Dell Readies Blueprint Solution Portfolio for General Launch

Dell is readying a series of new reference architectures and engineered solutions for release in the form of its Blueprint Solution Portfolio.

The solutions encompass several prominent areas of computing, including cloud, virtualization, virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), big data and more. Dell said the program was designed to help partners increase engagement with their customers, add customer value to their offerings and drive overall profitability and growth.

Additionally, Dell introduced a series of new competencies surrounding the company’s client cloud computing and workspace portfolio alongside enhanced competencies for storage and networking.

Dell’s Global Channel Chief Cheryl Cook detailed the new program to The VAR Guy in a recent quarterly earnings call. She said she hopes to enable partners of all stripes to both increase the speed and efficiency of their sales in addition to providing partners with additional consumption model options other than the traditional CAPEX system.

“As we enhance our portfolio and bring more to market, we’re really looking to offer and extend those capabilities and training to just get more proficiency and expertise within the partner community,” said Cook.

The program launched in pilot form in November and currently has more than 40 partners globally, 10 of which are located in North America, according to Cook.

Over the past several months, Dell said members of the pilot program have utilized the Blueprints to gain feedback on the portfolio that can be integrated into the upcoming general release, which is scheduled for sometime in the first half of Dell’s fiscal year 2016.

Cook also detailed the recent release of new products and portfolios designed to deliver Dell hybrid cloud platform solutions around the Microsoft and VMware stacks. She said the company is placing new collateral into reference architectures, whitepapers and other workload-focused resources to enable resellers to work more closely with Microsoft.

“One of the biggest value adds to the partner is that because we’ve done a tremendous amount of work jointly on the engineering side around automation, management, installation scripts, playbooks for deployment, it greatly reduces the number of presale hours that their architects are consumed in doing either scoping or configuring.”

A new series of financial programs via Dell Financial Services are expected to help partners provide different sales options to their customers. Cook said this was necessary as more customers demanded different consumption models aside from the traditional CAPEX model previously used.

“Increasingly we’re aware that partners are being asked for different consumption models,” she said. “They’re being asked for delivery of infrastructure as a service, they’re being asked for consumption models that shift what is traditional capital expense to OPEX.”

Although Dell seems to be the first vendor to create a formalized program solely around partner competency, IBM recently detailed several upcoming changes to IBM PartnerWorld, the company’s ecosystem for MSPs, cloud service providers and VARs. That program is expected to see a shift in the way it evaluates and rewards partners in an effort to emphasize both cloud services and cognitive computing efforts.