vSphere is Getting Cloudified — and That Will Change Everything

Partners who still want to sell perpetual licenses may keep doing that (at least for now).

“But if they have customers who want to go all in on cloud and even look for ways to bring cloud benefits and cloud operating in financial models to their on-premises environments, they now have an option with vSphere+,” a VMware spokesperson told Channel Futures.

“Cloudifying” vSphere also allows VMware “to unlock a whole set of new capabilities for customers,” the spokesperson added. Those capabilities remain vague — they’re the ones VMware plans to introduce after vSphere+ and vSAN+ go live.

Overall, “channel will continue to play a key role” in VMware’s business strategy, said Weiguo He, senior director of cloud platform product marketing in the Cloud Infrastructure Business Group.

And, he said, partners can even think about adding their own services alongside vSphere+. That would create another revenue stream for their businesses — something many channel partners are keen to do.