HPE Partners Are Driving Robust SMB Channel Growth With SimpliVity, Nimble

Hewlett Packard Enterprise partners are driving "strong channel performance" in SMB with some of the most lucrative incentives tied to the 100 percent channel led SimpliVity hyperconverged server and Nimble all flash storage business, said HPE Vice President of Small and Medium Business (SMB) Sales Jas Sood in a keynote at XChange 2018.

"We have had three quarters of strong (SMB) channel performance," said Sood in an address to several hundred solution providers on the SMB HPE channel strategy. "We have had great success with SimpliVity and Nimble with a 100 percent channel route to market. I really appreciate your support there. It is really a very lucrative space in terms of SMB customers. We are seeing considerable growth there. If you are not certified in those products you should get certified there."

[Related:HPE Chief Sales Officer: The Super 6 Sales Opportunities Paying Off In Big Profits For Partners]

The "higher margin" Nimble and SimpliVity solutions are "value" products where HPE is aggressively expanding its footprint, said Sood. "There are a lot of programs and spiffs available to you there," she said. "Some of the most lucrative spiffs that I have seen in my (23 year) tenure have come out this year in particular around new hyperconverged (SimpliVity) logos. You should definitely take advantage of those."

Calling SMB HPE's "profitable segment," Sood called on partners to aggressively pivot to value products like Simplivity and Nimble with sales plans and goals hammered out with HPE's SMB team."Developing focused plans with you has helped us execute better," she said. "That is really what we have tried to do this year. That has driven a lot of our success."

Nimble's AI based InfoSight AI software, which is also now available on HPE 3Par, has become a game changer for customers, said Sood. Infosight with its AI predictive analytics capabilities is stopping 86 percent of storage issues before they become a critical problem, according to HPE.

HPE has also brought the full force of the pay per use model to SMB with its GreenLake Flex Capacity model, said Sood.That model provides partners with a whopping five times the rebate incentive they would get in a traditional Capex deal.

"There is always a balance with customers looking at should they spend Capex or Opex depending upon where their budgetary requirements and capabilities are," she said.

Overall, Sood said HPE's sales strategy remains focused on the Super 6 opportunities for partners: Everything as a Service; Gen10 transition, Intelligent Edge with HPE Aruba, Blades Plus and Storage to Flash.

Wally O'Neill, president of Triware Technologies Inc., an HPE partner headquartered in St John's New Foundland, said his HPE business is growing at a 50 percent clip this year thanks to the influx of new innovative HPE products like Simplivity.

"HPE is really committed to making these solutions relevant to the SMB marketplace and it is making a difference to our business," said O'Neill."We've been an HPE partner for 25 years."

O'Neill praised HPE CEO Antonio Neri for delivering breakthrough innovation from acquisitions like SimpliVity and Nimble. "Those acquistions have been great for partners," he said.

Michael Lomonaco, director of marketing and communications for OST, one of HPE's top partners headquartered in Grand Rapids MI, said HPE has come to the table with a strong software defined vision with a sharper focus on compute, networking and storage.

"We are seeing incredible growth and opportunity in the storage space with HPE with Nimble and StoreOnce," Lomonaco said. "What is driving that growth is HPE innovation. HPE is driving velocity, reliability and scalability for customers."

HPE is helping drive high value business outcome conversations with customers, said Lomonaco. "We are having data center modernization and hybrid IT conversations with our customers with HPE," he said. "It is not either on prem or off prem. It is both. It is about a cloud adoption strategy. HPE has done a really nice job of supporting those hybrid conversations."