC via Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn and ECN  

EMC, and Velocity are either registered trademarks or trademarks of EMC Corporation in the United States and other countries. Microsoft and all product and company names herein may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their registered owners in the United States and in other countries. Other products and/or services are trademarks of their respective owners.

SOURCE EMC Corporation