HP Launches PartnerOne for Cloud Builders, Resellers, Providers
**Editor’s Note: Click here for a list of recent channel-program changes you should know.**
HP GLOBAL PARTNER CONFERENCE — As part of its campaign to help solutions providers support the “new style of IT,” HP is launching a partner program for hybrid cloud solutions, the company announced at its Global Partner Conference in Las Vegas this week.
Called HP PartnerOne for Cloud, the program includes three cloud partner business models:
- building private clouds using hardware and software on a customer’s premises or third-party data center
- reselling cloud services from HP and HP-powered cloud service providers
- becoming a cloud service provider offering infrastructure or software as a service
HP already has PartnerOne gold and silver specializations for cloud builders and cloud service providers using HP technology, explained Patrick Eitenbichler, director of marketing for PartnerOne strategy. The CloudAgile specialization for service providers is now the PartnerOne Service Provider specialization.
What’s new, Eitenbichler said, is the PartnerOne Cloud Reseller specialization for partners who resell HP Public Cloud (in the U.S), HP Managed CloudSystem Matrix and/or cloud services from HP PartnerOne Service Providers.
Eitenbichler said the Silver level requires two sales and at least one technical certification. Training is one day on how to sell cloud services, including articulating the benefits of moving from on-premises to cloud, making SLA recommendations and understanding technical requirements. At the Gold level, the sales training focuses more on the financial discussions around ROI and TCO calculations, and technical training includes integrating multiple cloud services.
A Platinum medal level is available to partners who qualify as Gold partners in any two of the three PartnerOne Cloud specializations, Eitenbichler said.
“That is consistent with our new style of IT strategy where we believe hybrid IT is what customers ultimately want,” Eitenbichler said. “In an ideal world, a partner would go in and say, ‘For this application an on-site solution in a private cloud and for this application bursting capability to the cloud would be best.'”
The PartnerOne Cloud program also mirrors changes HP announced this week to normalize the PartnerOne program across business models – VAR, SI, service provider, ISV, distributor and OEM – to better serve partners that fall into two or more models.
