VMware launches "Professional Partners Program"

Quoting CRN:

Should solution providers expand into virtualization and product lifecycle management software [PLM]? Executives from VMware and Siemens UGS made pitches for reseller recruits in those rapidly growing markets in a Tech Symposium session during the opening day of the XChange '07 conference.

With more than 1 million small and midsize businesses in the U.S. running 14 million servers, the potential market for VMware's server virtualization products among SMBs is $6.5 billion, said Carl Eschenbach, VMware executive vice president of worldwide field operations. For every dollar of VMware software licenses sold there are $5 to $8 in additional high-margin service, training, software and storage revenue opportunities, he said. "It's not just about selling this technology to the high end, to the enterprise accounts."

Although 75 percent of VMware's business is already conducted through channels, Eschenbach announced that VMware is launching a new "Professional Partners" program whose participants can resell VMware's entire product line, not just a subset of its products. The interest is there: When asked how many resellers are at least "dabbling" in virtualization, a solid majority of the attendees raised their hands.

This is a great opportunity for resellers, the ones who have been waiting on the sidelines, to contact the distributors of VMware solutions, and get quickly enabled to start selling the solutions to their clients.

This market is red hot, it can't get any hotter! Check out the source.