HPE GreenLake targets channel with on-premises consumption opportunity
HPE GreenLake Flex Capacity is a central piece of the HPE Partner Ready channel strategy and a plan for capturing the anticipated growth of the consumption-based procurement.
LAS VEGAS -- Hewlett Packard Enterprise has rolled out a channel program for HPE GreenLake Flex Capacity services.
The vendor launched GreenLake Flex Capacity for partners this week at the HPE Global Partner Summit. The program is designed to give channel firms an easy way to offer their customers a pay-per-use consumption model for HPE's on-premises technologies, such as software-defined infrastructure, all-flash storage and private cloud.
HPE GreenLake Flex Capacity for partners is available in packages for seven HPE products: Proliant Microsoft Azure, Synergy 480 Compute Modules, SimpliVity 380, ProLiant BL460c Server Blade, 3PAR StoreServ 8200, 3PAR StoreServ 9450 and StoreOnce 5100. Partners can earn 17% rebates upfront for the start of the terms, according to Paul Hunter, HPE worldwide head of partner sales.
The new program has its roots in HPE's Flex Capacity hybrid infrastructure service. Flex Capacity was rebranded under the HPE GreenLake suite of consumption-based products at the 2017 Discover Madrid conference.
Max Ramos, flexible capacity and consumption lead of Pointnext worldwide channel sales at HPE, said Flex Capacity "is basically an infrastructure-as-a-service on premises -- so hybrid cloud. It allows customers to pay for what they use and use what they pay for and allow HPE to take care of all the management [of] the infrastructure."
Ramos added that Flexible Capacity lets customers avoid "the vicious cycle of overprovisioning and being out of capacity."
According to HPE, GreenLake Flex Capacity for partners is aligned with market researcher IDC's prediction that consumption-based procurement will represent as much as 40% of enterprise IT spending by 2020. Ramos also cited IDC's forecast that the growth rate for both the public cloud and on-premises IT to have a compound annual growth rate in the midteens over the next few years.
Building out the HPE Partner Ready portfolio
We are not shrinking our portfolio; we are expanding it. We are giving [HPE partners] more reasons to talk to [their] customers and prospects.
Paul Hunterworldwide head of partner sales, HPE
The launch of HPE GreenLake Flex Capacity for partners is the latest in HPE's portfolio-building strategy, Hunter said. "We are not shrinking our portfolio; we are expanding it," he said. "We are giving [HPE partners] more reasons to talk to [their] customers and prospects."
HPE has expanded its portfolio through acquisitions in recent years. Those include Aruba Networks, Nimble Storage and hyper-converged storage vendor SimpliVity. Over the last three months, HPE purchased cloud consultancy RedPixie, hyper-converged networking player Plexxi and Wi-Fi monitoring startup Cape Networks.
"Most of the acquisitions that we have made have been very channel-centric," said Jesse Chavez, vice president of worldwide channel sales and alliances at HPE.
HPE GreenLake designed with partner input
OnX Enterprise Solutions, based in Cincinnati, helped HPE develop the offering as one of 30 partners in the pilot program.
Pat O'Connor, senior director of business alliances at OnX, said the company has sold HP and HPE attached services for more than 30 years, beginning with "pretty simple break/fix kind of things" before advancing into professional, managed and consulting services.
"Helping architect the solution, we could see where it needed ... to fit from a partner perspective. And the biggest one is that it had to be very flexible for the customer," he said. He pointed to features within the offering such as two-page contacts as accomplishing this.
HPE Partner Ready stats
At the HPE Global Partner Summit, Hunter highlighted some of what partners have achieved over the past six months.
The channel is the fastest growth route to market for HPE, he said. "Over 70% of what we make is sold through [the HPE partner community]."
Of the four tiers within the HPE Partner Ready Partner Program -- Business, Silver, Gold and Platinum -- Business partners is HPE's fastest-growing segment. In the first half of the year, Business partners grew by 27% and collectively added $277 million of revenue to the company.
With partners' help, HPE grew revenue by channel partners by more than $1 billion. Hunter said that represents more than NetApp, Nutanix, Pure Storage and Cisco combined.
O'Connor added that it was important that HPE GreenLake offering would be flexible for channel firms.
"One of the biggest issues that [OnX] had to overcome ... was getting our sales teams to embrace [the consumption-based model] because they would lose that connect and relevance with the customer," O'Connor said. "With the new model, we have the relevance, we have that connection that's back in, and so ... it frees our sales teams up to pursue other opportunities in the account. While the annuity business continues to grow and continues to support [the sales teams], they have an opportunity to go look at the other lines of business with the customer."
