Dell VMware Collaboration At All-Time High, Says Michael Dell

The technical and channel collaboration between Dell and VMware is at an all-time high as the two vendors plan to "keep advancing" tighter integrations around solutions like Workspace ONE, NSX and hyper-converged infrastructure, said Dell Technologies CEO Michael Dell.

"You'll continue to see the collaboration advance. VMware has done a great job in enabling and preparing for the multi-cloud world, and obviously it's a very important part of Dell Technologies," said Dell, in an interview with CRN. "Partners and customers like and appreciate that we're bringing them a complete solution."

Round Rock, Texas-based Dell was front and center at VMworld 2018 last month with a slew of new solutions and enhanced integrations with VMware aimed to help customers with a more unified and seamless experience across mobile devices, PCs, hyper-converged, multi-cloud platforms and software-defined data centers. For example, Dell launched Dell Provisioning for VMware's Workspace ONE which enables automatic device setup and extends the efficiencies of cloud management.

"By bringing together all the innovations from our client business, from VMware's Workspace ONE and AirWatch, and embedding those together -- we created a fabulous solution," said Dell. "We have with WorkSpace ONE well over 50 million devices under management and growing very very fast. It's a great opportunity for partners to add value and to help organizations transform their environments for the people that actually do the work. It turns out the primary device for productivity in the office is still the PC."

[Related: Michael Dell On The Impact of China Tariffs, Public Cloud Backlash And VMware Synergies]

Also on the new Dell VMware integration front, Dell's recently unveiled PowerEdge MX can now hold up to eight VMware vSAN Ready Nodes to create a foundation for a self-sustained VMware Cloud Foundation cluster. Additionally, Dell's VxRack hyper-converged system now integrates with updated versions of VMware's Cloud Foundation, NSX and vRealize Suite, as well as with VMware's new multi-cloud software-as-a-Service solution, VMware Cloud Assembly.

"We're having amazing success with VxRail with the tighter Dell VMware integration," said Joshua Lee, director of sales for Nanuet, N.Y.-based Dell partner VirtuIT Systems.

Lee said not only is the technology innovation between the two companies increasing sales for VirtuIT, but the channel teams cooperation.

"We're seeing tighter integration with the VMware teams and with the Dell EMC data center and storage teams, working together to strategically plan and have an account plan for us to help the customer. They’re collectively going in and delivering the same message to the customer. We've seen a lot more of that in the past three to six months," said Lee.

Looking specifically at channel revenue for Dell's recent second fiscal quarter, overall partner sales were up 22 percent year over year, according to Dell. Compared to the same quarter one year ago, channel server sales increased 32 percent, storage jumped 15 percent and client revenues were up 19 percent.

"The more we can collaborate together across the Dell Technologies family, the better we're doing," said Dell.

Craig Manahan, practice manager of data center infrastructure for Cincinnati-based RoundTower Technologies, said Dell and VMware are coming together like never before, which is driving more sales opportunities for the channel.

"What has changed is the level of effort that we're seeing from both to work together; whereas in the past, certainly they weren't looking to work against each other, but they weren't closely aligned. That closer alignment is definitely helpful for us," said Manahan. "And when they meet in the middle, it's a great product strategy."