Hyper-converged infrastructure provider Nutanix has launched a new partner program dubbed Power to the Partner, focusing on investments rather than revenue targets alone.
According to the vendor, the roll-out forms the basis of the partner charter instead of a traditional program, despite housing standard tiers structure.
The apparent difference between charter and standard from a programmatic perspective is that charter is focused on partners' investments in Nutanix, rather than simply revenue targets.
Specifically, tiers are aligned with a partner status based on number of deals closed, alongside depth of Nutanix skills rather than revenue numbers.
The difference is that partners of all sizes can achieve the highest category.
“As Nutanix’s presence has grown, we see this charter as the stepping stone in our vision to empower our partners with the support and resources they need to reach their maximum potential alongside Nutanix," Nutanix vice president of global channel sales Rodney Foreman said.
"When our partners are successful, our customers’ businesses can better benefit from simplified and harmonised data centres for all of their cloud needs today and in the future."
As explained by Foreman, the charter tiers include Master Partner for partners closing the most deals, and holds the most certifications with focused selling on Nutanix’s core HCI products as well as new products.
Meanwhile, Scaler Partner is for partners developing integrated solutions around the Nutanix Enterprise Cloud OS software ecosystem, alongside increasing the number and level of certified staff and deals.
Furthermore, Pioneer Partner focuses on those moving first customers to the Nutanix hyper-converged solution and gaining initial skills in the vendor's core products.
"Power to the Partner is pragmatic in the sense that it recognises the long-term commitment of partners like us, while also embracing new partners that want to work with the company,” said Darren Ashley, managing director of BEarena.
Power to the Partner was initially announced without too many details earlier this year, during the vendor's Partner Xchange event in May.
Some of the features of the new program include full service demand-generation platforms and tools to help with acquisition of new customers and resources for partners.
In practice, such an offering enables the channel to run Nutanix demos to speed up - and smooth out - implementation processes.
Delving deeper, the roll-out also offers training for products such as Beam, Calm, Flow, Era and new technologies to help existing customers leverage Nutanix environments.
Rebates and incentives, certifications and training, differentiating marketing tools, and more automated sales support processes are also available as part of the partner charter.
"The channel charter program enables us to expand our Nutanix focus,” added Nick Winch, CEO of Qirx.
"The charter recognises our journey and the joint success we’ve built with Nutanix and will help us build that further, particularly in the government and education sectors that we specialise in."
Nutanix described the recently announced Velocity Program as one of the first stages of the channel charter.
