Winning the data center

At Dell our partner program over the last four years, from the channel side, has been heavily focused on the data center. In order to build our partner programs we’ve acquired the best of the best, compiling their strengths and specialties into our own PartnerDirect program.

It begins with the legacy of acquiring Equallogic, who specialized in iSCSI storage products, a company that was essentially built on channel relationships; channel was their route to market. In addition to Equallogic, Dell has continued to acquired data center focused businesses such as Compellent, Force10, AppAssure, and is in the process of acquiring SonicWall. From each acquisition we’ve strengthened our focus on the data center, integrating the best of their programs, intellectual properties and resources into our own offerings.

  • EqualLogic: Acquired in 2008, EqualLogic specializes in iSCSI SAN storage arrays. Currently Dell offers storage consolidation, virtualization, data protection, disaster recovery and more.
  • Compellent: Acquired in 2011, offering Fluid Data architecture solutions and products, Compellent improves Dell’s portfolio by offering unified storage, data center virtualization, storage efficiency, disaster recovery solutions and more, while expanding on a host of disk drives, enclosures, controllers, switches, and portable volumes.
  • Force10:The 2011 acquisition of Force10 brought award-winning Ethernet switching and routing products to Dell, enabling our partner program to include data center networking solutions in its portfolio.
  • AppAssure: The #1 backup for VM, physical and cloud environments, the acquisition of AppAssure in February strengthens Dell’s data center focused portfolio with cross-platform virtual and physical server recovery.
  • SonicWALL: Announced in April, Dell revealed plans to acquired SonicWALL, a security solutions provider offering intelligent network security and data protection.

If you look from a vendor perspective, there are few companies that can provide the full portfolio of solutions around data center. Our sales force is tilted heavily towards enterprise products, servers, storage, networking, and enterprise software.  The data center, in our view, is the most profitable area of the business for both Dell and our channel partners. And as Dell’s partner program moves forward, we’ll be on the look out for companies and solutions that compliment what we’re doing for the data center and for our partners.

About the Author: Paul Shaffer