Dell Technologies and Nutanix are finding each other again, looking to take advantage of shifts in the Belgian market together. A rapport based on collaboration internally, and a narrative of choice and flexibility externally, should catapult both parties and customers into the future.
Dell Technologies and Nutanix are longtime lovers. More than a decade ago, they went to customers together. “HCI was very innovative at that time,” recalls Luc Costers. He is Regional Leader Nutanix Belux, CIS and Eastern Europe at Nutanix, and sits around the table with Koen Segers, Managing Director Belgium and Luxembourg at Dell Technologies.
The two old acquaintances are pleased: although there was never resentment between the companies they represent, the organizations are now truly falling back into each other’s arms for the first time in years.
On love and infidelity
The romance began with the rise of hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI). “Dell Technologies may have helped make Nutanix a big piece,” Costers believes. Then suddenly the infidelity beckoned: Dell Technologies bodied VMware eight years ago after acquiring EMC, working with the virtualization specialist to build solutions that competed with Nutanix.
Dell Technologies may have helped make Nutanix a piece big
Luc Costers, Regional Leader Nutanix Belux
In itself, this was not a problem: “We always stayed open,” Segers notes, and Costers confirms. “Even during the escapade with VMware, Dell Technologies resisted solutions together with Nutanix.”
Now that Broadcom has acquired VMware, the market is suddenly changing. Broadcom’s VMware has little interest in smaller customers and primarily wants to maximize revenue and margin. That’s fine for shareholders, but less so for many customers. Segers: “We see a demand from the market for alternatives to VMware. Nutanix then often comes up.”
Retrieved
Dell Technologies ended its preferred relationship with Vmware early this year and not much later found old beloved Nutanix all the way back. Initially, the two will offer the Dell XC solution together. That combines Nutanix’s software platform, including the AHV hypervisor and Prism management console with Dell Technologies’ PowerEdge servers.
“In the next phase, we will follow up those XC nodes with a fully integrated appliance, Dell XC Plus,” Segers reveals. “After that, we will integrate the Nutanix Cloud platform with Powerflex, to offer more possibilities in terms of storage.”
The joint solutions are just one piece of the puzzle. The bottom line is how both Nutanix and Dell Technologies are stepping into the market, and how they are again actively seeking synergy.
Focus on own strengths
“We want to be primarily an essential infrastructure company,” says Segers. “That means we want to place our hardware with customers. Furthermore, we want to be open and flexible to customers. In that respect, we can either partner with Nutanix or with another party.”
Exchange cell phone numbers
Along the Nutanix side there is the same ambition. The priority is to market the platform, which requires a good hardware partner such as Dell Technologies, but other parties remain important as well. The renewed relationship is open. Yet it seems that Segers’ and Costers’ noses are exceptionally pointed in the same direction.
Costers: “We bring our sales teams together, asking them to exchange not their email addresses, but their phone numbers. We really work on personal contact between the two teams.”
“We also bring partners together and train them,” he continues. “A Dell Technologies partner who historically had more experience with other solutions needs to get to know Nutanix. And conversely, a Nutanix partner who has more experience with other hardware specialists needs to get to know Dell Technologies’ solutions better.”
Lots of momentum
Costers and Segers agree that the momentum is right. “The migration of 3-tier environments to HCI remains the most traditional driver,” Segers said. “And we are finding that customers are looking for alternatives. “As far as Broadcom and VMware are concerned, there simply aren’t that many valid alternatives at the enterprise level”; Costers adds.
There is a trend of migration from the cloud.
Koen Segers, Managing Director Belgium and Luxembourg, Dell Technologies
“Finally, there is a trend of migration from the cloud,” Segers notes. “Customers in the cloud with stable workloads are discovering that costs are rising. Also in terms of compliance, on-premises solutions are sometimes more interesting after all.” In other words, Dell Technologies and Nutanix currently have to choose which wave they want to ride on.
“To the customer, the story of openness is very relevant right now,” Costers realizes. “Both open hardware and an open hypervisor are important.” Segers concurs: “The speed of change and innovation is so great right now that you simply have to be open.”
Together enthusiastically
The two men share a palpable enthusiasm. Segers is pleased that Dell Technologies can offer customers the choice of software as a hardware vendor. Surely the story of Dell Technologies as an open hardware vendor, has been easier to tell since this year.
For his part, Costers is equally aware that Nutanix’s software platform is part of a total hardware solution. When a partner like Dell Technologies wants to shrug off that story, new doors open.
References, trust and openness
“Our platform was always good,” Costers knows, “but a few years ago IT decision-makers at large companies were even more reluctant. The solution seemed fairly new, and consequently a risk. Today, when they ask for four quotes for a solution, and three of them are with Nutanix, that perception of risk disappears. We finally have enough references.”
Then again, when the Nutanix story is proactively told by a trusted and known player like Dell Technologies, along with its partners, it seems that the HCI software specialist has shed the perception of underdog altogether. Segers and Dell Technologies then have new avenues to provide customers with what they want, free of commitments, agreements or perception again.
“Openness is really crucial,” Segers concludes. Costers adds: “We both tell a story of openness, with open hardware and an open hypervisor. Hopefully this close collaboration will serve as an example to others.”