Dell powers ahead in storage, targets $2.3B regional ‘sweet spot’

Tian Beng Ng (Dell Technologies)

Dell Technologies is pivoting partners towards a multibillion-dollar storage opportunity across Asia Pacific following the release of a modernised infrastructure platform, PowerStore.

Integrated with VMware technologies, the mid-range storage array offering targets a market housing $2.3 billion in investment potential for channel partners, representing 60 per cent of a wider $3.9 billion regional storage industry.

Available via distribution - or direct from Dell for tier-1 partners - the product is already in market following a round of provider briefing and enablement sessions.

“This is a very differentiated product and represents a game-changer for partners,” outlined Tian Beng Ng, senior vice president and general manager of Channel across Asia Pacific and Japan (APJ) at Dell Technologies. “The mid-range segment is the fastest growing and largest segment within the region and this product targets a sweet spot in the market.”

Open to all ecosystem partners, PowerStore aims to address customer challenges related to workload management and infrastructure, spanning traditional IT applications to data analytics. With machine learning and automation features baked in, the offering has been marketed as “seven times faster and three times more responsive” than previous Dell EMC mid-range storage arrays.

Backed by six-nines (99.9999 per cent) availability, additional benefits include support for traditional and modern workloads with “scale-up and scale-out architecture” for block, file and VMware vVols.

“There’s opportunity for partners to up-sell and chase new logos,” said Tian Beng, when speaking to Channel Asia. “We can provide seamless integration to PowerStore which allows partners to target existing and new customers. Due to Covid-19, the product is even more relevant and represents another strong example of how we are co-engineering with VMware.”

The solution is also covered by the vendor’s Future-Proof Program, designed to provide investment protection through ‘Anytime Upgrades’, allowing customers to expand or enhance performance and capacity after 180 days.

“Organisations today are on the verge of capitalising on digital transformation, but are struggling with two significant problems - first, the sheer amount of data being created daily, and second, the increasing pressure on IT to become more simple and agile,” added Grainger Wallis, senior vice president of Data Solutions across APJ at Dell. “PowerStore was engineered from the ground up to help our customers to effectively meet these new demands.”

According to IDC findings, Dell ranks as the largest external enterprise storage systems supplier in the market, accounting for 27.6 per cent of worldwide revenue during the fourth quarter of 2019.

Meanwhile, Hewlett Packard Enterprise - alongside Chinese joint venture H3C Group - and IBM tied for second place with revenue shares of 10.1 per cent and 9.1 per cent respectively. NetApp and Huawei captured the fourth and fifth positions with market shares of 8.9 per cent and 7.8 per cent respectively, ahead of Hitachi and Pure Storage.

“As organisations modernise IT infrastructure, they must embrace technology that streamlines operations, eliminates complexity and can scale in the face of exponential data growth,” explained Eric Burgener, research vice president of IDC. “By developing PowerStore through an infrastructure-centric lens, the company has created a platform that can tackle today’s IT challenges while being flexible and scalable enough to meet future IT needs.”

The launch comes two months after the technology giant outlined "client, server and storage" as the three lines of business expected to drive partner growth for a simplified channel in Asia Pacific during 2020.

In reducing core product segments from seven to three, as part of widespread channel enhancements, Dell has ushered in the next iteration of a partner program designed to be “simple, predictable and profitable”.

To achieve the holy grail of profitability however, foundations have been laid to ensure engagement is simplified across the supply chain, spanning condensed solution sets, streamlined rebates and consistent in-country go-to-market strategies.